Fragmented social care at the neighbourhood level

Urbanization across the world with its resultant growth of anonymity and destruction of the extended family has created an urgent need for new interdependent structures to care for individuals and families at the local level. Neighbourhood based employment created both income opportunities but played a vital role in providing daily social contact among members of the community. These provided an invisible and unstructured but nonetheless effective form of community care. Public services when seen as beneficial to small segments of a community further divide. Housing projects tend to create division between those in the projects and those outside them. Isolation from other neighbourhoods further creates tensions.