Community-based, Data-driven Urbanism (CDU)

Community based data-driven Urbanism (CDU)

AtelierVA - Carst Abma

Community-based, Data-driven Urbanism (CDU) AtelierVA Rozenstraat 53D 1016 NN Amsterdam Š Carst Abma M.A M.Arch BBE / AtelierVA All rights reserved.

ISBN-13: 978-1493706419 ISBN-10: 1493706411

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Community based data-driven Urbanism (CDU)

AtelierVA - Carst Abma

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CDU is a framework to analyse, organize and nudge the urban initiatives of three communities in the North-Holland province of the Netherlands. CDU uses social network analysis with weighted actor values and translations to describe the biases and key issues in a network of both human and non-human actors. Designers can use these biases to nudge the process of urban development associated to communities of practice, place or interest.

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Reader’s advice - The frame* we used:

“expanded consciousness” How is it possible that, just a few years ago, we thought of ourselves to be comfortable consumers and dedicated producing professionals. But now, partially because of the banking crisis of 2008, we have reinvented ourselves as engaged ‘energetic’ pro-sumers, and co-creating professionals. Many public thinkers and scientist see this as a remarkable transformation. It indeed is when we would compare the mainstream discourse between the 2000’s and the 2010’s in the sociological theoretical edges of the public sphere.

Biosphere consciousness - But community-led organisation members describe their own actions in a more gradual change, starting with the environment movement after WWII, the ‘whole earth catalogue of the late sixties - with its first images of earth from outer space, creating a holistic feeling of unity. To the energy crisis in the 70’s, and the birth of the internet in the 90’s - with it timeless communication and globalisation consequences. All these changes made the public more aware of their own surroundings. Now this new consciousness has evolved and made people feel they need to take responsibility for their own lives, and- for their own surroundings. Ultimately, as influencial scholars claim, “to become a sustainable species with a biosphere consciousness” (Rifkin, 2011).

Expanded consciousness - During our research efforts, we have encountered actors reasoning within this broad biosphere consciousness. Nevertheless, there has been a limitation, actors set a practical limit to their individual ability to act, and decide to empathize with actors they are able to perceive/understand, or think they should be able to perceive/ understand. To us, the best way to understand the three communities’ stories and narratives is to frame them in an expanded consciousness.

Empathy - Scholars define consciousness as a state of experience and feeling. If we would try to understand the ‘expanded consciousness’, we can say that it means going outside the physical limits of the body, not only feeling and experiencing the self, but also the individuals’ surroundings such as other people, animals or things. Comparable to the definition of empathy, which involves the feeling-in of other actors, as in the Dutch translations of empathy as: ‘inlevingsvermogen.’

Empathy therefore, would be an excellent measure to understand the expanded consciousness of a society or community.

Feeling empathy though is a hard subject to proof in psychological discourse, it is often regarded as an automatic sentient. However, there is growing evidence in science that there is a choice factor in empathy; “empathy is the emotional equivalent of a patellar reflex: while observing someone’s emotions, you can’t help but take those emotions on yourself. Intuitive as it may be, a “reflex model” glosses a vital feature of empathy: it is often a choice (Zaki, 2013).

Action - The actors of the three community-led organizations have monitored their surroundings and decided to act because they have perceived a mismatch between their expanded consciousness and the values of the public sector about urban development. Picture parents watching small children at the community pool. They are not gathering information; they are keeping an eye on the scene. They look inactive, but they are poised for action if action is required (Schudson, 2008). The expanded consciousness has set them into action, they felt the small children are in danger, and try to regain access and control.

* a social construct (a set of concepts and perspectives) on how actors relate the phenomenon to reality

Acknowledgement This research document is written as a part of a continuous research program called 4M. 4M tries to find answers to the question; “how can spatial professionals in the urban development shape the current ambition of people to a more balanced society? “ AtelierVA is a ‘networked’ organization of architects and consultants founded by Carst Abma M.A M.Arch BBE in 2012. AtelierVA is specialized in doing social network analysis for (semi) public sector organizations and the media.

AtelierVA is a profit making company with branches into both the journalism- and communication sciences, and architecture and urban planning disciplines. Combining these give a surplus of knowledge and information to describe, critique and help shape the upcoming ‘Internet of things’ and ‘Sustainism’ developments.

Summar

Carst Abma is a graduate of BarcelonaTECH faculty of architecture and a graduate from Amsterdam based VU University information and communication sciences (arts and social sciences). He is a co-founder of the Placemakers foundation in Amsterdam (placemakers.nl) and won a number of funds and prizes to further develop his studies on techno-social relations in the spatial disciplines.

Preface

This research is funded by the Creative Industries Fund NL

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Appendix Introduction

Bibliography

ry Content Analysis Conclusion

Right to CHALLENGE Kritisch Platform

Right to

Windenergie de Zijpe

PLAN

(KPWZ)

The Sustainable Wetering

Right to ACT Transition Town Castricum (TTC)

Community (SWC)

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Corner of the Spiegelgracht and Lijnbaansgracht Š AtelierVA, 2013

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Preface:

How networked communities

shaped the Wetering district in 17th century Amsterdam.

Abraham Alewijn was a legal officer, ordered by city of Amsterdam’s’ council to organize the building of four hundred ‘weaver houses’ in the cities peripheral Wetering district. In the year 1661, the city wanted to benefit from the economic boost of the cloth industry and decided to attract artisans by offering cheap housing and excellent trade routes. It was enforced by a number of local entrepreneurs who predicted private financial benefits for the powerful merchant community (Abrahamse, 2010). Abraham had the task to conduct with the issues at hand during the planning and construction phases, and deal with the many affiliates around the proposed stretch of land.

In 1670, he was finally able to start building.

During the fourth city expansion, a large stretch of land became available between the Grand Canal district and the ‘working’ zones of the future cities’ fourth expansion. The houses were built on an excluded part of land from private development, to regulate a barrier between rich and poor neighborhoods, foremost so modern prosperous merchant residents living along the canals would not be troubled by odor and noise pollution of industries at the far periphery of the city, among which tannery’s, sulfur refineries, varnish and turpentine makers. The weaver community should be squeezed in between. For Abraham to deal with the many legal issues at hand. Architect Philip Vingboons designed the weaver houses to be of uniform shape and size; he created a

uniform (closed) strip of buildings between the two districts. The houses had a large front room with space for two weaver looms, an attic to store and sort bales of wool. And a cellar with enough light intake for spinners to work there fine spins (Abrahamse, 2010).

Abraham had to find compromises between private and public interests, and economic and societal values in one of the fastest growing cities in the world of the time. He had to execute one of the first examples of top-down planning – characterized as urban development without the involvement of the actual occupants.

He did so in a still predominantly bottom-up tradition: Actors where part of a complicated system of weighing values and interests and the power we would now call ‘networking.’

Whoever knew or pleased the dominant and value defining merchant community, would get the best arrangements, and the upper hand in many urban issues.

However, in 1670, Abraham already had many legislations to his disposal to solve impending issues between opposing values and interest.

In contrast to earlier city expansions, the fourth and continuous extension of the canals and working districts was bounded to strict zoning and clustering (Abrahamse, 2010). This would prevent the problems that occurred during the development of the first expansions’ Jordaan’ district; where there wasn’t any clustering applied and the district soon became an

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The former Walloon Orphanage from the eerste weteringdwarsstraat Š AtelierVA 2013

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impoverished hodgepodge of commerce, industry and housing, where people settled out of control of governments’ regulations, and outside of the merchant communities’ influence.

Value-making power tripling from the top-down.

Abraham had to deal with a great number of prerequisites, and had to find solutions between spatiality, profitability and rentability issues. Besides creating a barrier for the merchant community, the council came up with the plan to finance the weaver houses from the revenues of selling the private grounds of three orphanages in the city. These social institutions could in return rent out the houses to weavers, which made the project an early example of social housing. This meant Abraham had to build rentable houses with enough possibilities for weavers to prosper.

Issues of cliquiness* - The spatial planning shape of the district was one such issue, the street pattern of the now famous half-moon shape of the channel district was also applied to the Wetering District. From the Weaver houses down, to drain the water to the closest perpendicular canal, he had to build inclined sewer pipes along the closed strips, under the side streets.

This inclination at one end of the street would be so high as to block the cellar windows of the weaver houses. The functional planning of the fourth extension did not follow the logical draining patterns of the preexisting reclaimed land. Abraham had to propose a re-route to drain the sewer water to the Looierssloot. A ditch used by the tanner community, to let their waste flow into the canals and out of the city gates. Likewise, this shorter route meant the weavers had better access to water in case of fire.

However, the tanner community apposed Abraham’s plan; they would have to give up two building plots for their own purposes. The top-down intentions of Abraham came into conflict with the interest of other local communities. The historical records state no further explanation about this incident, but there was apparently no room for discussion; Abraham had to give in and the side streets were eventually raised. The future spinners had to work in artificial lighting or darkened conditions because some cellars barely had any natural light intake (Abrahamse, 2010).

The top-down intentions of Abraham came into conflict with the interest of other local communities.

Filling structural holes** in the network - Soon after the completion of the weaver houses, it turned out there were not enough renters available to bear the 90 guilder a year rent.

