SPATIAL STRATEGIES SOLUTIONS

In a previous article I wrote about hierarchies of places deliberately shaped by the designs of spatial patterns. Now I would like to show the other way round, that spatial hierarchies can also define sense of social order and values through individual spatial experience. These influences are present and active on a long timeline, even transmitted to next generations through a process which I could describe as "spatial anchoring" of individual values into the patterns of space and the qualities carried by them. Let us see an example of

Spatial anchoring

The part of a settlement sketched in the picture was built in the beginning of the 20th century at the outskirts of a small town, linked to the hemp-processing plant that was founded not long before. The town was a center of hemp production, the products were famous throughout Europe at the time, the ropes and other products of the factory were widely exported. Even the British Royal Navy used the ropes made here. The owner of the factory, a visionary in his time, channeled the prosperity pouring in into providing high-standard living conditions for the workers of the factory –in accordance with the standards of the period.

The first level of spatial differences was obvious in the opposition between the structure of the major part of the town defined by agricultural production, and the structure of the new settlement defined by industrial production patterns. In this relation, the industrial structure had the value of being more modern or developed. It offered an easier living, higher living standard, more opportunities and connections to the outside world, more possibilities to personal social and spatial mobility, than the traditional, conservative, earth- and place-bound agricultural structure of the old part of the town.

The story I am going to follow here begins some decades later, during World War II, when the most recent "industrial part" was already imbedded into the tissue of the town.

We can easily imagine that, for a child growing up in the "industrial" part, who doesn't have to help his parents in the fields, or take care of the livestock in early ages as his schoolmates from the "agricultural" part have, perceives industrial production as a higher social standing and a desirable future. With this difference the first "spatial anchor" is dropped, drawing a number of consequences in the child's system of values, too many to explain them in details here.

Just as an illustration: industrial production involves mechanics, control by human will and decision, predictable processes in controllable environments with limited input factors and known outputs, while agricultural production process is far less predictable and controllable. It is very likely that, on some deep-unconscious level, the child will associate controlled environments and mental processes of reducing uncertainty with a "higher" form of life, and see human will and work as the only power shaping the reality. Seems a bit far-fetching, but it is reminiscent of the defining value-pattern of last century or two of industrialization that could be simplified and summarized teenage-style as "agriculture (nature) sucks, industry (man) rules".

The next degree of differences affecting personal level appears in the spatial hierarchic stratification of different types of housing in the industrial settlement. The plant itself was obviously the center of community, the "source of life", around which all the leisure activities are concentrated: the community house, the public pools and other sports facilities, the kindergarten, parks, the open stage for plays and concerts, and, of course the local pub. On the edge of this community-production center, the individual houses were organized in rows, the one closest to this center formed by luxurious twin houses sitting in gardens, designed for the management personnel – mostly engineers – of the factory and their families.

The luxury level of the houses and the plots of land in following rows were declining proportionally to the lowering of the rank of inhabitants in the production process, the last row was the housing for skilled workers. It was a line of two-chambered (one room and one kitchen) apartments, each of them with a narrow strip of land for vegetable garden.

The child growing up in this spatial setting will probably drop the second "spatial anchor" in accordance with the position of its family in this setting. For a child growing up in the first row, in the highest-ranking houses, the luxury is the norm, the leisure activities are the only thing "closer" to the center then their homes, and engineering is – in simple terms – something that daddy leaves the house to do. Engineers will probably not rank so high in this child's system of value, as professions linked to leisure, like sport stars, actors, musicians, authors and other public figures.

The spatial experience of a child from the last row, from skilled worker's apartments would be quite different. Passing every day by the houses of higher spatial (and social) status while going to the center of the community, the child will probably have the spatial experience that shows that the higher rank in industrial production is "closer" in both spatial and social senses to the community center, and the enjoyable leisure activities. The road to this desired way of living is also clearly laid out in space: one has to become an engineer to be at the top of the world.

