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Reversing the Decline of Community

2:1) 26-APR-2001 01:34 Richard Farson

Greetings and welcome to all of you who are interested in what's happening to our communities and what we might do about it. It is my pleasure to be able to introduce author Ralph Keyes as the leader of this conference. Ralph is an old friend of WBSI's and an old friend of mine. In fact, he and I just co-authored a book Whoever Makes the Most Mistakes Wins: Managing Innovation in a Changing Economy. Ralph is an accomplished author; this book is his eleventh. He has a long-time interest in community, having written the groundbreaking We, the Lonely People and a number of other books deal with contemporary culture. Pick up any of them, and you will find him to be prescient, fascinating, informed and entertaining. If you are a writer, or wish you were, you should read his critically acclaimed The Courage to Write, which is surely one of the best books ever written on the challenges of writing. We are lucky to have him moderating this policy forum. Welcome, Ralph.

2:2) 26-APR-2001 12:34 Larry Solomon

Ralph, it has been many years since we were together at WBSI. It is good to be back. I'm looking forward to your Forum, and I'll try to be helpful in supporting the conversational flow.

2:3) 30-APR-2001 11:14 Ralph Keyes

Dick and Larry, thanks for the warm welcome. I'm so glad to be involved with WBSI again and dealing with one of my favorite topics: community.

My next posting will be some thoughts on that topic to kick off our discussion.

2:4) 30-APR-2001 13:16 Ralph Keyes

Here are some opening thoughts about community. I'll look forward to getting yours.

Calls for ‘community’ are in the mom-and-apple-pie category, an applause line for Bill Clinton and George W. Bush alike. Few question the need for a greater sense of community. At the same time, advances we cherish loosen ties that bind. Cars permit sprawl. Air conditioners make front porches unnecessary. Television watching replaces board game playing. Even as it connects us to more people than ever, cutting-edge technology can isolate us spiritually. As T.S. Eliot observed, "The amazing thing about television is that millions of people can laugh at the same joke and still feel lonely."

To understand 21st century man, and woman, we must understand their longing for community. That longing can’t be squelched so easily. Just when we think it’s joined ice picks and Stanley Steamers in the dustbin of history, ‘community’ keeps rearing its head: in support groups, raves, around water coolers at work or within the Internet’s many gathering places.

It’s as if we’re imprinted to be in community. Perhaps we are. For most of their time on earth, human beings lived cheek-by-jowl in small groups. Only for a speck of time have large settings, populated by nuclear families and one-person households, become the developed world’s norm. In the process, our social ties have atrophied.

There are reasons to be concerned about this development. Isolation is a risk factor for a wide range of social maladies, ranging from depression through substance abuse to suicide. For society as a whole, the loss of social capital – ties that develop the glue of trust – degrades public life.

Scholars such as Amitai Etzioni, Michael Sandel and Francis Fukuyama have sounded the alarm for years about the decline of civil society. Robert Putnam’s Bowling Alone (the book and the article) did so in great detail. Legitimate questions have been raised about Putnam’s argument – as perhaps we’ll discuss – but the fact remains that his lament struck a chord because so many felt it to be true. They could see themselves alone at a bowling alley. They sensed a lack of community in their lives. Most of us do.

When push comes to shove, however, how much do we value community? We’ve gone beyond a time when vibrant neighborhoods could be bulldozed willy-nilly to make way for highways and high rises. But, community is still part of the collateral damage for other forms of progress: consolidated schools, mega-stores, restrictive zoning. It’s not that we value community less, but that we value other things more.

Being for community in principal doesn’t mean we favor a higher density of housing in our own neighborhood, let alone mixed use. In the post-Columbine era, small schools made more sense than ever, but who’s willing to pay for them? How much is it worth to us to take cops out of cars and put them on a beat?

It’s hard to quantify the benefits of such community-friendly initiatives. But does anyone doubt how much society gains when its members enjoy robust ties? Any number of institutions – from schools to civic groups – benefit from an overall sense of social cohesion. Certainly families function best in a context of community. A growing body of evidence also suggests that emotional and physical healths alike are promoted by firm social connections.

