DESIGN’S CONTRIBUTION TO “SENSE OF COMMUNITY”

Sugeet Grover

Laurea Magistrale January 2015

Politecnico Di Milano

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Abstract This paper discusses the various factors that make a person feel part of a community. And

more importantly, analyzes how the designer or planner creates or adds to the community,

feeling through his/her designs and how the designer has done so during stages in evolution of

architecture and urban design.

I have taken McMillan and Chavis’s theory of sense of community and related their various

components:

1. Influence

2. Shared emotional connection

3. Membership

4. Integration and fulfilment of needs.

and their further subdivisions with design and planning.

Introduction

An attempt has been made to establish a relationship between intangible aspects of human

psychology and sociology with physical design. I have not given any set of hardcore rules but

discussed ideas that can help us create the sense. The various theories of how to bring in a sense

of community in members can be applied to any field; it can be applied to an office or a group

or religion etc. I have attempted to apply these theories to design and planning and only

discussed the aspects where I felt they have a role to play. Sense of community is in broad

essence a sociological and psychological topic and a designer or planner cannot play a complete

role in creating such a community with a sense of belonging but his contribution can be very

significant.

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Community may be defined as a place; a way of life; a setting where people work together to

achieve common goals; where social bonds are formed; and where a sense of belonging can

be achieved (Schwartz 1991)

In 1986 McMillan and Chavis (1986) introduced the theory of psychological sense of

community and it is considered the most influential work on the subject. They said "Sense of

Community is a feeling that members have of belonging, a feeling that members matter to one

another and to the group, and a shared faith that members' needs will be met through their

commitment to be together."

According to McMillan and Chavis (1986) the sense of community is composed of four

elements:

5. Influence

6. Shared emotional connection

7. Membership

8. Integration and fulfilment of needs.

1. Influence.

For someone to feel empowered enough to be able to have an effect on the action, behaviour or

opinion of others, the person needs to have sufficient knowledge. Information and

communication are thus necessary for a person to feel empowered and to have influence over

what a group does; otherwise they would not be motivated to participate.

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“Information permits coordination and negotiation between community members, clarifying

and democratizing their decisions. It provides assurances about the social order and one’s role

in the community.” (Sawhney, 1999)

Transitional spaces help enhance communication and contact among people informing them

about what is going on in the neighbourhood. In parts of India, raised platforms (also known as

Otla or Baithak) at the entrance of homes are used.

These spaces assume a semi-public nature and become a part of the dwelling as well as public

space. Providing such a space enhances the chances for casual interaction and they act as

messengers of information contributing towards the sense of empowerment and influence.

2. Shared emotional connection.

McMillan and Chavis (1986) list seven important features of this component:

a) Greater personal interaction

b) Quality of interaction

c) Closure to events

d) Shared events

e) Investment

f) Effect of honour and humiliation

g) Spiritual bond

I feel that enhancing the quality of interaction among people and creating spaces for shared

events are factors that a designer can contribute to.

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Neo-traditional design focuses on creating residential neighbourhoods with civic, pedestrian,

parks and commercial areas that “emphasize physical design concepts intended to enhance a

strong sense of community among residents” (Christofordisis, 1994).

I will now discuss how some of these are relevant in making different spaces of the city more

interactive.

Streets and Sidewalks

Streets are spaces where casual meetings of people take place. This interaction increases if the

street is lively and buzzing with activity.

“The trust of a city street is formed over time from many, many little public sidewalk

contacts” (Jacobs, 1961 pg. 56)

A person buying pan from a shop, a man reading headlines from a newspaper shop or two

ladies chatting while taking their dogs for a stroll, these are activities which enhance activity

on the streets and enhance quality interaction among people.

The designer needs to provide people with such spaces where these activities take place on a

daily basis, for this to happen, the street needs to be lively enough. There need to be reasons

for people to be standing on the streets, the pan shop provides such a reason, so does the

newspaper stand and so does the uninhibited street where the owners of the dogs feel safe

enough that a car is not going to run down their dogs while they chat casually. (This topic

would be further discussed in detail under ‘mixed land use’)

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The sidewalks of these streets also turn into spaces to assimilate children. This can happen

when the mothers are close by in a shop and the sidewalk becomes a safe place for children to

play or even when the big neighbourhood park is being used by elder kids for serious sports.

