THE COMFORT OF THINGS by DANIEL MILLER

Author:DANIEL MILLER
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: polity

PORTRAIT 16

STRENGTH OF CHARACTER

Although our fieldwork was based on Stuart Street, it also included a series of much smaller streets, mainly cul-de-sacs, that led directly off Stuart Street itself. Obviously there were exceptions, but in general it seemed that there was a dearth of neighbourly relations along Stuart Street. Most people didn’t even seem to know their neighbours, and there was very little social interaction based around the street itself. This was not a place one could imagine holding street parties. Even long-term residents could only talk about local society and neighbourliness as something historical, not a feature of contemporary life. By contrast, people living in these cul-de-sacs, with only a dozen or so premises, tended to know most of the other people living there and had some sort of interaction with them. Furthermore, they thought of the area they lived in as relatively friendly and sociable. At one point Charles, who lives in one such cul-de-sac, suggested that they don’t bother having a resident’s association because they know each other so well. It would be hard to imagine a stronger contrast with Stuart Street as a whole – where the idea of a residents’ association seems impossible, since most people have no feeling of being residents of any particular place.

In the case of Charles, however, this is the kind of thing he may well have taken into account when buying his property. Because Charles cares a very great deal both about neighbourliness and about property. Of all our hundred households, he is the most committed to both these things. He runs the local Neighbourhood Watch, he certainly knows everyone in his side-street, talks to people there with some frequency and exchanges many Christmas cards with people he knows simply because they live close to him. If a meeting has been organised in order to consider some local issue, from speed bumps to policing, it is more than likely that it was Charles who organised it. It was Charles who gave evidence in support of the local pub when some people, regarded by many as NIMBYs (‘not in my back yard’), tried to limit its opening hours, if not to close it down. The NIMBYs in question then included Charles in their campaign of attack. Mind you, the NIMBYs in question had a young child to keep from being woken up and Charles does not, and Charles is the kind of person who would want us to be scrupulously fair in our reporting.

I imagine that the term Neighbourhood Watch is more often honoured in the breach. People vaguely hope that a little sticker will act as some deterrent, but in most cases, even when one’s neighbour’s house alarm has been sounding off for twenty minutes, to inform the police of this is far too ‘intrusive’. But Charles does a good deal more than just watch. This is the man seen chasing off burglars from other people’s houses in the street, alone and armed with only a baseball bat, on more than one occasion.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.