What does a genuinely collaborative street naming process look like?
In recent years, the calls across the globe for renaming streets and removing statues can be heard more loudly and passionately than ever. Aided hugely by the Black Lives Matter movement, citizens are more commonly and more loudly calling out the problematic street names, sculptures and monuments we see lining our streets.
We’ve seen the toppling of the Edward Colston Statue in Bristol, the renaming of Siemens Brothers Way in London and more recently, the renaming of the streets across the world where the Russian embassies are located to show support for Ukraine and tactfully humiliate the Russian cause.
These calls are fuelled by a desire for the names of our streets and spaces to represent the lives and identities of the people who live there and celebrate, exalt and evidence histories that we’re proud of. And in the case of ‘Ukraine street’ symbolically deputise the power of Russia in streets across the world.
At present the process of renaming a street across the UK is quite complicated and many councils have different conventions in place to aid this process - it’s also not seen to be particularly collaborative - which is where Street Space comes in! At Street Space we’ve been thinking about how we can work with local communities to collaboratively develop names for streets and spaces that are grounded in the identities of local people.
Back in March 2021 Street Space were involved in a street naming project in the Royal Docks area to work alongside local communities to rename Siemens Brothers Way ahead of the City Hall move to the Royal Docks area. Over the course of a month we collaborated with local community organisations to coordinate and host three online (mid-pandemic) workshops to conceive of a new name for the street and create a resource to guide the naming of streets in the future. Three names were then shortlisted and voted on by the public resulting in the final name - Kamal Chunchie Way.
Although this collaborative process is much needed, working with people to co-create the names of streets and spaces runs the risk of becoming tokenistic, symbolic of community involvement whilst more drastic change happens around them that they have no say over what so ever. So how might we involve local people in shaping the names of their streets, spaces and places in a meaningful way? And how can we avoid this process from being a tick-box exercise or used as a tool to exclude people from involvement in wider changes happening in their area?
Many of our answers to this question are similar to the principles we use throughout engagement to co-create anything. You can read our manifesto here. But here are a few we feel are particularly important:
Work with people to design the process, not just the outcome
In Royal Docks we worked with RDLAC and Custom House Bookshop to create and coordinate the conversations and creative workshops we had with local communities. These local organisations not only had access to wider networks but have much better knowledge on where to begin the conversation and how to ask the right questions. It can be tempting (and more comfortable) to hold off reaching out to these people before you know exactly what the project looks like and know what you’re asking. Yet approaching a collaboration with no set ideas can create the best starting point for working together and can empower people to get involved in a way that’s meaningful to them. Don’t forget to pay people for their time too!
Seek out fresh perspectives and ideas by welcoming, prioritising and incentivising people who don’t usually take part in conversations about the built environment
With all projects to involve local people in creating change, we quickly meet excited and passionate local people who are heavily invested in being a part of the changes that happen in their local area and we’re incredibly happy to do so! Yet these people, with more time than many others, can sometimes overshadow the thoughts, needs and ambitions of some - claiming to speak on behalf of the community. So it’s our job to seek out lots of different people to come and ideate together, not just those who are already interested and involved! In the case of Royal Docks - personal emails to individual groups worked really well to let specific people know why and how their specific knowledge and experience is valued. We also incentivised young people with online vouchers!
Embrace complexities around problematic histories embodied in spaces and places, hold space for the feelings they provoke
In a workshop setting, with lots of different people at once (+ online), it can be easy to brush over the difficult topics at the heart of the project and over-prioritise the positive tones of ideation and the future. Yet framing the conversation in a way that appreciates, welcomes and validates the harmful feelings and thoughts provoked by what’s happened in the past and its representation in the present is the only way to begin! In the case of Siemens Brothers Way, some people responded to the Siemens Brothers’ involvement in the second world war and others reacted to the unfair lack of diverse representation in the area. To this, we held space for feelings of grief, sadness and frustration, encouraging empathy for all, leading to more honest and open conversations to follow and better ideas!
Harness storytelling to enable people to surface what’s most important to them
Asking a straightforward question of ‘what should we rename this street’ will often lead to uninspired and usual suspect street names. In response to this question, people may commonly think about what street names are usually named after, what they’re supposed to be called and the range of street names they’ve heard before. Storytelling is a really good way to throw assumptions out of the window and begin to understand what’s in the minds and hearts of those we engage with. In the case of the Royal Docks, we heard stories from childhood's spent on the docks and exciting gifts (of elephants!) coming from overseas, stories of the pioneering port, seafarers and ships and a melting pot of diverse cultures. Each story contributes to inspiring conversations and new ideas for the renaming of Siemens Brothers Way!
Don’t create a single simple answer - create a resource that can further conversations into the future
We’re not interested in defining, deciding or polishing off the final answer or solution. Unless this can be done through a process of shared decision making with local people (which often isn’t the case) - it’s better to create a resource to be used by the decision makers to provoke critical thinking towards a solution that works within parameters (and policies) of the possible. As a result of our project in the Royal Docks we created a small book of stories from the past, present and future told by local people alongside six street naming principles to guide the naming of streets and spaces in the area in the future. This resource certainly helps the process, but also asks those in charge to actively exercise their own subjectivities, avoiding passive decision making along the way.
We’ll be talking to New London Architecture about this project on their upcoming podcast, so keep your ears to the ground mid-June!