Abraham planned and organized the building of the weaver houses with a clear economic and urban prospectus, but reality turned out to be somewhat different. A committee of inquiry set out to investigate the cause and came up with a solution. Within a week they published their findings, the committee had spoken to both the institutions and a range of other people involved; “to be heard in wide.” Their solution was as pragmatic as unsuccessful: to abandon the (top down) clustering requirements enforced by the city council and make the houses accessible to other local trades.

One year later, records state this was not the proper translation. Why we do not know, but affiliates around this time came up with a more daring plan; a number of contractors were given the disposition to hundred weaver houses. Government and contractors agreed to have a minimum of a hundred weaving looms

* Tendency to interact more with mutual nodes in the network, to create exclusive groups ** The absence of ties in a specific part of the network

Chemical industries

Weaver houses

Walloon Orphanage

Tannery’s

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Detail of the Wetering District in 1721 Š Stadsarchief Amsterdam

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installed. The contractors were given subsidiary rents and two orphan boys per three looms. The boys were not paid nor supported by the contractors, but kept entrusted by the city council.

The ‘normal’ staff was recruited in the Walloon and Flemish territories. Also in 17th century Amsterdam, government had to jump in when public and private parties didn’t come to an agreement (Abrahamse, 2010).

Finding translations- To solve the issue, the council created additional local ties between social units in the Wetering District. The employed boys stayed at the Walloon Orphanage, built right next to the Weaver houses. In 1668, the minister of the Walloon congregation asked one of the mayors of Amsterdam to give him the permission to build a new orphanage. He justified his pledge by saying that the number of orphans increased in the last years, and that the girls and boys should be divided, to further avoid “irregularities.” Mayor Gilles Valckeniers approved and entrusted the minister a plot in the Wetering District. it was given free of charge because such a grand building would make the surrounding yards increase in value, yielding more income for the city when sold (Abrahamse, 2010).

The merchant-bureaucrats representatives in the council managed to create shared values, by connecting different nodes to the project, and finding shared values between communities.

But still, these where band-aid’s on an already complicated building process. A top-down planning process that did failed to work. Partially due the number of requirements, and the fact that it took more than 10 years, between concept and completion.

How other communities developed the Wetering district from the bottom-up.

While the weaver houses were under construction, other communities claimed the parts of * Measure of the average distance of ties in a network.

the Wetering District. The working cities of the district were planned following the community-based urban development, the traditional method of practice at the time. Different communities of practice set out to the city council and apply for a re-allocation of different shops or factories related to their tied clique of actors (guilds), always related to the practice of a craft in a particular town. In the case of the Wetering District - the winners of this mishmash of values and interest were the communities with the most ties and shared values to the merchant community.

High closeness centrality* - The tanners were the definitive ‘winners’ in this seemingly rat race for benefits. Seventeenth century Amsterdam had an abundance of tanneries, the guild outnumbered many other communities of practice in the city. Furthermore, where the weaver houses were built to stimulate an under-represented trade group in Amsterdam, the allocation of tanners was a growing concern to the city council during the cities’ fourth expansion. Tanners where located around the city, especially in the overcrowded and non-clustered Jordaan area. Moreover, the nature of their work and the dramatic environmental effects meant that the council was keen to help them find a suitable site away from the luxurious merchant houses, somewhere on the periphery of the fourth city expansion (Abrahamse, 2010). This together gave the tanner community a preferable position and the first in line when new opportunities arose.

Shared values, commensurability - The tanners found a successful translation in a site in the Wetering District with enough distance to the grand canals. But only if the development plans were changed, the tanners ordered for a 36-foot wide extra ditch. However, this plan failed; a number of privately owned grounds at the location were already sold or rented out as gardens or bleach fields. The community representatives rushed back to the city mayors and

Tanner community

- place to conduct business - livable conditions

Walloon Orphanage

- jobs

Orphans

Council - create a intermediate zone between merchant members houses and the ‘working city’ - profit making - organized and smooth rollout of the cities’ 4th extension

- profit from investment Abraham Alewijn Weaver house

Entrepreneur

- place to conduct business - livable conditions

- profit from investment Chemical industry

Weavers - place to conduct business - livable conditions

actor nodes (human and non-human) associations between actors value nodes

The supposed network of cooperation between communities affiliated with the Wetering District between 1661 and 1671 © AtelierVA

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asked for a different place of business. A solution was found immediately, just north of the initial site - which the community could buy directly from the cities treasures - and more remarkable; were given the possibility to handle the allotment between each other. When Abraham pledged to re-route the sewer system of the weaver houses, the tanners could easily refuse because they were given the monopoly over the creation of the urban fabric (Abrahams, 2010).

What made the Tanneries so successful in their quest to pledge for community benefits? First of all, they acted as a collective when the communities’ interests had to be promoted. This gave them the upper hand in many urban issues.

Secondly, this stronghold might have been developed over the years, tanneries where a continuous concern for the city council during the seventeenth century, and many earlier re-allotments did taken place. Furthermore, the council used them as a political instrument. When private real estate owners refused to negotiate with government officials, the latter would send out a decreed to relocate tanneries to adjacent plots. This negative leverage would lower the land price of the private owned grounds next to the tanneries and thus favor the negotiation possibilities of the council (Abrahamse, 2010).

The tanner community had many ties to the powerful merchant community, and could use some soft power tools to convince council members to act in their interest.

The state of the urban fabric was influenced by the power of communities, depending on the number of ties the community had with decision-making actors, and on the ability of key actors to reach successful translations with others to, over a period of time, create flexible, survivable and scalable communities.

Other communities where not able to leverage this unbalance in community power. The sulfur refineries, varnish and turpentine makers were also businesses with dramatic effects on the environments, but they did not receive the same benefits as the tanner community. They could buy the intended plot of lands, located opposite of the city walls, next to the Southern Wetering gate, so the drained chemicals would flow directly outside the city. The records only state the building of four wooden footbridges to make the building grounds accessible. A few years later though, the plots where reallocated to the tanner community. The ditch from the other side of the Vijzel canal was extended, because a continuous growth of the tanner industry was expected. The former chemical located allotments where now reserved to tannery’s (Abrahamse, 2010).

Solving the bias would either:

+

Glue network social units

+

Connect network flows

-

Recalibrate network nodes

Reprogram the network

Take a look at AtelierVA.nl for more information

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Summary:

Community based,

Data-driven Urbanism (CDU).

Social network analysis - CDU is a framework to analyze, organize and nudge the urban initiatives of three communities in the North-Holland province of the Netherlands. The framework can be used to understand how, in network linguistics; nodes are connected to each other by information flows. These networks are analyzed using Social Network Analysis. SNA uses two methods of analysis, first the visual analysis of diagrams of nodes and ties – which gives a general view of how the information flows in a specific social network.

Secondly SNA gives the researcher a vast array of metrics from modern sociological sciences.

These metrics can be used to reveal patterns in the algorithms that shape the networks.

Actor network theory - CDU then uses an actor-network theory (ANT) approach to describe the context in which the network nodes operate. The researcher does this by tracing the actors (nodes in SNA) that create the many ties with materials (between things) and semiotics (between concepts). This way we are able to organize the network from a different point of view. We manually attach attributes to key actors (nodes) and are therefore able to better understand the importance of semiotic concepts (meaning) in the social network. Moreover, the Actor Network approach gives us the possibility to organize connections between the geographical layout (the spatial neighborhood, village or region) and the social network layer because it enhances the network with both human and non-human actors in techno-social relationships.

Nudge - The analysis and the organization of the networks deliver a number of biases, or improvements, which can be used by designers to solve social and spatial issues and nudge the different actors into building new communication (relational) tools, online or offline, social or spatial. This way, designers, architects and urban planners are able to aid local switchers* or become network switchers themselves.

These switchers, as they are called in network lingo, have programming power and are able to glue, connect, recalibrate or reprogram the society’s network (Castells, 2009).

Three initiatives - The communities we have analyzed and organized (not nudged), cooperate in a community-based social unit, based on equal value and interests. The individuals have congregated on common grounds, either because they challenge the decision making of the dominant community in the society (KPWZ community). Or because they wish to act or plan in the local society when the dominant community in the society fails to adapt to contemporary challenges (TTC and WC communities).

In both the Transition Town and Wetering community, actors challenge the process/program of the village or neighbourhood network.

They either call out or challenge to reprogram the defining values and interests attached to it. KPWZ members on the other hand, only challenge a small part of a much larger society (provincial/national), not to reprogram the network, but to recalibrate just a small part of the larger society network(s).

* Actors with the ability to constitute networks, and to program/reprogram the network(s) in terms of goals assigned to the network (Castells, 2009).

Introduction:

Using networks to analyze,

organize and nudge communitybased urban developments.

Seventeenth’ century Amsterdam was the time and place where many of today’s Dutch urban planning traditions were first tested. The topdown planning tradition of Abraham Alewijn was at the time a new and uncommon phenomenon. It was based on the idea of attracting businesses by investing upfront in housing and infrastructure. Although strict planning was not new - the Romans already planned their cities based on military principles - the building of the weaver houses were one of the first attempts in the Netherlands to plan with a defining and dominant economic value-set.

