What makes Medway happy?

Week two of our Local Democracy Café exploration on happiness in our towns

The Local Democracy Café is our new live forum to discuss issues and possible solutions facing Medway. Next week is our first discussion: Can Medway make you happy? This week, Steven looks into the concept of happiness, what role, if any, the state should have in yours and then speaks to the Leader of the Council, Vince Maple.

Rochester and the RIver Medway.

Before the local elections in 2023, I wrote about the suggestion that the council create a new Cabinet position: Portfolio Holder for Medway’s Happiness. We also looked into Gross National Happiness. You can read all about it here.

As I wrote at the time:

“Communities could foster happiness; Jeremy Bentham talked about the greatest good for the greatest number. Happiness can seem too subjective and vague to serve as a milestone, yet asking people whether they are happy, or satisfied with their lives offers important information about communities.”

What is happiness? Aristotle believed that happiness and success result from cultivating virtue at the mean between deficiency and excess - the golden mean. Not having too little or too much, or doing too little or too much, or being too little or too much.

In his book ‘Happy,’ Derren Brown said happiness is a chimaera: it is imaginary and deceiving in many of its forms. For it to be solid, our happiness would not rely on fortuity or what we happen to have. It would be fundamentally about who we are. When fundamentally looking at who we are, our attention can understandably be drawn to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.

Maslow was an American psychologist who became famous for his self-actualisation focus on psychology, which he described as “to become everything that one is capable of becoming.” The hierarchy represents five needs arranged from basic to highest, with the idea being that you cannot achieve the highest without the lower needs. These are:

1. Physiological needs: These include needs that keep us alive, such as food, water, shelter, warmth, and sleep.

2. Safety needs: The need to feel secure, stable, and unafraid.

3. Love and belongingness needs: The need to belong socially by developing relationships with friends and family.

4. Esteem needs: The need to feel self-esteem based on one’s achievements and abilities, and esteem based on recognition and respect from others.

5. Self-actualisation needs: The need to pursue and fulfil one’s unique potential.

When considering whether the state should be involved in the happiness of its citizens, there are some who would at best be wary, and others outwardly hostile to the idea that government has any business in your happiness business. As Ronald Reagan (in)famously said, “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.’”

In our modern culture, with a climate crisis, a housing crisis, a cost-of-living crisis, a perpetual NHS crisis, and an impending annual bin crisis, can we really look at Maslow’s hierarchy and say that we don’t want the state, in a variety of forms, to help? “Poorly functioning countries are often unhappy in their own idiosyncratic way,” said Tim Besley of the London School of Economics when talking about the size of government.

There are studies which show that Maslow’s work overlooked subjective and objective aspects of human need, with evidence of those achieving self-actualisation without the lower levels of need, whilst there are those who reach a form of happiness without self-actualisation. Later in life, Maslow introduced the concept of self-transcendence, moving above those requirements. Nobel Prize Laureate Daniel Khanemann once published research stating, “Happiness rises with income, but there is no further progress beyond $75,000,” though later evidence showed that it more accurately showed that an increase in income staved off unhappiness for a while.

There is a wave of 90s nostalgia for a variety of reasons, however the most significant return that would improve people’s lives and local communities is the return of disposable income. Supporting people to leave their homes, engage with their local social clubs, take part in creative pursuits and pursue self-actualisation. According to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, the next four years will see further reductions in disposable income. “This fall of 1.3% over the parliament would represent the worst outcome for living standards of any parliament since records began in 1961. This is particularly painful for households as it comes on the back of the previous worst record 5-year parliament — with a real fall of 0.5% — leaving households facing over a decade with no real-terms increase in disposable incomes.”

When we look at the shit show that is social media, and what Cory Doctorow describes as ‘enshittification,’ do we want to leave our hierarchy of needs to the markets? Thatcher’s ‘right to buy’ programme not only significantly increased home ownership in the country, but it also directly led to a significant market failure that we are living through today. As Ed reported in May, Medway housing is now more unaffordable than ever, with average private rent up 11.3% on the previous year. The failure to enable the building of more council housing to replace the sold stock has led to the uncomfortable truth that ‘affordable housing’ is not affordable for those on the lowest incomes, but I digress.

I caught up with Medway Council leader Vince Maple to talk about happiness in Medway and, first of al,l about my original article and why there isn’t a portfolio holder for Medway’s happiness.

“I think it’s a really interesting question,” said Vince in his customary diplomatic start, “because, internationally, nationally, people say, how do you measure the success of a country? People will talk about GDP, but then the happiest place to live or the best place to live probably isn’t number one on the GDP scale.”

Vince goes on to talk about “That is about ultimately quality of life, which I think as a council, we’ve got a key role to look at from many aspects, both the obvious ones, culture, leisure, but also perhaps ones you don’t immediately think of as well.” Vince highlights the importance of knowing that your children are going to a good school or are safe in the community. “That is about people feeling positive about where they live.” Maybe there will be a Portfolio Holder for Medway Positivity in the next cabinet reshuffle.

I asked Vince how he would analyse whether the Medway population is happier in 2028 than they were in 2023. For Vince, pride in place is an important aspect of this. “People who look at social media will often see me using the hashtag ‘Proud to be Medway.’ Unsurprising news, Leader of council is proud of the community that he leads.” For Vince, people can find civic pride, that determines that their place is a good place in many different ways. “Just this week, lots of people will be happy because two of our football teams are in the FA Cup for the first round.”

Vince goes on to highlight that Balvinder Sopal, an actress who calls Medway her home, is having a successful run on Strictly Come Dancing. “For somebody else, it will be about the fact that we’ve got eight brilliant green flag parks and that they’re part of perhaps a friends group making those parks stay the same way.” Vince thinks people will look back on his administration and their life generally in Medway and feel happier, but he acknowledges that for others, “it will be a mixed picture.”

I ask Vince to highlight anything he feels the administration has done that would directly lead to an improvement in happiness. “I think the fact that we are certainly getting on with maintaining and enhancing our green spaces. We think that gives people quality of life.” He highlights the work the council are doing through the UK Shared Prosperity Fund. “The approach that we’ve taken with that, rather than the council just deciding things, allowing the community and often new community groups to come forward with ideas that we’ve been able to support. That’s about building pride in place.” Vince highlights the work of Child Friendly Medway, and the ‘good’ Ofsted result is an example of showing people that their children matter. “It’s about improving life chances through greater focus on things like literacy.”

We speak about the real and genuine challenge of the loneliness epidemic. “It manifests itself differently, particularly in age ranges. For younger people, you’re massively connected through social media, but actually, are they feeling that human connection as well? At the other end of the age spectrum, particularly where a husband and wife, one of them passes away, and they’re living that life individually, perhaps their family is not near them. I think throughout life, there are potential situations where people can fall into the loneliness trap.” Vince acknowledges that it is a role for the council, working with the charity and third sector to “try and put in place as much as we can” and ensure, where practically possible, “we can stop people falling into that loneliness trap.”

Before I let Vince go, I take the opportunity to ask what makes him happy. “People have heard me say this. I have the two best jobs in the world. I’m the dad to a seven-year-old who is amazing, but also I have the privilege of trying to make a positive difference to the community that I call home and improve the lives of 292,000 people. That can be stressful, it can be emotional, it can be frustrating, but it really does make me happy. It makes me proud of what people do every single day across Medway to make this the best place it can be.”

Join us to discuss this further at our first Local Democracy Café at 7.30pm on Thursday 23 October at MidKent College. Attending the café is free, but booking is essential. You can reserve your spot via Eventbrite.