From Economic to Emotional Geography: Understanding the Importance of the Mezzo-Level in Community Development

UK Local Authorities play a crucial role in leading community development initiatives, despite facing numerous challenges in responding to the macro/micro level model of community development. These challenges include the competitive and uncertain nature of macro-level funding mechanisms, focused on neo-liberal defined economic geographies. They also include working with limited resources, and a lack of understanding of hyper-local issues. It is possible for Local Authorities to engage with a range of partners across the voluntary sector, or commission programmes through the private sector, to address these micro-level challenges. However, we argue that there are two important factors missing from these kinds of engagement. Firstly, we advocate for a more nuanced mapping of community development outcomes, such as health and social well-being, onto local empowerment—the ability to enact positive change at a hyper-local level. This mode of micro-level empowerment shares similarities with recent problematic Levelling Up policies, which hinge on quantitative metrics of Pride in Place (Bennett, 2022). However, we advance a qualitative exploration of the emotional geographies that underpin local engagement with community initiatives. Secondly, to effectively cultivate such local empowerment, we propose incorporating what we term the mezzo level into existing micro/macro models of community development. This elusive yet crucial level exists between Local Authorities and communities (micro level), encompassing entities such as parish/town councils, cultural/heritage/environmental organisations, and charities. Finally, drawing on a pilot study in Essex, this paper aims to unpack the potential of the mezzo level in eliciting initial emotional insights regarding locally empowered community development.