Leading values such as private profit, job creation and social housing defined the planning and building process Abraham had to organize, and consequently shaped the Wetering district into a clear cut repetition of the grand canal district, with rows of equal terraced houses, top-down planned for a forecasted group of users.

really the quality of housing why would like to see. The story of the Wetering District makes this debate more profound, because it augments the question if these downsides of top down planning are actually significant enough in comparison to the alternative community-based urbanism, with its alleged complication of conflicting interests, possible abuses of power and surreptitious deals. Well. At least in the seventeenth century.

This makes this case interesting, especially because we are beginning to doubt whether top-down is still a feasible planning method.

Our image of top-down is troubled, we picture rows of unlivable rows of box houses, or modern tower-blocks. Where the only interest is its monthly profitability. And doubt if this is

The case of the Tanner community in seventeenth century Amsterdam teaches us to be sensitive about the power of cooperating with a group of equally minded people. It shows that communities can be closed groups, when fighting for their own rights they can (willingly or unwillingly) suppress the rights of others. In

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Communication power in the seventeenth century - We must say that it is rather complicated to compare the events that happened over 300 years ago with the situation today. We have for example learned the skills of democracy, to just name something. But the story of Alewijn and the Tanners can give us some warnings of how community-based urbanism can develop, without mentioning causality or correlative connections.

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the case of the seventeenth century Wetering district, this meant less opportunities for other communities of practice and lesser labor rights for spinners in weaver houses’ cellars. They had to work in darkened conditions due to the inclination of the street level, to drain the water to the second nearest canal. To say the least, this example remembers us why we have rules and regulations to mediate these issues.

Community-led organizations Bottom-up initiatives - We have in recent years seen a large increase in the number of community-led organizations in the Netherlands.

These are generally formed by experts in organizing and energizing - residents of villages or urban areas who call for more responsibility and trust. People who like to act locally on the basis of these values. The Dutch public sector stimulates these initiatives, at least as long as they are fun and small-scaled.

We are now seeing a number of initiatives who step up the ladder and challenge public and commercial sectors to take over responsabilities .

But in a continues leap, we are now seeing a number of initiatives who step up the ladder and challenge public and commercial sectors to take over some responsibilities for the public cause. They do it in a different way; collectively and focused on self-sufficiency. But these efforts come with a hasty and piecemeal process. It turns out to be difficult for citizens to enter the treaded paths and challenge professionals that they can do it different, better and more sustained.

Curiously enough we are again focusing on the Wetering District of Amsterdam. The occupants of the same neighborhood where Abraham Alewijn

planned and struggled to rent out the weaver houses, these occupants now forward a new radical agenda, discarding the top down method Alewijn introduced and leap back to a community-based approach of power distribution starting at the bottom. In this situation, the economical, spatial and societal futures of the Wetering district are - at least in theory - shaped by its own inhabitants, rather than by the city council or by legal officers and planners such as Abraham Alewijn.

The method forwarded by the Sustainable Wetering community has a lot of resemblance with the way the communities of practice in the 17th century fought for their rights. Even more, both groups - although expected by societal forces - both took a responsibility for not only their private residence, but for adjacent streets and pavements too.

Three initiatives - In this document we will try to understand the efforts of the modern Wetering community in their work to gain the right to plan. But we will take a larger approach and also focus on the efforts of two other local initiatives, whose approaches are less radical, but just as important in our search to understand the relationships between local communities, spatial professionals and other affiliates.

Framework Analyze - CDU is a framework to analyze, organize and nudge the urban initiatives of the three communities. The framework can be used to understand how, in network linguistics; nodes are connected to each other by information flows.

These networks are analyzed using Social network analysis. SNA uses two methods of analysis, first the visual analysis of diagrams of nodes and ties – which give the researcher a general view of how the information flows in a network.

Secondly it gives the researcher a vast array of metrics from modern sociological sciences that can be used to reveal patterns in the algorithms that shape the networks.

Organize - CDU then uses an actor-network theory (ANT) approach to describe the context in which the network nodes operate. The researcher does this by tracing the actors (nodes in SNA) that create the many ties with materials (between things) and semiotics (between concepts). This way we are able to organize and understand the network from a different point of view. We manually attach attributes to key actors (nodes) and are therefore able to better understand the importance of semiotic concepts (meaning) in the social network.

Moreover, the Actor Network approach gives us the possibility to organize connections between the geographical layout (the spatial neighborhood, village or region) and the social network layer, because it enhances the network with both human and non-human actors.

Nudge - Both the analysis and the organization of the networks deliver a number of biases, or improvements, which can be used by designer’s to solve social and spatial issues. It is the designers responsibility, whether the solution benefits the general interest of the mentioned society, or just the interest of a specific community. If a hypothetical social network reveals more single then double directed ties (degree centr.), with a few structural holes and bridges, one would be able to say that actors in the network should be nudged to communicate, and find new cooperation’s to fill in the hole (analyzing). These biased though, can only be solved if designers understand the context (organizing). If this would be the network of a small rural hamlet of mainly civilians and a few farmers, one would be able to analyze which communities created these holes, and who is the sender and the receiver of this one sided information flow. This could be the input for designers, architects and urban planners to

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nudge the different actors into bridging these gaps by building new information (relational) tools, online or offline, social or spatial. In this case, it might be in the general interest that both communities are getting closer to each other. But this might not be in the interest of the receiving community.

A tree is not a collection of leaves, stems, trunks and branches.

But a system of internal energy flows and external processes of photosynthesis.

Networks - why the urban environment is made of relations, not objects.

The conceptual rational frame - To fully understand the power of network in the urban development, we should first try to see nature as a set of relations instead of objects. In more often occurring events, we hear architectural designers describe their professional ‘does’ as designers of relations instead of buildings (Prins, 2013). Their intentions to us sound reasonable; they discard the paradigm to see nature as an object, but reverse this and see nature as a set of relations. A tree is not a collection of leaves, stems, trunks and branches.

But a system of internal energy flows and external processes of photosynthesis.

The emotional-rational frame - This though to us is still a narrowed understanding – focusing only on the technological (or in this case biological). Since a tree has other semiotic relationships too. It could provide shade,

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tranquility or the sensation of seasons too.

These relations are easily overlooked in a conceptual rational technological view because they are personal and subjective.

Data about relations in urbanism is, likewise, only used to conceptualize the rational technological systems. Neighborhoods, cities or even whole nations are mapped on the basis of technological and biological relationships.

We then conceptualize users of these systems based on the same principles; we tend to create fixed patterns, as in the economic sciences, the homo economicus is omnipresent in urban and architectural studies. How we behave within this biological sphere is narrowed down to the rational and self-interested (Sent, 2013). This is very useful since we can model and forecast the developments of our geographical places on the basis of ‘the only one good option,’ namely the rational self-interested (e.g. SMART technologies). If we would operate within a bounded rational world (a decision-making process of rational as well as emotional, fear and herd behavior) we would not be able to predict human behavior since it depends on so many additional factors.

But we should also agree that it is rather naïve to conceptualize human behavior as only rational and self-interested. Moreover, in our study we have found empirical evidence that the members of the three communities do not act out of a self-interested rational frame, they take the responsibility to regain certain rights in an extended consciousness, going beyond the physical limits of the body.

But a tree can have meaning and non-rational relations too. It can provide shade, tranquillity or the sensation of seasons to human actors.

Networks - There is a solution though, the growing scientific field of network sciences, has created the opportunity to analyze data within emotional-, fear- and herd behavior networks. It gives us the possibilities to visualize behavior in information flows, and attach a number of attributes to the nodes in the network. To describe this on a less abstract level, we could say that we add the how and why question to the existing what, where, when and who questions. For qualitative researchers, the how and why questions are the tools to describe semiotic meaning.

Limitations - The downside of this method is that it can only be applied to individual cases. Unless we use the power of the internet, and create huge databases of user generated content. To let this work though, would require ‘the internet of things’ to be fully implemented so ‘things’ (non-human actors) start to communicate to social actors as would social actors do among each other. This is still a flight of fancy, so for now we have limited ourselves to use only the off-line tools of surveying and interviewing.

The power of algorithms - From this network analysis we are able to distinct a number of issues and biases. Points of interest which can be used to improve the network, however one wants to adjust it. The mathematical power of networks gives us the input for these biases. It shows us where social effects such as bridges, propinquity, desolation, clustering or coherence in the social network exists, and give us the lead to propose improvements. We have for example named the tannery community in the preface a closed group, networks tend to visualize these closeness, and thus give us a tool to easily spot relational information in social structures. That’s all. It is up to the user what he or she will do with it, and to what intentions.

Method From the inside-out - To map a communities’ social network we have followed the rule of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg: “You can’t start a community, you join one and then provide them with ‘elegant organization’” (Jarvis, 2009). We have traced the many relations of cooperation by following the actors involved in three case studies, during the process that ultimately leads to physical changes in the urban layout. We do this by describing the networks of actors who are influencing the predicted changes. These actors could be human such as occupants, local entrepreneurs, civil servants, architects or contractors, but also non-human such as planning documents, law and regulations or the spatial properties of the places.

“Communities are already doing what they want to do. If you are lucky, they ‘ll let you help them (Zuckerberg, 2009).