What policies might restore ties of community? That’s the focus of our forum. Related questions include: Are communities of interest comparable to those of place? How does the design of our man-made environment promote or discourage social ties? Are there aspects of old-style communities that we can revive or new ones we can invent? Can institutions be developed that foster rather than hinder social connections?

Something else we’ll need to consider is what exactly community means. The late Christopher Lasch called this "a term much in favor but not clearly understood". One way to clarify this issue might be to reflect on moments in our own lives when we felt – or didn’t feel – in community.

By choice I live in a town of 4000 where I enjoy a muted but ongoing sense of community. A week on the Colorado River gave me a stronger sense of being connected to my raft mates, but not one that lasted. During religious observances, I've felt bonded to others. During two years on Long Island, I didn’t.

What about you? Can we develop a working definition of community based on our own experience as well as what experts tell us?

I’m looking forward to our discussion of these issues, as much for what I can learn as what I can impart. Perhaps we could begin with this question: how much is community worth to us?

2:5) 01-MAY-2001 16:53 Mary Boone

Hello, Ralph. Thanks for setting forth these provocative ideas.

When you ask the question how much is community worth to us do you mean individually or as a society?

2:6) 02-MAY-2001 09:37 Ralph Keyes

Good question. I think the answer is: both. Since this is a policy forum, society will be our primary focus. When I threw the question out, I was thinking primarily about the value placed on community by society as a whole. But one way to get a handle on social attitudes is to first consider our own: how much do we as individuals value community relative to other things we value as well?

2:7) 02-MAY-2001 13:03 Tom Gillette

"Society as a whole" is an abstraction that says too much to mean a great deal. I know what a sense of community means to me, and I place a high value on it. However, to think that membership in "community" is somehow ipso facto of benefit to "society as a whole" is utter nonsense. Examples of "intimate communities" would have to include Jim Jones, the Klan and on into that pathological lexicon. I would write more, but I've got to get ready for my support group. Cheers Ralph!

2:8) 02-MAY-2001 16:40 Ralph Keyes

You raise an interesting question: can we distinguish the "sense" of community enjoyed by members of support groups, cohesive neighborhoods and the like from that experienced by members of cults and the Ku Klux Klan? I’d like to hear more about what a sense of community means to you, and why you place a high value on it.

2:9) 03-MAY-2001 11:30 Richard Farson

My sense of community comes when I can walk down the main street here in La Jolla, or go into one of our shops, and accidentally encounter people I know. Curiously, the longer I live here the less likely that has become. Thirty years ago, walking with my small children down Girard Street, I would meet some friend or acquaintance once or twice in every block. I can remember my children tugging at my arm because I would always stop and talk to them. That rarely happens now. The reason is that the kinds of shops that used to serve our community - department stores, appliance shops, liquor stores, drug stores, hardware stores - have been replaced by shopping centers or huge discount houses several miles away. And the increasing costs of real estate here have forced the laundromats, barber shops, and other places where people accidentally meet their friends, out of this community.

Shopping centers and giant discount warehouses represent a false economy, not just because of transportation costs to get to them, but also because of the hidden costs that stem from loss of community. When we go to a discount house to buy a bottle of Scotch for three dollars less than we could at our local liquor store, we forget that the local merchant also offers personal service, advice about the better wines, glasses and ice for your party and check cashing. More importantly, that merchant knows you and would know who to call if you were to collapse in his store. The costs of loss of community are never apparent but are buried in the costs of increased crime, divorce, mental and physical illness, alcoholism, drug addiction, child abuse and suicide.

The problem is that we don't usually make a conscious choice; we don't analyze the tradeoffs. We don't see that deciding to build a beautiful new shopping center may cost us in these other ways. Indeed, community usually erodes in the name of progress - where a smoky tavern or smelly delicatessen is replaced by a shiny new high-end dress shop. The old ice cream parlor is replaced by a new Baskin and Robbins 31 Flavors. So, while we may value community, we don't see it as threatened by these choices, because we don't understand how it works. And it happens so slowly that we don't realize what we are losing.