With these anchors dropped, broad sections of sets of values governing the life of these children are defined for a long term. They will uphold these values influenced by the spatialisation of social order, and will try to convey it to their children. And there is nothing wrong with it, that is the way of the world. However, it works only if the spatial and social frames do not change. Otherwise

Anchors become restrictions

Let us suppose, that in the same spatial setting the boy from the "skilled worker" housing goes to college, earns a degree in engineering and eventually becomes one of the managers of the factory. Naturally, he will be assigned one of the first-row luxury houses, where he will bring his parents from the "skilled worker" row, along with his wife and children. In a short time, three sets of values collide. The parents made their living as skilled workers most of their adult lives, and probably have developed a lifestyle in accordance to that.

Their son aspired and succeeded to get to a socially higher level that implies a different lifestyle, for which the specific house was designed. The children are growing up in a quite different spatial position than their father did, probably more interested in leisure activities than in industrial production, but at the same time trying to conform to the values their parents and grandparents are advocating (unconsciously).

So, this minor spatial change creates a number of collision lines of competing sets of values. Some of them are external, like for instance the collision line between the son expecting to enjoy that "higher" standard and parents defending their accomplishments and positions in the community by trying to live the same way they did in the previous space. Some of them are internal, like the collision line between the son's loyalty and gratitude to his parents, and his loyalty to himself, his visions and chosen lifestyle. Probably the most intense collision line appears in the case of children, who have a quite different spatial experience then the previous generations, but the values resulting from spatial anchors of previous generation are imposed on them.

The most obvious way of easing collisions and tensions is to change spatial distribution – either the parents or the son's family moves out of the house. However, even if that happens, even if some of them move to other town, the anchors once dropped in a set of values through personal spatial experience remain fixed in the same place, the person carries along the defining set of values, and with them the spatial patterns expressing this values. In any new environment the person will tend to re-create these patterns in both space and life.

Let us follow a bit further the line of the story of the son who has reached the "top of the world" becoming an engineer only to find out that neither the previous, nor the next generation had the same reverence for his status and accomplishments. The most logical step for him is to change surroundings, to move in a bigger town with a stronger and more diversified industry, where engineers are probably valued even more. Doing that, in the new environment he will try to find the housing that carry the same symbolic values as the house he came from. In search for his new home, he will probably disregard the inherent patterns of the place – the new town – and rather be guided by the patterns of his hometown, by his specific spatial anchors.

He will likely choose to live in some new development or in new part of the city, preferably in one that some industrial establishment assigns to it's managerial staff, which is not necessarily the "best" or socially highest ranking part of the town. In traditional towns of the region typically the town center has the highest social standing, social rank is measured among other things with spatial distance from the center, while new developments are allowed to be built only on the edges of traditional town area. Thus, he will probably find his place in a spatially peripheral position, which carries a socially inferior status, and thus re-create the spatial pattern of his childhood and perpetuate the frustration. By this he also puts his children in the same spatial position relative to the new town as in which he was as a child in his birth town.

Pull the spatial anchors

Fatalistic as it might seem, the story did not have to end like this, if the spatial patterns at work had been realized.

In the story told above, the first opportunity to pull the anchors was the point when the boy become part of the management and was assigned the house of managerial staff. He could have realized that his anchors are his own, and that his parents were not sharing his longing for being "somebody" by living in the first row of houses. The second major opportunity presented itself with the relocation in a bigger town, where he could realize that the social-hierarchical spatial patterns of the new environment are different from the patterns he brought along, and thus he could position himself in the social-spatial segment he felt he deserved. A different spatial choice (different apartment in different part of town) could have brought him much closer to the desired position.

In order to avoid the re-creation of the same patterns or to neutralize conflicting patterns of past and present, it is necessary to understand where spatial anchors were dropped, and to which values they bind us. Understanding that, we recognize the pattern and understand how these spatial patterns are re-created in our present life and surroundings. It is also useful to find out the patterns of our present surroundings and chosen lifestyle, so that the points of conflict could be addressed on both spatial and psychological level.