Tracing associations as they are being made The method we used worked like a snowball, the network continuously grew the more time and effort we putted into the research, tracing more and more connections when they are being made. This furthermore gave us the possibility to study actors from very close-by and understand how and why they make or undo certain connections. The downside of this method is that we were never really able to fully map the entire social network of a regional, village- or neighborhood society. The final network is always limited to where we have stopped looking.

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STEP 1 - Searching for communities - In this research document, the description of three case studies is preceded by a content analysis of the different local initiatives that have popped-up and are active during the month of April 2013.

From this content analysis a number parameters are defined that describe why we have chosen the three case studies, and how they fit into the general picture of community-based urbanism.

During our content analysis though, we have changed our research aim to studying the relations between local iniatitives and spatial professionals. At first we had narrowed our search to local initiatives where people are acting on the basis of self-organization, without interference of others. But soon we found that the tabula rasa approach to self-organizing is practically impossible to conduct, especially in a controlled nation-state which is the Netherlands. Our response was to expand our interest into the ways in which communities cooperate, or not cooperate, with spatial professionals and other residents or affiliates. This made our reach of mapping the society’s network a lot bigger. And furthermore gave us the possibility to analyze not only the community-led organization, but also other (adjacent) communities in the larger society.

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Networks in sociology Networks - A network is a set of interconnecting nodes (Castells, 2009). Networks tend to have a natural logic inherited. When nodes become unnecessary for the fulfillment of the networks’ goals, networks tend to reconfigure themselves, deleting some nodes, and adding new nodes (Castells, 2009). In social life, networks are communicative structures that guide flows of information. We are able to study these networks and network flows. From the mathematical study we are able to formulate a number of properties which can be helpful to organize and nudge the actors in the network to fulfill their own goals, or the goals protocoled in the network (often done by its programmers).

Communities / Societies - Communities in network sociology are complex structures of communicative nodes based on the same interests and values (Castells, 2009). They are often part of societies, in which they compete or cooperate within other networks to source their values and interests. When we would plot the community-led organizations, we are able to see the different nodes and connections the different individuals make with other human actors by sharing flows of information. But only in social relations, not in techno-social relations.

Non-human actors - Therefore we have incorporated a material-semiotic theory into the network description, mark the emphasis on description. Actor-network theory (ANT) is a method of network research about society, of what French scholar Bruno Latour named the study into the network of associations. Humans associate with other humans (read abstracted relations), and with antennas, relays en repeaters (Latour, 2011). These technical connected are also represented as nodes in the networks, which we have manually attributed. This way we are able to understand the meaning and value of spatial elements in the network unit. This makes non-human actors essential for holding actor-networks together (Plesner, 2009).

Translations - In Actor-Network Theory, translations are the process of how actors and actor-networks manage to reach agreement and associate through translations: to join forces, they must be able to reach common definition (Plesner, 2009). A successful process of translation generates a shared space, equivalence and commensurability in an actor-network. It aligns actors who otherwise have different agendas. Conversely, unsuccessful processes of translation weaken the actor-network (Callon, 1991).

Different communities of interest and place in the North-Holland Province as of the 15th of April, 2013 Š AtelierVA To open the interactive map, double click on the flash image.

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Content Analysis:

Searching for communities To fully understand the scope of community-led organizations, we have started our research by doing a content analysis (by using Google Search on www. google.nl) of the different local initiatives that have popped-up, and are active during the month of April 2013 in the North-Holland province of the Netherlands. We have found 69 communities, ranging from communities of interest (e.g. Sustainability, Energy, and Healthcare) to communities of places (e.g. villages, neighbors, or specific public spaces such as parks or streets).

We are able to distinguish the communities in three groups: Communities who feel something needs to be done, but they do not see the public sector take the affirmative action.

Instead they do it themselves. Then there are communities who take this to the next step, and include a wider directed view, not only taking action, but planning about action for others too.

The last groups though, sees the actions of the public sector, but does not agree and call for the right to challenge the decisions. These interest groups are in fact the most traditional type of civil participation, but rather than calling for political change, they too become active and institute multiple communication tools (instigated by the network society) to take the matter into their own hands, and become active on a different way than would be possible in the past.

CHALLENGE: Kritisch Platform Windenergie de Zijpe (KWPZ) KPWZ is a group of neighbors that CHALLENGE the building of turbine windmills surrounding their private properties. De Zijpe, a reclaimed land in the far north tip of the mainland North-Holland province, has been proposed by provincial state parliament as a gathering zone of large scale wind energy farms.

The neighbors’ Henno and Edwin are two of the neighbors that started KPWZ to act on their right to challenge.

ACT: Transition Town Castricum (TTC) TTC is “a network of residents from the village of Castricum that have gathered on the value and interest to make their way of living and working less oil dependent and more sustainable and social� (transitiontown.nl, 2013).

PLAN: Sustainable Wetering community (SWC) SWC is a group of inhabitants of the Wetering district in Amsterdam that received a large fund to make their heritage listed private houses more energy sufficient. But the group initially congregated because they wanted the neighborhood to be more sustainable, in the widest definition of the word. And now extent there goals to become one of the first self-directed neighborhoods in the Netherlands.

Maartje and Moniek are two of the many enthusiast who work to plan the future of the Wetering District.

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Windmill Š Flickr CC, 2013

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Right to challenge:

Kritisch Platform

Windenergie de Zijpe (KPWZ) The KPWZ community challenges the building of windmills in their region. Both new and existing towers. They fight a battle against the windmills of large energy companies, and the current opinion in the public sphere; “that windmills are sustainable, so inevitable a good thing”.

When I first met Henno, he thought I was a journalist looking for stories to show on the regional public broadcaster RTVNH. I told him that I might be interested to tell his story on the regional news. So he responded like journalist sources should; with enthusiasm and an unspoken carefulness about the viciousness of their counter partner. Henno though, turned this unbalance in power around by mentioning how other national broadcasters also showed interest in the story, and that he had to weigh up against my intentions and theirs.

This careful and agile position is typical for the way KPWZ members have to deal with public and market parties, they sometimes effortlessly re-act, instead of act. Fighting against the tides – lobby groups and often statistically based evidence, which they oppose with the emotional narratives of stressed neighbors, who talk about their problems while some of us, standing in front of these large windmills, including myself, are constrained to empathize because we do not hear nor feel the disturbing vibrations. The general opinion is that only two out of ten residents are susceptible for it.

The motive - It started as an innocent novelty about thirty years ago; neighboring farmers bought small wind turbines, “dishwashers” as they are called in the local colloquial. Small

fast sweeping turbines, which caused no nuisance problems to the neighbors. But in the last decade many of them where replaced by modern windmills, yielding a surplus of energy power and completely changing the architectural outlook; from 10-20 meter high hyperactive combustions to 100-200 meter high ‘blades on a pole’ snoring slowly; swish, swish, swish It is this sweeping background noise which let the neighbors congregate and formed the KPWZ platform. Because besides the troubled relations between farmers and their neighbors, the state government of the North-Holland province appointed the area as a gathering zone of large scale wind energy farms. It seems reasonable to appoint the Wieringermeer and de Zijper Polder for large scale wind farms. The two areas have a low population per square kilometer (133 inhabitants/km2 for the municipality of Hollandse Kroon). Enough open land to build large scale wind farms, you might think. But reality is different. Many of the already build windmills are located at less than the recommended distance from buildings.

Furthermore, other advantages of a low populated area - the sensations of stillness and the romanticized retreat to the countryside - continue to trouble the way residents feel about the building of windmills. Rather than blending in with other noises, in the night the sweeping sounds stand-alone against the silence.

KPWZ community

- solution based - emotions - open discussion - transparancy

x 2000

- harmony - elegance - content - design

affiliated national community group

- deliberative - sovereignty - equality - emotions

- solidarity - reputation - electorial gain

media

Specific political party affiliates

- capital profit - rationality - functionality - distanced - safety - frugality - environmental - sustainability

- democracy - controle - rationality - organization - sovereignty - consultation - sustainability

state parlement community Specific political party affiliates

energy companies

actor nodes (human and non-human) associations between actors value nodes

The network of cooperation of KPWZ, based on journalistic interview methods and website research conducted in April 2013 Š AtelierVA

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How they challenge

Key issues

The community challenges the decision making processes of spatial professionals and politicians. KPWZ is not against windmills, Edwin says: “We would like to see more sustainability efforts in our region, but sustainability is not only clean energy, also a clear and open discussion about where and how we should realize this clean energy. So not the one-sided story we are seeing now; it is clean so good and the nuisance is not so bad. Instead we need a wider societal discussion about the benefits and the downsides of land based windmills (translated).”

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“We have to be careful not to align too much to certain political parties, we are non-political”.

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Some of the alternative solutions to the windmill problem are non-negotiable due to landscape architectural norms and values (windmills should be built in straight lines).

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It is problematic to tell our story, since the nuisance is subjective to every individual.

Some of us are not troubled by the sound and vibrations, others feel they are in a tunnel with continuous trains passing by.

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“Government lacks the implementation of a Wind bank (a state wide effort to regroup nuisance given windmills), they’ve said they will, but the bureaucratic process slows the process down”.

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“We have continuously invited energy companies to talk about our cases, but they fail to respond to our invitation.