2:10) 03-MAY-2001 20:49 Mary Boone

I have to say that I think our perception of lack of time is one of the greatest enemies of community. To be part of a community, you have to participate, and I find it increasingly harder to find the time to do that. And Tom, you'll appreciate this one: I heard the other day that the Militia Movement is losing members because they don't feel like giving up their weekends to military drills. Get this: they want to spend more time with their families and friends.

I have a friend, Dave Snowden, who said to me that he feels that in modern society athletic teams and events provide one of the last bastions of true community. I found that interesting. He also asked me the question, "What communities do you belong to?" And I found it a distressingly difficult question to answer.

I don't think there's any question that we all lose a great deal from our lack of community. But if it's so important to us, why don't we make more time for it?

2:11) 04-MAY-2001 02:20 Richard Farson

Maybe community is like happiness or love - it can't be reached directly, but is an occasional by-product of doing something else. In the case of community, doing something else with people. Maybe it's sharing neighborhood child care, or belonging to a health club, or meeting people at a coffee house, working for a political candidate, playing on a sports team, or accidentally running into them at a drug store. Maybe that's why we don't make time for it, Mary. We can't have it if we seek it. It has to happen by accident, while we're trying to do something else.

That said, we all know that there are ways to destroy or foster community, if not for ourselves, then for others. Ultimately in this conference, we will have to develop policy recommendations in line with those understandings.

2:12) 04-MAY-2001 14:22 Ralph Keyes

I couldn’t agree more that "lack of time" is community’s great enemy. (For Militia members no less!) Time studies have found that what spare time we do have gets soaked up by solitary TV watching and net surfing. Activities that involve face-to-face engagement pay the price. I think your friend makes a very good point about sports providing an occasion for community. In our town, weekly high school football, basketball and soccer games are a great gathering occasion. This was true in another town I lived in several years ago, until the state mandated that its modest-sized school system merge with two larger ones. This act ripped the heart out of our town’s sense of community, one that had revolved around the games, concerts and pancake suppers of its schools.

Your question about why – if community is so important to us why don’t we make more time for it – gets at the heart of the issue: our ambivalence about community. As Dick suggests, we want it both ways: the familiarity of local commerce and the better prices of mega-stores outside town. Such ambivalence can be found throughout this issue: about intimacy and privacy, sociability and solitude, the pleasure and burden of dealing with merchants who recognize us and want to chat.

Like most people, I have conflicting needs here, to be in community and patronize its gatekeepers but also to keep my overhead down. The latter takes me out of town, not only in search of a better price, but also because sometimes I prefer the anonymity of Kroger’s to the many people I might have to chat with at Weaver’s Grocery.

As Dick points out, the hidden cost that we – I – pay for the convenience, economy and anonymity of mega-commerce is in the declining social capital that accrues when communities are vibrant, and social pathology that ensues when they aren’t. It’s probably a lost cause to hope that mom & pop stores can be revived in their old form. But there are other ways to gather and come to know each other. This is happening more than we realize. Robert Putnam bemoaned the decline of bowling leagues, but overlooked the fact that softball leagues are flourishing (many of them co-ed). Shrinking mainline churches are giving way to smaller, evangelical ones. And online cyber-communities are a whole new venue that have yet to be fully assessed.

I agree that actual community is a byproduct of sharing activities. Groups that self-consciously set out to provide "a sense of community" seldom last. The question is: what policies can we discern that will encourage rather than frustrate the activities and gathering points that foster genuine ties of community?

2:13) 04-MAY-2001 15:55 Richard Farson

The world of architecture and design is full of paradoxes in terms of where and how people gather. The classic case, of course, is partygoers congregating in the kitchen, while the "living" room is empty. Young people gather in parking lots or malls, not designed for such clustering at all. So, in our policy planning, we can't simply rely on seemingly rational solutions.