Better sidewalks can also ensure better safety as a recent study in Delhi found out.

“….But recent studies show that by tweaking urban design and infrastructure —

something as simple as ensuring wider pavements and closing cigarette shops near bus

stops — could make Delhi safer for women. ……… Recall recurring incidents of women

being pulled into moving cars and stalked on streets, where wider pavements could offer

women an escape route. When women are confronted by a group of men walking towards

them on a narrow pavement, they often step onto the road to escape being brushed past,

leaving them vulnerable to passing cars and men on two-wheelers. Wider pavements

would offer more room to manoeuvre.” (Anahita Mukherjee, “Better Streets Will Make

Delhi Safer For Women,” The Times Of India, December 26, 2011, accessed January 11,

2015, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/delhi/Better-streets-will-make-Delhi-safer-for-

women/articleshow/11249684.cms)

Parks

Jane Jacobs in her book The Death and Life of Great American Cities discusses how a

neighbourhood park functions and becomes lively due to economic and social diversity.

“Only a genuine content of economic and social diversity, resulting in people with different

schedules, has meaning to the park and the power to confer boon of life upon it” (Jacobs, 1961

pg. 101)

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Jacobs talks about the importance of the park being surrounded by buildings having different

functions and the inhabitants having different time schedules and routines. She also emphasises

the need for the surroundings to be economically diverse. (Further discussed under mixed land

used)

Different buildings with different users make the park useful at different times; hence the

physical arrangement of the neighbourhood affects the park physically. People use this park at

different times from one another because their daily schedules differ from one another which

enrich the utility of the neighbourhood park during different times of the day hence creating an

atmosphere of liveliness and also making the park safer and more interactive.

“Common landscape areas must be visually supervised and their separation from private spaces

made clear. They do not have to be treeless, so long as supervision is evident (or apparent) by

there being windows and/or doors in sight – from which somebody might be watching. The

open space should be an intrinsic or focal part of the development, not tucked away in a lost

corner.” (Sanger, 1989)

Planners often ignore the potential of a place of worship as a space that increases quality

interaction among people and also fulfils another factor of ‘Shared emotional connection -

Shared event’.

Shared event

Festivals are celebrations that usually require a space for gathering and sharing a common event.

A temple or a church provides people with the place needed to interact and hence create bonds

with the community while sharing a common event.

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For example the Indian festival of Lohri is celebrated by lighting a bonfire .People sit around the

fire to chat and interact with each other; the road with the least amount of traffic moving on it

becomes a space that is utilised for this shared event.

3. Membership.

McMillan and Chavis (1986) identify five attributes of community membership:

a) Safety

b) A common symbol system

c) A sense of belonging and identification

d) Personal investment

e) Boundaries

Safety is one of the major aspects in which design can make a marked difference

Jane Jacobs (Jacobs, 1961 pg. 30) says that “when people say that a city, or a part of it, is

dangerous or is a jungle what they mean primarily is that they do not feel safe on the sidewalks”.

She also explains that the safety of the city is not just kept by the police but primarily kept by the

people walking or watching over the street at all times of the day.

Acts of barbarism or larceny can be thwarted by passers by. To achieve a safe street, the street

needs to be designed and more importantly planned in such a manner that it is used throughout

the day.

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“The first thing to understand is that the public peace- the sidewalk and street peace – of cities is

not kept primarily by the police, necessary as the police are. It is kept primarily by an intricate

almost unconscious, network of voluntary controls and standards among the people themselves,

and enforced by the people. In some city areas the keeping of public sidewalk law and order is

left entirely to the police and special guards. Such places are jungles. No amount of police can

enforce civilization where the normal, casual enforcement of it has broken.” (Jacobs, 1961 pg.

32)

A safe street has three qualities:

1. A clear demarcation of public and private spaces which should not intermix. A space which

is not defined can easily turn into a place for unlawful activities to take place. “Open areas

where people or vehicles move about need to be clearly defined and movements restricted,

as well as overlooked, to discourage vandalism. Private spaces and garden plots adjoining

houses must be identified as belonging to a particular house, so that the "owner" has some

authority to evict vandals. Open-fronted courtyards are a weakness since territories are not

defined, although a mowing strip can help.” (Sanger, 1989)

2. Eyes on the street- it means that the buildings surrounding the streets have people

watching the streets and in case of unlawful activities, can take action. For this to

happen, the buildings need to be oriented towards the street and not away from it.