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KPWZ does not communicate with their huge affiliate community, they only inform (one-way communication). Rather they could actively engage to address or search for solutions.

The members challenge the way the debate is shaped and feel a gap between rational thinkers and emotional victims; “we should create more understanding for other state habitants, so people in the southern regions of the province also understand our thoughts. They just think; “well it is sustainable and free, so fine, besides almost nobody lives there”. But in this tiny dwelling, 80 of us are highly troubled or concerned about the future, you now this is 80% of this dwellings’ residents, it all depends how you look at it (translated)”.

The network of cooperation - The community challenges the way public services dealing with private and public interests. They understand the power of market investments in the area, but question if these investment are really beneficial to the local economy. Telling this story to as many people as possible, would theoretically benefit the goals of KPWZ.

PVDA Statemember at the Windmill bustour © PVV NH 2013

Solution orientated - But since the community is not against sustainable energy, let alone windmills, the groups tries to be helpful and solution oriented. Their online platform (2000+ affiliates) works like an open-source database for agreement and solutions. It represents the critical part of local residents, who sympathize with each other and like to inform about the issues at hand. But this huge backing is not used to its full potential. New bridges between these nodes, including a solution oriented frame, would connect political representatives with their electorate, and media with a new reservoir of data and narratives. The shared solution oriented direction would also fill some structural holes in the network. Turning the negative re-acting around to a positive acting story would frame KPWZ as a constructive and heuristic affiliate in the network. This is what state members of the province prefer to see.

They are assigned to create 685 megawatt of land based wind energy in their province (to execute the national energy agenda) and ask the question. “If we don’t do it where you want to, where should we?”

Community members interview former PVDA council member for RTVNH © AtelierVA

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BIASES: RECALIBRATE •

Create devices so the larger network society is able to empathize with other actors, increase the understanding and perception of the wider provincial North-Holland society.

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Debate the architectural point of view to only build aligned rows of windmills in Dutch rural areas.

The debate is whether this aesthetic value is more important than economic or livability values (due to this “artificial view”, as residents say, planners have to find other locations to build there windmills, locations that undermine the interest of local residents. Locals consequently frame landscape architects as “opposed and ill-perceived to our personal problems”).

CONNECT •

Create ‘interaction devices,’ to build additional ties between energy companies, other state politicians and the KPWZ platform. Devaluating the single bridge function of specific party affiliate members (to fill structural holes).

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Gain support for wind banks, by mapping and forwarding possible locations and create the support for these solutions among stakeholders.

GLUE •

Nudge the 2000+ sympathizers of KPWZ to be more actively involved into the debate KPWZ started. First of all to connect other nodes to the network (such as media and other political parties), secondly to find alternative solutions (such as cooperative based windmill investments or collective action to find alternative locations).

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“The right not to stay on the tracks” - walk in the dunes of Castricum © Flickr CC, 2013

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Right to act:

Transition

Town Castricum (TTC) The TTC is a enthousiast group of residents from Castricum, a small village in the North-Holland province of the Netherlands.

The members of TTC are concerned about the way their village is developing, and unite on the basis of this. They take pride in the position, that they are “further then politics and markets” (transitiontowns.nl) and therefore go the extra mile to change Castricum. There modus-operandi is encapsulated in the Transition town ethos (and book). Transition Town is a global UK led organization that equip communities for the dual challenges of climate change and peak oil issues. This source of practical and theoretical knowledge functions as a guide to supports the key members to spread their concerns in an often different-thinking environment. This - as is our point of view - helps them to be self-confidence when they present themselves as “change thinkers.”

The motive - The core members force on the right to act. They like to make their own village less oil dependent, more sustainable and more social. They do this by starting small-scale, bottom-up and community-based initiatives.

There is a local repair-cafe, a permaculture garden and a debating and visioning events scheme. Furthermore they would like to expand the range of projects, from car sharing to other awareness initiatives. But many other project do not make it from the drawing board.

The availability of time and passion are the main disturbance factors. The ethos of the Transition Town forwards an ‘organic’ growth.

Communities are stimulated to stay close to the perception and understanding of the local society.

How they act The ‘human scale’ attitude is shown in the way TTC organizes their projects. They cooperate in a well-tempered, social way. There are no deadlines or must do’s. Everything is done in a volunteering spirit - taking care of and adapt to, are very important behavior rules. These too are extracted from the transition town guidelines.

This might be interpreted as an oppressive frame - which is of course a subjective interpretation - but individuals take a great deal into empathizing with group members. They believe in a heuristic frame, taking emotions and rational opinions as equal values. This much expanded consciousness might feel paternalistic; since it blocks individuals from criticizing others.

Besides it cuts of the possibility of individuals to take the lead in reaching the general targets of the community. However this is, as it seems, just the point they are trying to make. New projects are not vertically developed (existing members do more) instead horizontally (new members follow their “passion,” and start new projects).

This means there are no admission requirements (open access) and the core members have to trust others, and consequently lose control about the way the community develops.

In this attitude we find both the communities’ strength and fallacy. In a volunteering spirit, it works great to conduct different acts between individuals in the group; everybody blooms in its own way - others try to empathize and be inspired. But this ethos seem to oppose some other values, normally at hand among professional groups, possibly too in the larger Castricum society.

City council community

Associate local community - democracy - sovereignty - consultation - acting on the general interest

other local affiliates - positivism - self eicacy - social cognitivity - interdependency - resillience

- biosphere consciousness - environmental - self-suiciency - independency

TTC community

actor nodes (human and non-human) associations between actors value nodes

- sharing - biosphere awareness - multiple use of spaces - meeting of other subcommunities permaculture community

The network of cooperation of the Transition Town Castricum community, based on journalistic interview methods and Facebook/Ning network research conducted in April 2013 Š AtelierVA

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So cooperation with non-insiders (e.g. institutions that do not follow the Transition Town guidelines) turned out to be difficult. Our intentions to cooperate with RTVNH (the regional public broadcaster) failed because we could not find common grounds. In TTC terminology this means finding someone with the passion, confidence and time to become a journalist and moviemaker. It begs the question if cooperation on the basis of ‘asking TTC to join’ is possible at all. The succes or failure though, might depend more on the (in)flexibility of public institutions to find translations, then to the way community-led associations are organized.

Adaptability to other communities is a subject which is fundamental when describing the position of community-led organizations within a larger network society. (In network sociological terms; communities are formed by information flows of same value and interest. Societies by the many networks that represent a social structure inherited in information flows (Castells, 2009). When the community unites on the basis of challenging, acting or planning in a specific society, one should ask the question what values describe this specific society - and what position the community has within these bounderies. Let us focus on the way TTC deals with this issue.

The network of cooperation - The Transition Network proliferates the idea of working on their own within a local group of dedicated people. But also stimulates growth and encourages groups to increase their effectiveness by cooperating with the local council and local businesses (Transition Network, 2013). So does TTC, they for example explained their acts to the local council and continu to unfold their projects, cooperating with affiliate local communities, government and businesses. They base the cooperation on the value of creating a more resillient society on a local scale. The “elephant in the room” is the “extremely de-

Key issues •

High Survivability / Low flexibility, of the community network. The codices of the global Transition Town community take a very central position in the network.

This makes TTC very survivable, but little flexible, since human actors can leave the network, without implosion of the community, but there are only a few agreed codices – the ones that are prescribed in the guide of the UK based Transition Town movement.

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A lack of support is a threat for individuals to abandon the TTC community (enthusiasts might feel alone, if they are the only one with a drive for certain subjects).

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When TTC would continue their aim to become a society-wide local network, they would imply the incorporation of institutionalized (solidified) nodes. Un-programmability though is one characteristic of institutions such as government (which are in fact a solidified set of values and interests). The main issue then is how the work ethos of TTC infringes with these solidified codices.

pendable system” of Castricum and its global connections based on global capitalism (TTC, 2011; Nijman, Dekker, Meijboom (2013). In network sociological words; the Castricum society as a whole should build more propinqual structural coherent, degree central ties between social units (people) who are ‘in’. Far-fetched maybe, and a resemblance to 19th century nation-builders, but not a unique point of view when dealing with community-led organizations.

(most of them would be professionals such as politicians and other civil servants), for the sake of simplicity, we single out the one-way information act (flow) of voting one’s every four year.

Society IN/OUT - Now, a new questions arises, because what is the Castricum society? First of all, we are not able to follow the global internet network society by mentioning everybody who has a computer or other device to be IN, and all others are OUT. Primarily because there is no such thing as a Castricum network tool. The Castricum society is not defined by its communication platform. Secondly, as 19th century nation builders we would reply by saying that everything and everybody within a geographical border is the Castricum society. But remember, instead of geographical borders, network societies are defined by information flows, and interdependency should be seen in terms of having access and control, not in separation acts.

Test-driver - The working ethos describes the way TTC visions this network of nodes and ties that represent the Castricum society. This is a horizontal growth, based on high empathic skills, trust in each other and open access and distributed control. Considering this, the community members are the test-driver of a yet to shape Castricum society; balancing the fragile and undefined borders between understanding and perceiving, when empathizing and adapting to what others think and feel. This is, to us, the key issue the Transition Town Castricum community makes in the larger village society.