2:14) 04-MAY-2001 16:23 Mary Boone

Our discussion here prompted me to email my friend Dave Snowden who I mentioned above. Dave has been studying the concept of community, as he is the European Director for the Institute for Knowledge Management. He gave me permission to print his response here. I thought it might be good fodder.

2:15) 04-MAY-2001 16:28 Mary Boone

Dave Snowden's response to my question about communities:

It’s one of those interesting questions! I think we belong to various communities - and I will sort them into four:

Some of these are formal and we have no choice, or at least no real choice - for example we pay local taxes and have expectations and responsibilities to the local "community". If we work for a company then that too is a formal "known" community that has unambiguous boundaries. Our identity is defined for us by the external agency: the formal rules and procedures of the community.

A second category are communities that we belong to by virtue of some acquired objective criteria - for example a degree, professional qualification or social standing (some country clubs and the like). In the first case, membership is a requirement of survival to all intents and purposes, in the second case it is based on some achievement or voluntary act but in both cases there is no ambiguity over whether I am or am not a member, and the decision about the nature of my membership, its roles and responsibilities and my continued membership is determined by an external agency.

The third type of community represents a complex relationship. Here, there is greater fluidity over what is or is not a member with a degree of self-definition. Such communities are more coalescence in a space that is itself constantly interacting and changing. Support of a sports team is an example of this. I may vaguely support a team and be interested in their success, or it may matter to me so much that I am physically sick if the team loses. The nature of my reaction may vary over time and the level of participation is my own decision. In an organization, this is the domain of associates with like-minded individuals. Identity is not about rules, but about values, beliefs and passion.

Finally, we have crisis communities, formed in a situation of chaos. If I am involved in a plane hijack, I will form a community with my fellow sufferers that will override all other loyalties for a period of time. Identity here is defined by the situation, not by external rules or personal choice.

2:16) 05-MAY-2001 11:09 Ralph Keyes

Thanks, Mary, for soliciting and sharing your friend's helpful thoughts about types of community. I'm especially interested in what he calls "crisis communities". There's no doubt that sharing hazard is one of the strongest community-builders of all. (Ask any veteran.) Reunions are far more likely to commemorate times of stress - high school, combat, etc. - than ones of tranquility. Just the other day, a group near here, who last year survived the collapse of an outdoor restaurant's deck, this year decided to have a reunion!

About design for community: Is there such a thing? As you say Dick, we usually feel most comfortable gathering in spaces not meant for that purpose (kitchens, parking lots). I once attended a workshop at the University of California San Diego, whose participants were housed in a box of a dorm which had outdoor hallways surrounding a courtyard inside. This building was wonderfully conducive to a sense of community. Those housed there could always step out of their room and see at a glance who else was out, and what was going on. When I mentioned that building to an architect who'd helped design the campus, he immediately apologized for its lack of esthetic distinction, even before I could say why I liked it so much.

Just a mile away is Louis Kahn's renowned Salk Institute, a work of art that's cold and isolating to those who work there, a setting in no way conducive to a sense of community.

2:17) 06-MAY-2001 15:01 Larry Solomon

This may be a bit off the mark, but I want to add a comment about an aspect of "community" that concerns me. Focusing on the down side, it is possible to identify what are called "barricaded" communities, usually based upon ethnic identity, which do not allow outsiders in and which prevent community members from exiting. Such barricaded ethnic identities provide the basis for much of the ethnopolitical warfare and violence that plagues the world. The recent comments by the president of Syria during the Pope's visit demonstrates that mentality. Can "community" be defined as an open structure that would avoid the "us/them" distinction?

2:18) 06-MAY-2001 20:51 Mary Boone

Ralph, glad you found Dave's remarks helpful. He's a remarkably brilliant and thoughtful person.

