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Say, a youth centre opens. Parents organise the lifts, volunteers cover the gaps, and a community group negotiates access and deals with others using the space. Young people without that support might never get through the door. The project delivered what it promised.
A cost transferred to a household hasn’t been eliminated. And the people doing that work know some things about the project that its accounts don’t.
Dr Amy Hochadel and I explore this in ‘Pride in Place needs evidence people can challenge’, our piece on neighbourhood investment and who gets to judge whether it’s working.
Research, service data, and local experience answer different questions. We need to follow what actually happens – what becomes possible – in people’s lives, including those who can’t use what’s been provided. Low attendance might tell us about an awkward journey or inaccessible opening hours. Counting the people who turn up doesn’t explain who’s not there.
Residents need to be able to correct a misleading story, and have the decision that depended on it reconsidered. That puts obligations on the institutions. If local evidence shows that a funding condition is preventing a worthwhile result, somebody with authority over needs to answer, while there’s still time to act. Gathering more evidence won’t give a neighbourhood board powers it doesn’t have.
Our piece (link below) offers little practical playbooks for residents, community organisations, boards, and councils to work through these decisions, keeping the evidence, disagreements, and reasons available for the next decision.
It also draws on work by Philip Boxer and me on how public services account for what happens in people’s lives.
Where have you seen residents’ evidence actually change an institutional rule? I’d like to hear how they got it to happen!