Do stuff - Following these arguments, TTC would like to build more interdependable ties within the local society. Being IN the Castricum society seems to be, to our belief, everybody with access and control to act in the society with a clear message “you can do something” (Nijman et al. 2013) (i.e. being able to create more ties, while acting). This is the claim TTC makes. But if the Castricum society is everyone with access and control to the shaping of the society, then much of today’s Castricum society is limited to just a few nodes in the network

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A thriving and successful local society should be empathic (perceivable and understandable), thus not consisting of long strings of information flows, the way global capitalism is normally shaped.

Artist Impression of a Transition Town vision in Castricum © TTC Facebook 2012

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BIASES: CONNECT •

Create ‘devices’ so members of the Transition Town community (and others) are able to better perceive and understand (empathize) with each other in the horizontal hierarchy they operate.

RECALIBRATE •

Create a better and mutual understanding of what is the Castricum Society. What are the common values and interests in the society program?

GLUE •

Create nudges to increase the TTC networks’ relative few multiplexity ties (more than one type of link between nodes, such as colleague and friend, or business partner and TT enthusiast). This would create stronger bonds and a denser more resilient network.

(RE)PROGRAM •

Start a local discussion about what is the Castricum society. Is it an open-access network? Of which defining values and interests (program) consists this network?

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The defining values- and interest-set of the Transition Town community is prescribed in the guidelines and ethos of the global movement. The question is whether this set is open enough to allow actors make translations; to create shared space, equivalence and commensurability (Plesner, 2009). To gain more insight into this subject, we would recommend you to read the next chapter about the Wetering Community.

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Former warehouses in the Wetering District Š AtelierVA

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Right to plan:

The Sustainable Wetering

Community (SWC) The Sustainable Wetering Community is a group of neighbors in the Amsterdam Wetering District. They enforce a sustainable agenda to help ‘preserve’ their neighborhood, and received a fund of 250.000 euro to pilot the making of their UNESCO listed habitats into low-energy emitting houses. But the community wanted more, and opened-up the restrictive definition of sustainability, only as an energy related subject. Together with other associate local communities they continue the work of the thirty plus year old Wetering neighborhood association (WeteringVerbetering), so the district “continues to be a pleasant place to live and work.”

Under this larger “umbrella” association, different communities may operate as long as they align to a grounded historical and spatial consciousness. This in theory means that different values and interest can flourish side by side, without much interference of interests.

But we have also learned there are issues concerning this very divide, and interests between social units have to be weighted continuously to align everybody to the progressive cause described in the codices of the neighborhood community. Especially now they pledge the right to plan and wish to take over democratic and decision making processes normally executed by the city council.

The motive - Maartje started the WeteringDuurzaam community (the Sustainable Wetering Community) in 2011. In this act, she forwarded sustainability as the added value to the already existing value set of the larger neighborhood association. She called for like-minded people

in the neighborhood periodical; “I was very nervous, what would they think? But this is,” she told us, “also part of the struggle of today, we, the public, have to be taken serious again, let us stand on our own two feed and come forward with our concerns, and act consequently.

We have forgotten how normal this actually is.

So now you - government (added) - have to let us grow; give us the space and freedom to discover our own values” (translated). The experiences of Maartje concerning this issue made her emphasize these last words; “when we appeal to the city council, they are all positive when we talk about our dreams and our cute projects such as city farms and solar panels.

But when we infringe ourselves in their space, and really challenge the way government is dealing with the responsibilities they have, then they withdraw and start to defend themselves, since they are keepers of ‘the general interest,’ and we are unable to take over these tasks” (translated).

How they plan The SWC members have a lot of energy and ideas, but seem to be overwhelmed by the amount of work necessary to change even the smallest things in a crowded, ‘institutionalized’ neighborhood. Besides UNESCO listed, the area is central located (which mean that there are many opposing interests) and the local Amsterdam authority can sometimes be - as officers themself admit; “a multi-headed monster.”

To change just a little thing, one should ask for permits, change regulations and find solutions to problems that completely contradict with the point of view of the community.

A lot of time is wasted to organize the bureaucratic rumble before even starting a new project. In fall of last year, Maartje told us, they filled in a request to ‘green’ public space (remove some tiles along the facades and place small containers on the pavement). It took them half a year to get the approval and a small fund. By then they had to wait for next spring of the following year to plant new vegetation’s. Nico Karsijns, the responsible officer told us these are very normal procedures, since it takes that long to inform and get an approval of all the different services: “To be frank, SWC is luckily, at the moment, one of the few communities out there. If there would be more initiatives, we wouldn’t be able to handle all the work. The organizations in my district take about two-thirds of my time: It is the internal organization, meeting other civil servants and finding feasible ways to respond, that take most of my time. We therefore try to standardize our responds. Because we forecast the amount of initiatives will grow. The Sustainable Wetering Community is the early adapter” (translated).

The network of cooperation - SWC, like TTC, wants to be more independent to global economic processes. They pledge the right to plan to take the future of the district in their own hands, and change the value system of the Wetering society at large. Where the interests of the residents come first, and the city-wide economic interests second. This economic interest is demonstrated in the continuous growth of the tourist sector. This Maartje told us; “creates destabilized neighborhoods.” But instead of calling out for the ‘elephant in the room,’ they talk about cooperation with other institutions and communities on a different (sustainability) level: “Because when the local economy is analyzed with a long term sus-

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tainable mind-set, or ‘we would go abstract enough’, one sees how ridiculous some of these projects are. It seems that tourism and other short term economic growth projects are the only viable narratives around” (translated).

Value – In other words, SWC wants to change the value set of the Wetering society at large, and implement sustainability as the defining value (and all social structures are organized according to it). If so, they should become an agenda setting community (or institution) and assign sustainability to all transaction within the society (which will order non-sustainable structures as irrelevant). In a network society, as in other social structures, what is value is decided by the dominant institutions in society. If the dominant institution is global capitalism, the supreme value is the accumulation of financial assets in the global financial markets (Castells, 2009). “The lack of a sustainable value at market or public sector parties is the biggest cross-grain out there (translated)” says Monica, another core member of SWC. This is exactly what the community plans to change.

To make sustainability the defining value in the local Wetering society.

Alignment of values – So essentially, the pledge to plan is an act of implementing a set of translations in order to align the values and interests in the Wetering District. To remind us;

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translations are the process of reaching common definitions. A successful process of translation generates a shared space, equivalence and commensurability in an actor-network (Plesner, 2009). The million dollar question is whether SWC is able to find these translations?

And subsequently, if this can be done within the Wetering associations’ umbrella organization and with local institutional social units on the other side (such as government)?

Expansion of the network – Aligning can be done in two ways; first of all one can spread the word and convince people to join and take over the leading values and interests of the Wetering Community. Secondly one can be open for new input, and translate your own value-sets according to your communication with others.

In the first option, the network grows symmetrically and from the inside-out. The core-members have a central position, and are able to create dense and flexible networks. The translations in this case is one-sided, since reaching common definition means that others align to the goals of WC. The second case, the networks grow asymmetrically, adding different cliques (dense structures of nodes) and loose ties.

These type of networks have a high survivability, scalability, and generally said, a lot of bridges. This type of network is comparable to the way social networks on the internet operate.

The likelihood of translations is very high, since there is no (or little) hierarchy.

The network of the SWC corresponds to the first type, a central oriented type of expansion

that falls short off horizontal expansion, since the way common goals and combining resources between networks is dealt with. Additionally, in an undescribed (liberal) program as in the neighborhood association, there is the danger that certain communities become the dominant social unit (the elite group). This seem to be one of the mayor concerns in the Wetering society. Both from the inside-out; how will SWC (and WC) grow and prosper, with the right alignment (and accompanying translations)?

And, from the outside-in; how will WC continue to be an open organization, where different communities can define their personal narratives?

In respond to this conclusion, both Maartje en Moniek added that in the case of the cooperation between habitants, the aligning is done according to the second type, because it is organized around the overall Wetering association (WC), a non-human node, without many attributes attached, so individuals have a lot of freedom to shape their own narratives. We have no further data to support or denounce this. In this document we have traced the connections between community members and spatial professionals (civil servants and such).

The right approach to organize the structure of the entire network is yet to be found. A topdown approach might work (think of how the merchant communities, as described in the preface, spread their interest and values).

Members of the Sustainable Wetering Community’ © centrum.amsterdam.nl

“Coalition of execution” (architect and builders)

Wetering Community

- perfection of production - collectively + cooperation instead of competition - capital value - reliability - standarizing - service oriented

- democracy - rol-playing - being reliable - being a ‘hatch’ - only custom based processes - informal cooperation Municipality- city wide services

actor nodes (human and non-human)

Municipality- city district services

- stability - long term vision - independency - instigating (boosting) - consensus driven; sustainability - taking action

- democracy - facilitate - standarization - lack of time + difference in rhythm - consensus driven; “general interest”

associations between actors value nodes

The network of cooperation of the Wetering community - registered between April-June 2013, based on journalistic interview methods and website network research © AtelierVA

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But might also block valuable input of others, and consequently will tie communities together in a fixed network of relative closed groups within a hierarchical relation (such as a traditional working sphere). A bottom-up approach on the other hand, will create an entirely different process, with it’s - as we have again seen in the preface, conflicting interests, possible abuses of power and surreptitious deals. Is it possible then, to organize a concept and answer both questions; how the Wetering District will grow and prosper? And how this can be done without the definition of a dominant value?