Larry, I don't think you're off the mark at all. There is definitely a dark side to the concept of "community", and I think you bring up an incredibly important point. The word "fluidity" comes to mind as I read both your comments as well as Ralph's with regard to spaces that encourage community.

Community has to do with connection, with the understanding that for a moment you and I and the others in our community are not isolated human beings. What it should NOT be about is the involuntary isolation of others from belonging. Healthy communities exist, in my mind, when others aren't involuntarily excluded (and the involuntarily part seems important if we want to accept something like Dave Snowden's idea about sports teams - because if I'm a Mets fan, I definitely do NOT want to be part of the Yankees community).

2:19) 06-MAY-2001 22:55 Raymond Alden

Perhaps there is a useful distinction between what is a community, on the one hand, and what contributes to having a sense of community on the other. There are more of the former, I think, than of the latter.

To gain a sense of community requires, I think, these conditions:

1. To have something in common that is valued and potentially at risk with a group of people.

2. That the group be small enough so that my voice makes a difference.

3. That these perceptions be shared by others in the group.

I associate with others in many ways that don't quite fit these criteria, and from these associations, I don't really feel a "sense of community".

2:20) 07-MAY-2001 11:09 Ralph Keyes

You’ve put your finger on one of the most central and intractable aspects of community, Larry: who we exclude matters as much as who we include. This is what Mary calls "the dark side" of community. Communities define themselves, as much by who they aren’t, as who they are.

While consulting for a prisoner diversion project in New York, I was struck by how apparent this was in other programs we visited for guidance. When we’d say, "Tell us about yourselves. Who are you? What are you about?" their response would usually be, "Well, first let us tell you who we’re not. We’re not…" Then they’d mention some rival program and explain how different their own project was. New Yorkers themselves attach a fair amount of importance to being not from New Jersey. Yellow Springs, Ohio, the small town where I live, is arty and liberal, not at all like Cedarville, the conservative Baptist town down the road, which we’re quick to point out.

As a student at Antioch College, I wrote an essay pointing out some similarities between our unconventional campus and the United States Military Academy (a strong sense of mission, emphasis on non-academic experience, socialization of new members, etc.) Few teachers or classmates rallied to my point. Quite the opposite: my essay infuriated them. If Antiochians could agree on anything, it was that we were NOT like West Point in any way, shape or form.

Few tools for community building can rival a contrasting other. Where this becomes problematic, of course – as you point out, Larry – is when ethnopolitical identities are used as a pretext for oppression and war against the other. But, I think ignoring the fact that communities gain their identity as much by who they aren’t as who they are makes them that much harder to achieve. Communities must have some borders. (As Raymond Alden points out, manageable size is central to community, and an open-door policy can make it difficult to control a community's size.) Finding non-toxic, non-lethal ways to accommodate this need for borders – sports teams, for example – is one way. Are there others?

At the same time, I think it’s equally important that there be occasions when contrasting groups can experience their commonality. During Ken Burns’s jazz series, critic Gary Giddins said that "making the other less other" underlay the sense of community enjoyed by those attending a concert. I recently read a wonderful novel by the Canadian writer Alistair MacLeod called No Great Mischief that included a moving scene in which rival groups of Anglo and French-Canadian miners gather one night to make music together.

On Raymond Alden’s thoughts: it is so true that a sense of community is something we rarely enjoy in communities we belong to, in the classic sense of that word. It wasn’t always so. The people we lived with were also the people we played with, worshiped with and worked with. A sense of community ensued. Now, we live one place, play another, worship another and work somewhere else. (Question: how important is it that co-workers enjoy a sense of community?) I couldn’t agree more that size is central to a sense of community. As you say, groups small enough to actually hear each other have a shot at enjoying this sense; larger ones don’t (in any ongoing sense). I’m intrigued by your thought that sharing something with others that’s potentially "at risk" underlies one’s sense of community and would like to hear more about that.

2:21) 07-MAY-2001 22:48 Raymond Alden

There is a connection, I think, between my "at risk" contention and the earlier observation that nothing brings people together like having a common feeling of anti-something.