3. The street must have many passers by at all times and this induces a higher number

of effective people to watch the street. This happens because watching a street from

a window or balcony is a pass time for a lot of people, and this would only happen

if there are people walking by and activities taking place on the street to hold the

interest of the viewer.

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Shahajahanabad Then and Now:

The two images show how the streets were much safer because the lack of motorized

transport and the streets were reserved for humans that made people know each other and

interact better as contrast to the same street after 75 years where congestion due to

undersigned streets (for today’s time) has led to higher stress levels, moreover these streets

are too busy for people to meet each other and form a bond. The dome structure in both the

images is the Jama Masjid in Delhi.

Shops should open onto streets as these shops can ensure activity on the streets and make the

streets buzz with activity and people, hence encouraging interaction and effective eyes on street.

A chemist shop, hardware store, bread shop, cafes and restaurants, these commercial entities can

ensure the street being used at all times of the day by a mixture of people who would become

unofficial guardians of the safety of the street.

Shopkeepers play a very significant role in ensuring the safety as they watch the street

throughout the day. A shopkeeper would be consciously aware of activities taking place that can

affect his/her business and would be watchful of any unlawful activity taking place.

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Another important thing to look at is that these commercial enterprises do not get concentrated

onto a single place making the city safe in pockets but should be well spread out and should

exist frequent in numbers to ensure that the people are well spread out. Studying people’s

movement patterns can help in understanding the most frequently taken routes and the design of

the street should cater to this scenario.

Cul-de-sacs are recognized by home purchasers to be "safe", because they contain a few

homes, all of which face a common area, with no through-traffic, where residents relate to one

-another, regular relatives and visitors are familiar and a group of children playing in the street

automatically act as a local "unofficial neighborhood watch", so that any unfamiliar entry into

the location is noticed. In other words there is a built-in opportunity for self-help. The fact that

there is only one way in and out is said to be a deterrent to intruders, since they like to have an

alternative escape route in the event that they are "sprung".(Sanger, 1989)

“From the perspective of residents, the pattern usually offers quiet, safe streets where children

can play with little fear of fast-moving traffic. A discontinuous short-street system, unlike the

grid, may promote familiarity and neighboring.” (Michael Southworth and Eran Ben-Joseph,

“Reconsidering the Cul-De-Sac,” 30

“Hierarchical, discontinuous street systems have lower burglary rates than easily traveled

street layouts; criminals will avoid street patterns where they might get trapped. For example,

the troubled Five Oaks district of Dayton, Ohio, was restructured to create several small

neighborhoods by converting many local streets to cul-de-sacs by means of barriers. Within a

short time traffic declined 67 percent and traffic accidents fell 40 percent. Overall crime

decreased 26 percent, and violent crime fell by half” (Southworth and Ben-Joseph 2004, 32)

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Neighbourhood planning also plays a huge role in reducing acts of thefts in houses hence

making the neighbourhood safer.

“Large, impersonal estates are frequently fraught with a variety of crimes. This statement

applies to both detached and medium-density housing. Communities in which the residents are

all of the same age group and life pattern –where the kids all go to school at the same time,

working parents leave and return at regular times, etc. – are a "piece of cake" since the homes

(and the streets) are left desolate all day. In communities of mixed groups the patterns are

varied and less predictable. Old people are at home and watching, acting as a surveillance

system, as are people meeting or chatting in the street -think of the closer settlements in older

parts of our towns.” (Sanger, 1989)

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I will now focus on the importance of common symbols in the membership aspect of the

community.

"The symbol is to the social world what the cell is to the biotic world and the atom to the

physical world... The symbol is the beginning of the social world as we know it" (Nisbet &

Perrin, 1977, p. 47).

Symbols are found in names, landmarks, logos or in an architectural style.