Sustainability – One key issue is that SWC tried to create a dominant narrative by implementing a broad sustainability program (to be clear; a program in network sociology is a combination of ideas, visions, projects and frames - not a list of bullet points). But this program encountered some problems; to start, Maartje described the problematic consonance of the world; “People frame it in terms of obligations; you have to stop eating meat, you have to stop traveling” (translated). The Transition Town Castricum network for example found a positive association of the word. They focus on doing processes without obligations (you only do anything, when you have the passion and enthusiasm to do so). But the goals of SWC are programmatic, not procedural, partly because the SWC was initiated with professional help to organize and plan the pilot to make their habitats into low-energy emitting houses. This pushed them in a “programmatic mode,” and obligated them to create solidified goals. While it might have been better to first create a thriving SWC, before taking a huge responsibility in managing a quarter of a million euro in funds.

Program manager – But this planning direction might well be a prosperous one. The community, to us, is one of the most significant initiatives out there. There goals extend further then normally into the profession environments of

Key issues •

How to change the value set of the Wetering society at large, and implement sustainability as the defining value in the social system?

•

Find useful translations between the many different social units in the network, on the basis of consensus decision-making and the majority rule (deliberate democracy).

•

How to nudge neighbors into taking over the communities’ extended consciousness frame.

•

Burn-out is a common threat for volunteering work (WRR, 2012). This threat lingers around the Wetering community too, since it is vertically organized (same actors do more). But the community has two options to solve this:

1- Become more horizontal and distributed, leaving the strict goals of the community behind, so others can enter with their issues.

2- Become a social enterprise,

pledging for the responsibility

and organization of the public

affairs of the neighborhood, and the

financial responsibilities attached to it.

•

Find nudges, so the position of program managers is trusted by other social units in the Wetering society. So WC becomes an advisor/consultant – in between professional communities and residents of the Wetering District. If more initiatives evolve – with privately developed values and interests – WC is able to fill the structural hole in the network (with many

mainstream institutions that shape ‘the wetering neighborhood society’ (if we follow the definition of society as nodes that have access and control). They therefore have realized that “a change of the ‘money stream’” is necessary.

As Maartje says: “I think we should turn back the public money stream, things that we now take for granted; taxations or healthcare utilities, should come back into the hands of the public.

This means we are self-directed, and decide ourselves how we spend our money” (translated).

The social enterprise - We see in this the next step of the local community movement. In the general boom-bust-boom trajectory of new innovations; it is the third and second-to-last stage, in technological terms called: “the slope of enlightenment” (Anderson, 2011). Where the naivety of ‘this is going to change the world’ has given in and substituted by the idea of being part of the mainstream of processes (but not so cool anymore).

However, the consequences inherited in this evolution might still be substantial for the spatial planning disciplines: a process of identification and customization will happen. Neighborhoods become more custom-based and take the fruits (economical and societal) of their endeavors, in beautification and social capital on one side, but in distribution of (among other) financial capital on the other.

Distributing local waste - The handling of waste the Wetering Community forwards is one example of a “reversed-process”. The members disagree with the way the municipality takes the garbage in plastic bags, and transports it to a waste to energy plant - somewhere in Europe (but probably in the local harbor plant). Instead SWC would like to re-use the local green waste for their own city farms. They would bring the waste to a nearby farmer to compost. The regular resident of the Wetering district pays a fee of 318,72 euro (excl. VAT) a year. With about 2200 residents this means a fee of 701.184 euro.

46

Changing this money stream would create a big fund to realize the SWC’s goals, and create wider support and involvement of neighbors. Without the necessity of horizontal alignment of values.

We have presented this idea to Nico Karsijns, the responsible officer at the municipality central area department of planning. Much to our surprise he responded with enthusiasm.

But the longer we deliberated about the consequences, the more doubts he expressed: “It would be counterintuitive to the rational and efficiency attitudes of civil servants - how can a custom-based approach be any better than standardization? How can this be better than our certified collecting service - how would they comply with the strict European rules of health and safety?

Change your perception - The answer to the above questions is that they would not, they would not comply with these rules. Nor would the group be more efficient than the garbage pick-up trucks. The thing is, with the many democratization revolutions we now experience, it is not about lean-mean or customer comfort based processes. It can be done better because of a collective involvement of every node in the network - including the group ‘formally known as the customer.’ When every resident would bring the garbage to a central location, we would not need a pick-up truck at all. This change-thinking is the SWC’s strength and their biggest advantage, especially to the neighbor society. Our advice is to let them get the space and the freedom to discover their own strength’s as program managers, which would involve many errors and failures, and, maybe, just a few successes. But we believe that these successes greatly outbalance the failures, because on the long term, it is either to choose between the “venetianizing” of the district (synonym for empty tourist cities), or a sustainable, social and poverty free neighborhood. We would opt-in for the second choice.

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BIASES: CONNECT •

Create ‘devices’ so other Wetering society members are able to disseminate/ propagate their personal concerns and ideas – and SWC is able to consult these issues, and act as a bridge node between different social units in the local society, strengthen the overall networks’ structural cohesion.

•

Create ‘devices’ to monitor the success of the Sustainble Wetering community. To convince institutions (communities with fixed values and interests) affiliated or just outside the network, to understand and perceive the new approach SWC forwards.

•

Create ‘devices’ so neighbors are able to better perceive and understand each other, forwarding the ‘loneliness and empathic agenda’ of the Wetering community.

GLUE •

Create new spatial nodes (physical spaces) for the Wetering community to use for their collective needs; temporarily - on a different location - or in multi-use context with other communities. Connecting other nonpropinquial* nodes to the network.

REPROGRAM •

Find ways (read translations) to ‘re-route’ the intentions of the community, when they stumble upon the many solidified values and interest of institutional nodes in a monumental central located neighborhood (when laws and regulations block them from pursuing their intentions).

* A measure, in social psychology, to describe the interpersonal attraction, both physical and psychological, between nodes in a network. refering to i.e. spatial closeness or natural similarity.

Conclusion CDU is a framework to analyze, organize and nudge the urban initiatives of three communities in the North-Holland province of the Netherlands. The framework can be used to analyze how, in network linguistics; nodes are connected to each other by information flows. Furthermore, CDU describes the context in which the nodes (or actors) operate. This is done by organizing a connection between the geographical layout (the spatial neighborhood, village or region) and the social network layer. Both the analysis and the organization of the networks deliver a number of biases, or improvements, which can be used by designers to solve social and spatial issues.

Both KPWZ, TTC and SWC members cooperate in a community-based social unit, based on equal value and interests. The individuals have congregated on common grounds, either because they challenge the decision making of the dominant community in the society, in case of KPWZ. Or because they wish to act or plan in the local society, because they see the dominant community fail to adapt to contemporary challenges. This is the case of TTC and SWC.

Starting from the bottom-up, the networks grew as we progressed our efforts to trace the many ties different actors made. Our networks developed from the inside out.

48

The social network society To fully understand the circumstances in which the three organizations operate, we have visualized the social networks of the three communities. Starting from the bottom-up, the networks grew as we progressed our efforts to trace the many ties different actors made.

Our networks developed from the inside out.

This has the consequence that we are not able to fully understand the communities’ position within the local society networks. We should understand that a society is made of a network of communities, institutions and social units, all with different values and interests, which in a fully grown network society communicate and interact anywhere, while relying on a support infrastructure. In other words, a society is a social structure coded by culture (culture is a set of values and believes that inform, guide and motivate people’s behavior). And guided by networks activated by microelectronics-based, digitally processed information and communication technologies (Castells, 2009).

The boundaries of these societies depend on the program implemented and the switchers* in the network that are able to glue, connect, recalibrate or reprogram the society’s network.

In both the Transition Town and Wetering community we have seen that the actors challenge the program of this village or neighborhood network. They either call out or challenge to the dominant decision making community (government and elite social units) to reprogram the defining values and interests attached to it. But both communities try to achieve this in very different ways.

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Transition Town Castricum - One of the most interesting trials of the TTC community is found in the way they try to cooperate, empathize inwards, and therefore grow horizontally, from the inside out. But TTC does this without a support platform (infrastructure) to create more inclusive society wide processes (although the network is included in the wider Castricum society, our hypothesis is that they perform in a peripheral part of the society network). In comparison to the Wetering community, they lack a better description of what constitutes the Castricum program. They can therefore operate self-sufficient, but might then not achieve the implementation of their values and interests in the wider Castricum society. If this would ever be there goal.

Sustainable Wetering Community - SWC on the other hand operates in a dense and complex society on a neighborhood level. Because of the many restrictions, barricades and even sieges this brought along, the community seemed to have gained a central location in the local society. They have created many ties with the dominant decision making community and are able to understand and perceive other more peripheral communities in the societies’ network. But SWC lacks the process to implement a reprogramming effort. There are either to little translations between the many different social units within the complex society, or the program of SWC is too rigid for others to find a shared space, equivalence or commensurability. Biases though which can be solved, first of all to look for new geographical spaces in the society (to mark; societies are not bounded by geographical borders but by a combination of social and media networks that shape its prime mode of organization and most important structures at all levels (Van Dijk, 1991).