I live in a small community that has a homes association. When a threat of some sort appears on the horizon, the sense of community here has a sudden awakening. Most of the time, it is taken for granted and fades in the fog.

2:22) 08-MAY-2001 10:42 Ralph Keyes

Interesting. It seems to be a quirk of the human spirit that we connect best under duress - war, natural disasters, working for a bad boss - but go our separate ways when things are going fine. William James called for a "moral equivalent to war", some way to get people to rise to occasions without the goad of violent conflict. Perhaps, we also need communal equivalents to war (and floods, and so forth).

2:23) 08-MAY-2001 14:16 Raymond Alden

No. What we need is inspiring leaders who present a persuasive vision that stirs up the juices the way fear does.

That's hard to do, of course. All forms of media seem to be focused on the excitement of fear - "I wonder if that could happen to me!" Exciting positive visions are rare.

Perhaps, if we practiced with them more, we could learn of their potential.

2:24) 08-MAY-2001 18:43 Ralph Keyes

As someone who has provided inspired leadership (I assume), how would you frame a vision of community that might be persuasive to listeners?

This afternoon on NPR, I heard Dr. David Snowden (your friend, Mary?), an epidemiologist who has spent the last 15 years studying Alzheimer's Disease among a group of Baltimore nuns. Noting how long-lived many of the nuns were, the interviewer asked Dr. Snowden if he attributed their longevity to the amount of time they spent in prayer and contemplation. Snowden replied that he thought their social context was every bit as important: the fact that the sisters live in a cohesive community (their convent). He thought this led to both a longer life and a better life, particularly in old age. The epidemiologist added that although he watched his diet and got regular exercise, he had no social ties to compare to the nuns'. "I'd better get busy if I want to have that warm community life," Snowden concluded.

2:25) 10-MAY-2001 11:02 Ralph Keyes

I was just looking at a web site that made reference to "the infamous master-planned community of Irvine [California]". That seems to be the stereotype of such off-the-shelf communities: settings of such stifling uniformity and oppression that even clotheslines are proscribed (as Doonesbury is satirizing this week). Carlos Campbell, one of our Fellows, had a more complex take on such communities in his 1976 book New Towns. Since then, the New Urbanist movement has gathered steam in an attempt to resurrect the front porches, higher density housing and mixed residential-commercial land use of another era. Disney's Celebration, Florida is the highest-profile example of this trend, though there are many others. I know that there has been a lot of controversy surrounding Celebration's school system, but don't know in any detail how other aspects of these attempts to create a physical sense of community from scratch have gone. Does anyone else?

2:26) 10-MAY-2001 18:21 Raymond Alden

"As someone who has provided inspired leadership (I assume), how would you frame a vision of community that might be persuasive to listeners?"

Thanks for the assumption. No, I've experienced inspired leadership on a few occasions but probably have not provided it. However, it isn't "vision OF community" that I had in mind but rather vision creating community.

This happens in business and in government from time to time, and more often, I think, in the not-for-profit world. The technique that I have used occasionally (and with only modest success) is to ask people to imagine the best (of anything under discussion) and then to describe it. Assembling the most favored replies sometimes creates a common vision - at least for a while - and can lead to a discussion of how to get there from here.

2:27) 11-MAY-2001 11:27 Ralph Keyes

I like your approach of building a discussion around imagining and describing its best elements in search of a common vision. Perhaps one reason that this works best in work settings (business, government, non-profits) is that it's part of the agenda; a valid calendar entry. Earlier, Mary raised the problem of finding time for community. I wonder if the search for a common vision that might lead to community is something many of us feel we have time for when we're not on the job.

2:28) 11-MAY-2001 23:57 Raymond Alden

A bit sad, isn't it, that we don't take time for that while on the job?

