SPACES OF HOPE is exploring the often-overlooked ways in which local people and organisations have come together to improve their physical and social environments. Since the 1960s a rich but hidden history has emerged of communities drawing up their own land-use plans, owning, occupying and developing sites, initiating community projects and using art and others forms of media to communicate ideas. Bringing together universities, artists and archivists and working in partnership with the TCPA, HOPE is an AHRC-funded research project that aims to reveal these histories and spark debate about how lessons can be applied to current community place-shaping.
- Black Environmental Justice: From urban studies to radical rurals in EnglandDebbie Humphry (Oxford Brookes University) interviews Julian Agyeman, founder of the Black Environment Network (9th July 2022) Debbie Humphry: Could you just tell me briefly about your involvement in community led planning, situated in a broader context of the idea of a Black environmental justice movement? Julian Agyeman: I started out as a high schoolContinue reading “Black Environmental Justice: From urban studies to radical rurals in England”
- Insights from a London Community PlannerMichael Parkes has worked as a planner since 1967 in public, private and community sectors in GB, the Middle East, Europe and Africa. Here he reflects on his work (1985 – 2010) in London as an independent Community Planner, both self employed; as Co-ordinator of Planning Aid for London, and then as a member ofContinue reading “Insights from a London Community Planner”
- City Farms, not roads!John Le Corney, a south Londoner who’s kept his accent, moved to the Heeley area of Sheffield in 1975. As he recalled, in an interview for the Spaces of Hope project on 23rd November, he “more or less put a pin in the map”. Almost 50 years later, as John looks out over Heeley CityContinue reading “City Farms, not roads!”