Secondly to change the program they developed to be implemented in the Wetering society. And thirdly, to focus on the horizontal growth of the community – and to use the central position to loosely bind other communities to the support infrastructure and become an advising and expert social structure for others.

Kritisch Platform Windenergy de Zijpe - KPWZ on the other hand only challenges a small part of the culturally defined network society (that of the provincial state of North-Holland, the Netherlands). Because of this KPWZ might seem to be the odd one out, but the network reveals a number of interesting issues and biases that give us some new insights in the way community-led organizations relate to other dominant and professional networks in the network society. In this case though, KPWZ’s goal is not to reprogram the entire network, instead only to recalibrate a tiny bit of it.

Likewise SWC, the members of KPWZ are also trying to find translations with political and professional social units.

A society is a social structure coded by culture (culture is a set of values and believes that inform, guide and motivate people’s behavior), and guided by networks activated by microelectronics-based, digitally processed information and communication technologies (Castells, 2009).

* Actors with the ability to constitute networks, and to program/reprogram the network(s) in terms of goals assigned to the network (Castells, 2009).

They do this by attending the media in order to reach the entire provincial society – calling out to change the public opinion so the dominant institutions and decision-making communities are expected to respond. Furthermore they take a shortcut in this information flow, and connect directly to the dominant community.

But these flows heavily depend on pre-networked (industrial) programs. The media is bounded to certain institutional values and interests, and politicians are fixed in a state program of representation and party platforms. All of these groups aim to assert sovereignty for their actions and the monopoly on the decision-making over its subjects (Castells, 2009). For example, the gatekeeper journalist (we decide what is news) and the politicians claim to execute the public choice (we are there to make rules and regulations on behalf of the public).

But both institutions are changing due to the network societies’ influence. The emerging network state (e.g. Participatie maatschappij) is characterized by sharing the sovereignty and responsibility between different institutions and communities (although the latter is what these community-led organisations challenge and fight for). Shed in this light, KPWZ should instead of re-act, try to find the possibilities to take over responsibilities – either by organizational (finding synergy between social units), technical (improving protocols of communication) or political (decreasing bureaucracy/ increasing accountability) aspects. The biases described in the KPWZ chapter each represent one of these aspects in regaining control and access over decision-making processes.

Institutions are changing due to the network societies’ influence.

The emerging network state (e.g. participatie maatschappij) is characterized by sharing the sovereignty and responsibility between different institutions and communities

50

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•

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Anderson, C. (2012), Makers: the new industrial revolution. Random House Business Books.

New York

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Schwartz, B. Sharpe, K. (2011). Practical Wisdom; the right way to do the right thing, Riverhead Publishers, New York

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Appendix 1 Fig.1 Table of the analytic and descriptive metrics of the KPWZ, TTC, WC networks and an assumed network of the Alewijn story in the preface act (TTC)

plan (WC)

Trickle down

Supportive

Expert

Trickle down

N⁰ of communities

3(1)

5(3)

4(1)

4(n/a)

Closeness centrality

high

high

low

high

low

low

high

low

1.2

1.1

1.5

n/a

low

high

very high

high

(3) normal

(7) very high

(5) high

(6) very high

low

low

very high

low

2

0

Analytic

challenge (KPWZ)

Preface

Type

Network typology

Direction

Hierarchy / Heterarchy

N⁰ of communities (from which community-led)

Average distance of ties

Degree centrality Average number of ties

Multiplexity

N⁰ of multiple ties between nodes

Propinquity

Internode attraction based on geographic nearness

Bridges

Single ties that are the only link, or shortaged link between nodes/ clusters

Density

The proportion of ties, relative to the maximum number of ties

Structural holes

The absence of ties in a specific part of the network

Cliquiness

0

n/a

very high

low

high

n/a

(2) weak

(5) strong

(1) very weak

(3) weak

low

low

high

n/a

very low

high

low

n/a

Survivability

high

very high

very low

n/a

Asymmetry

low

very high

very high

n/a

high

very low

Tendency to interact more with mutual nodes

Structural cohesion

Minimal number of actors to disconnect the group

Flexibility

Ability to reconfigure according to changing environments

Scalability

Ability to expand or shrink in size with little disruption

Ability to withstand attacks to their nodes without losing vital codices

Possibility to increase (clone) communities

Descriptive

54 Exclusiveness

Tendency to exclude / incompatibility to align to other values

N⁰ of translations

Distribution of shared values

Publicness

Tendency to form translations

Function of non-human actors

Functionality of non-human actors in

(3) high

high

n/a

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(3) high

(0) very low

n/a

high

very high

very low

n/a

agenda-setting

periferal

agenda-setting

agenda-setting

Degree centrality Average number of ties

Multiplexity

N⁰ of multiple ties between nodes

Propinquity

Internode attraction based on geographic nearness

Bridges

Single ties that are the only link, or shortaged link between nodes/ clusters

Density

The proportion of ties, relative to the maximum number of ties

Structural holes

The absence of ties in a specific part of the network

Cliquiness

Tendency to interact more with mutual nodes

Structural cohesion

Minimal number of actors to disconnect the group

Analytic

Flexibility

Ability to reconfigure according to changing environments Type Network typology

Scalability

Ability to expand or shrink in size with little disruption

Direction Survivability Hierarchy / Heterarchy

Ability to withstand attacks to their nodes without losing vital codices

low

low

high

low

1.2

1.1

1.5

n/a

low

high

very high

high

(3) normal

(7) very high

(5) high

(6) very high

low

low

very high

low

2

0

0

n/a

very high

low

high

n/a

(2) weak

(5) strong

(1) very weak

(3) weak

low

high

very low

high

low

Trickle highdown

Supportive very high

Expert very low

Tricklen/a down

5(3) very high

4(1) very high

4(n/a) n/a

challenge (KPWZ) low

act (TTC)

plan (WC)

Preface n/a

n/a

N⁰ of communities N⁰ of communities (from which Asymmetry community-led)

3(1) low

Closeness centrality

high

high

low

low high

low very low

high high

low n/a

1.5 (0) very low

n/a n/a

Possibility to increase (clone) communities Average distance of ties

Descriptive

Degree centrality Average number of ties Exclusiveness

Tendency to exclude / incompatibility

to align to other values Multiplexity

N⁰ of multiple ties between nodes

N⁰ of translations Distribution of shared values Propinquity

Internode attraction based on geographic nearness Publicness

Tendency to form translations

Bridges Single ties that are the only link, or Function shortaged linkof between nodes/ clusters non-human actors Functionality of non-human actors in Density the proportion network of ties, relative to the The maximum number of ties

Solidified actors Structural holes(institutionalized) N⁰ unprogrammable The absence of ties in a specific part of nodes (e.g. laws, regulations) the network

Access Cliquiness Expanded consciousness concern

1.2 (3) high low high

1.1 (3) high high very high

(3) normal agenda-setting

(7) very high periferal

low

low

very high 2

very low 0

very high

high

high

very low

n/a

(5) high agenda-setting

(6) very high agenda-setting

very high very high 0

low n/a

No very high

Yes low

Yes (2) weak

Yes (5) strong

Yes (1) very weak

n/a (3) weak

Yes low

Yes low

Yes high

n/a n/a

Nolow very

Yes high

lowYes

n/an/a

Survivability

high

very high

very low

n/a

Asymmetry

low

very high

very high

n/a

high

very low

Tendency interact more with mutual related toto access nodes

Trust Structural cohesion Expanded consciousness concern Minimal number related to trust of actors to disconnect the group

Control Flexibility Expanded consciousness concern Ability relatedtotoreconfigure control according to changing environments

Engagement Scalability Expanded consciousness concern

Ability or shrink in size with relatedtotoexpand engagement little disruption

Ability to withstand attacks to their nodes without losing vital codices

Possibility to increase (clone) communities

Yes high

low

n/a n/a

Descriptive Exclusiveness

Tendency to exclude / incompatibility to align to other values

N⁰ of translations

Distribution of shared values

Publicness

Tendency to form translations

Function of non-human actors

Functionality of non-human actors in

high

n/a

(3) high

(0) very low

n/a

high

very high

very low

n/a

agenda-setting

periferal

agenda-setting

agenda-setting

(3) high

“The Transition movement is based upon the sharing of ideas between different initiatives, without a dogmatic or prescribed character. This contradicts to the first key issue of TTC described in this document. Within this organization structure, flexibility is endless and it makes connections with other more rigid organisations (such as government or corporations) possible, also in practice. The core-members recognize in this case, that ‘it’s goes like it is going’ is not always possible. Reaching targets also means, rolling up our sleeves; especially in the situations that inspire us” (translated).

Maarten Nijman (TTC member).

“The framework of the Wetering Community is like an umbrella-organization, under which everybody in the neighborhood can take his/her own initiatives, facilitated by the Wetering Community, but not guided or controlled as such. This is to my understanding the type of organization (in the making) you advise us to be. Except the SWC’s aim to be a self-directed neighborhood. There is no program, there are initiatives that go after their sole goals” (translated).

Maartje Romme (SWC member)

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