2:29) 14-MAY-2001 08:57 Richard Farson

I have asked our old friend and WBSI staff member, Carlos Campbell, whom Ralph has already mentioned, to join this conference. As Ralph pointed out, he is an urban planner who wrote a book on New Towns. He has also been a Naval air intelligence officer, an executive with HUD and Assistant Secretary of Commerce in the Reagan administration with responsibilities related to inner city development. Welcome, Carlos.

2:30) 14-MAY-2001 12:59 Ralph Keyes

According to a 12/11/00 article in The New Yorker, by Malcolm Gladwell, the latest trend in office design is to try to emulate the type of urban neighborhood whose passing Jane Jacobs mourned in her book The Death and Life of Great American Cities. In such offices, lots of different pursuits and people are brought together in one big, open space. They are given ample opportunity to mingle in ‘hangouts’. The intent is to release creative energy in this way and encourage a sense of workplace community.

I'm glad you've joined us, Carlos. I'll look forward to getting the benefit of your expertise on this whole issue of community and design for community.

2:31) 15-MAY-2001 21:54 Mary Boone

Didn't Eleanor Roosevelt try to start some sort of planned community? My guess is that the most successful communities would be self-designed by members. Otherwise, you get the clothesline syndrome.

2:32) 18-MAY-2001 18:24 Richard Farson

I just returned from Denver where I attended the American Institute of Architects convention, keynoted by NPR legend Susan Stamberg. In discussing community, she mentioned a couple of architectural examples that most of us might not think of as community. One was the triangular East Wing addition to the National Gallery of Art designed by I. M. Pei, which comes to a very sharp knife-edge, so sharp that incredulous people feel the need to touch it. That touching eventually leaves grey traces of body oils. At first, the director of the museum ordered that the surface be cleaned regularly, then he erected a barrier to prevent anyone reaching the edge, but people were so fascinated that they kept breaking through the barrier to touch it. Now, the authorities have decided to leave the smudged surface as evidence of its attractiveness to visitors, who Susan thinks of as a kind of community of people, identified by that smudge, tied together by their appreciation of that wondrous architectural achievement.

She also cited Maya Lin's Viet Nam Memorial, with groups of visitors touching the names of their loved ones, creating a kind of community between the living and the dead, giving the dead a kind of membership in the community of love that such touching represents.

2:33) 18-MAY-2001 20:01 Raymond Alden

Valuable insight! ‘A community of touching’. Clear evidence of something held in common that might be difficult to define - and perhaps pointless to define. Just appreciate it.

2:34) 19-MAY-2001 18:44 Hallock Hoffman

There seems to be a conviction in this discussion that community ought to last. I don't feel that way. I want to be in a community (say, my local group of homeowners concerned with keeping the area free of unwanted development) while it's working on something, and I want it to leave me alone when we've done it. Isn't community necessarily connected with its purpose, and isn't its duration a function of purpose?

2:35) 19-MAY-2001 23:26 Raymond Alden

Hi Hallock! ‘Sometimes’ is my answer. I'm a member of at least one community that has no purpose at all except community!

My church community should last, although within that larger community there are many small ones that come and go, depending on the circumstances.

Many other are more like your example, and I too wish they would do the job and then disappear until needed again.

2:36) 20-MAY-2001 01:04 Richard Farson

Granted, there are many kinds of community, small and large, organized and casual, brief and lasting. Some continue to thrive. When we speak of the declining community, what are we referring to? I think I'm referring to the community that has been eroded by the automobile, which once made mobility possible and now makes it necessary. It is easy to fault the automobile and practically everyone who writes about community does so. Yet, it is still difficult for most of us to get our minds around the many ways in which that technology has altered our lives - creating the isolating single-family dwellings in suburbs, requiring fenced back yards to protect the children, preventing children from exploring the community in safety. The automobile has changed dating patterns, sexual experiences and parenthood. Shopping has moved from neighborhoods to shopping centers. The automobile has separated residential areas from work areas from recreational areas from educational areas, reducing the mobility of children while it increases the mobility of adults. Freeways have divided and destroyed old and stable communities. The automobile has forced two parents and sometimes only one parent to perform 24-hour surveillance of their children because of the dangers it represents. It has isolated parents from others in the community and further burdened them with responsibilities, leading our nation to be among the worst child abusers. So, here we have a string of connections beginning with the automobile and ending with child abuse. How many other strings of connections to ruptures in our relationships can we attribute to cars? And what can we do about it? Early in the 20th century we decided (with the help of some strong lobbying and even some shady shenanigans by the automotive industry) to subsidize cars instead of trains. Now, 25% of our economy supports the automotive industry. We are clearly in the grip of this technology. We think we invent technology, but it also invents us.