Communities such as Auroville use their symbol to great effect to mark their products and even

in the elevation of most of their public buildings. This constantly and unconsciously reminds

people that the building they are looking at belongs to the same community that makes the soap

that they used in the morning and that they all have the symbol which denotes the same belief

that all the members of the community carry with them.

A recent survey showed that when people were asked to draw or write something about their

own cities, most of them drew a sketch of an architectural landmark of the city they come from,

hence emphasising the importance of an architectural landmark as a membership marker.

4. Fulfilment of needs

Needs of a person could be anything and a designers role would be limited to be able to provide

a person with needs as they could range from physical to emotional but a designer should be

able to contribute in basic needs of a person such as proper sunlight, air and physical comfort

and also planning out in such a way that things that a person’s needs are readily available.

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I feel that mixed land use is an interesting concept that seems to tackle a few of these issues of

safety, interaction and fulfilment of needs. It is not the last word in creating a sense of

community but in my opinion it is certainly a step that should be taken.

Let me discuss a hypothetical area of a city which only has offices in it.

The inhabitants of such an area are all office going workers who have a rigid time schedule

which starts at a certain time of the day and has ends at a certain time with a break in between.

The streets around this are completely dead during certain times of the day, thus happens

because during the office hours these streets have nobody on them and they become dead spaces

and unsafe. The food stall shops are the only ones that are in demand in this area but even for

them it is getting hard to sustain their business in spite of their tremendous demand during a

certain time of the day

Hoards of people come in the morning and during the lunch break but the rush lasts only for

about 2 hours, one in the morning when people come to take a quick snack and one at the time

of the lunch break. There is high demand during these hours but these shops reach their full

capacity during this time and are unable to take any more customers, when this rush of people

leaves, the streets go empty and there are no customers in the shops. What is worse is that during

the weekends, the shops are absolutely out of demand. This is pure bad economics for the city as

well as the small commercial establishments are unable to sustain themselves and the city is

losing out not just on money but also on the safety of these streets.

Now imagine a similar situation with an area with academic land use patterns, lets take the street

outside the GGSIPU campus in Delhi, the street and the subway becomes a haven for people

taking drugs and the same subway which was bustling with activity and people during the day

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has now become so dangerous that girls have avoided taking the subway during night and prefer

to cross the street in spite of the traffic.

What these areas need is distribution of public over the entire stretch of the day and during the

entire stretch of the week. This can only happen if there is a distribution of people’s routines

during the day and over the weekend. For this to be a reality one needs a mixture of people

occupying these areas which is possible with mixed land use. If the street and the subway around

the university weren’t just used by students who leave after a certain time but also by residents

who live close by, the situation might have guaranteed a little more usage by people and made it

safer.

What such a rigid land use pattern also does is that it concentrates the number of vehicles on

specific roads that lead to the commercial districts during certain time of the day when

everybody is reaching their offices and again creates a traffic jam when most of the offices end.

Having mixed use pattern is also advantageous because the everyday needs of a person are

readily and easily fulfilled due to the sheer proximity of commercial, institutional and health

facilities.

A mixture of residential, commercial, recreational and institutional entities in the same

neighbourhood would be able to generate more income for the city and would ensure that the

cities resources get utilized more efficiently and judiciously leading to more interactive spaces

and safer streets because of their usage throughout the day.

Imagine a neighbourhood with mixed land use patterns. Early morning people have come out of

their homes for a morning walk and have tea from the small shops around, around 8 A.M,

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children are going to school and around an hour after that, office goers have ensured the

usability of the streets, the shops and the parks.

Around noon, housewives from the residences of the neighbourhood are buying vegetables from

the hawker with his wheel cart and during lunch time the parks and food stalls are again being

used by the office going public thus ensuring usage when the housewives are inside the house.

In the evening the office workers are leaving for their homes and residents of the neighbourhood

are returning to their homes after work. The children have come out to the parks to play around

this time dragging their mothers along and making the mothers interact with other people in the

park. These parks and streets have now turned into playground for these neighbourhood kids

who are making sure that every nook and corner is being utilized. Later in the evening more

people have come in from around to utilize the recreational areas and also stopover to the nearby

cafes and restaurants for a meal and this goes around till late in night thus ensuring maximum

utilization of city spaces during most times of the day.

