Is there Less of a Community Spirit in London?

In the past month on a street in Merton, there have been four robberies within a week of each other, making people feel less safe in their own homes, or scared. If people feel that their area is unsafe, it could lead to them moving away, or trusting others less. However, this may not be the reason people have a reduced community spirit. One long-term resident complained that his neighbours “throw karaoke parties on the weekend up till 3 AM, and sometimes during the week until 1 AM.” And that they “display anti-social behaviour, arguing in their house very late at night.” He also stated that building work was conducted by the homeowner without the proper agreements in place. Another concerned resident, who has lived on the same street for thirty-three years, noticed that there was less of a community spirit and that neighbours do not talk to each other as much.

It could be said that property investors buying houses and converting them into house-shares leads to antisocial tenants moving in, who do not tend to communicate with their neighbours. It may be hard for people to build up relationships with them because it could be hard to maintain good relations with up to three families at once. Other reasons for this behaviour could be that these tenants may know that they will only be living in a certain area for a couple of years, so they won’t care as much about the local community, thus making less of an effort to integrate, whereas other longstanding residents may have a community spirit enshrined within them.

Perhaps, in a world where everyone is more connected than ever, people communicate less. Even though everyone has a mobile phone or a social media account, some of us may forget to talk to our neighbours. The first homeowner mentioned said, “we view our homes as our safe havens but especially in large cities and urban areas it’s easy to forget we are indeed surrounded by other people in their homes only a few metres away from us.” Maybe the real reason for a decrease in community spirit is that we do not feel the need to go outside and talk to one another when we can just text each other from within our homes. What is certain though, is that there is a lesser sense of community instilled in fewer people compared to the past.