Perhaps the biggest contribution that ‘mixed land use’ can make in the Indian city context is in

creating safer streets for everyone. The debate on this started after the gruesome rape and murder

of a 23 year old doctor in Delhi in 2012.

Let us consider the situation of a indian neighbourhood in Medievall times.

“Traditionally an Indian town, whether Mughal or Rajput, tended to be much better integrated.

Even the Delhi of Shah Jehan was a bustling town living cheek by jowl with the royal palace

located in the Red Fort, surrounded by fortifications meant primarily for protection. The rest of

the city presented a single homogenous picture. The very rich had their havelis, but these were

not set in a separate quarter of the city. Of course the rich had their own country retreats, but

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these were in a rural environment and did not detract from the homogeneity of the city. Within

the city proper there was a tendency for a rational mix of landuses. There were, no doubt,

specialised streets and markets, with the kaseras or brass workers having their own locality, the

goldsmiths and silversmiths their own quarter, wholesale markets having specific locations, etc.

However, retail trade, light manufacture, professional services and other normal means of

livelihood occupied land space in close companionship with residential houses. Work sites and

residential areas were closely inter-mingled and, in many cases, were wholly inter-changeable.

From the point of view of convenience this city form, this manner of land use, was most suitable

to the average citizen. If the streets were crowded, at least everything was close at hand and

there was no undue pressure on such transportation systems as then existed. In many ways the

street acted as the social club and fostered a feeling of neighbourliness” (Buch, Pg.12)

The present situation in Delhi is a stark contrast to the image that the preceding text

portrayed.

“Most of New Delhi is built according to what urban planners sometimes call "single-use"

design: sections of the city are devoted almost exclusively to one use (industrial,

institutional, retail, or residential) and separated from each other by open space, roads or

other barriers. This separation was originally meant to ensure that people didn’t live in

cramped spaces, or right next to industrial plants and the pollution they spewed. But even

after industrialization, Delhi took the American model of suburban sprawl to the extreme:

distances have increased so much that walking, transit, and bicycling between different

places is nearly impossible. Safe travel almost always requires an automobile.” (Neil

Padukone, “How Urban Design Could Help Reduce Rape In India,” City Lab, June 12, 2014,

accessed January 11, 2015, http://www.citylab.com/crime/2014/06/how-urban-design-could-

help-reduce-rape-in-india/372612/)

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Neil Padukone goes on to explain how Mixed Land planning will fit into a Delhi context

“If an area is used for multiple purposes, there will always be somebody—a homemaker, shopkeeper, pedestrian, peddler, or office worker—keeping a passive watch, inadvertently but effectively policing it 24 hours a day. Street vendors, for example, may be the most perennial pairs of eyes that monitor any streets, and even police have tapped this human resource.

Potential criminals are deterred because there are witnesses that can intervene, even to prevent sexual harassment. Mixed-use planning provides a social accountability system: much as it takes a “village” to raise a child, it can take a whole neighbourhood to keep her safe, a reality brought home by the recent “bell bajao” campaign that urges neighbours to intervene against domestic violence.”

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References

Christoforidis, A. (1994). New alternatives to the suburb: Neo traditional developments.

Journal of Planning Literature. 8:4, 429-440

Jacobs, J. (1961). The death and life of great American cities. New York: Vintage Books.

McMillan, D.W., & Chavis, D.M. (1986). Sense of community: A definition and theory.

American Journal of Community Psychology, 14(1), 6-23

Nisbet, R. & Perrin, R.G. (1977). The Social Bond. New York: Knopf.

Sanger, D. (1989). Role of The Architect in Crime Prevention Through Environmental

Design. Designing Out Crime: Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED)

Sawhney, N., and Schmandt, C. 1999. "Nomadic Radio: Scaleable and Contextual Notification

for Wearable Audio Messaging." , 96-103

Schwartz, E. (1991). Building community in a neighbourhood. Building Community. Institute

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Buch, M.N (1995). Public Space-The last Frontier, Public Places-Bombay, Shruti Arts pvt.

Ltd.

Southworth.M and Ben-Joseph.E (2004). “Reconsidering the Cul-de-sac.” ACCESS : Transport

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http://web.mit.edu/ebj/www/access24.pdf