2:37) 20-MAY-2001 18:28 Ralph Keyes

A "sense of community" can occur in many kinds of gathering, regardless of their duration. It can bring together those examining pictures in an art gallery, rooting for a baseball team, touching the dark granite of Maya Lin’s Vietnam memorial, or enjoying a picnic with friends. I treasure those experiences. Like Hallock, I value communities that last only as long as they’re serving some purpose. But, I also need to belong to a group that has a more durable bond. When I’m not connected to a small group of people in an ongoing way, I sense a hole in my life. This kind of community can only be built among those who have some history and future with each other, semi-permanent, if not permanent. Is this true of your church community, Raymond? (I’m also curious about the community you refer to whose sole purpose is community.)

I think the problem comes when we try to equate transient communities with lasting ones. Community in the deepest sense is built with tiny welds of human contact – planned and unplanned – that take place over time. I’m particularly concerned that my children grow up with a clear sense of connection to others. As Dick points out, communities where this happens are in decline. The types of pro-car, pro-highway, pro-growth policies he cites have clearly had a disintegrating effect oN Groups of people who might rather stay whole. But I wonder how much those policies impose their anti-communal influence on us and how much they do our bidding. Not our bidding to be isolated from each other, but to enhance the freedom and mobility we may prize over human connection. The question is: how can we develop pro-community policies that are as attractive as isolating ones, if not more so?

2:38) 20-MAY-2001 18:55 Richard Farson

Ralph, I think the problem is that we don't exercise democratic choice among optional futures. If we understood the effects of the automobile, we surely wouldn't have chosen a technology that every year kills more than 50,000 Americans and injures a million more. Nor would we choose the consequences of the loss of community in favor of shopping centers and the like. Those can't be considered choices, even though some would argue that the free market presents choices, even if it is tied to what people can be made to want vs. what they obviously need. The dilemma is, first of all, that we can't predict with accuracy the unintended consequences of "progress"; second, we don't know how to educate ourselves to these far reaching complexities of community; third, we don't know how to pose the challenging decisions in a way that elicits the intelligence of the people; and fourth, (this may be the most determining) these decisions which should be democratic, are usually pre-empted by legislators who are in the pockets of developers. So, as we develop policies about any of the issues that we will be discussing in these forums, we will probably always put campaign finance reform at the top of the list.

2:39) 21-MAY-2001 20:13 Ralph Keyes

Given a choice between car and community, I'm afraid of what most of us would choose - even knowing the consequences of going for our cars. I think this reflects our passion for automobility, but even more for the individualism that this reflects. The tension between individualism and communalism has always been strong in America, but individualism usually gets the nod.

Nonetheless, I agree that developers, automobile manufacturers, mass merchants, et al have more than their share of influence when it comes to determining policies that underwrite, or undermine, community (the latter, usually). To reverse that trend, we'd have to raise the price of car ownership literally & figuratively - reveal its hidden costs, as Dick said earlier - not only in terms of its impact on the physical but on the social environment.

A renaissance in mass transit, new types of zoning (for mixed use especially, and greater density of housing) would make it easier to live independent of cars. Smaller schools closer to home would also help. This puts us up against not only conservative but liberal shibboleths such as urban renewal, restrictive zoning, design for building esthetics over human connection (community is a messy proposition), and the use of busing to achieve diversity that unintentionally drove a stake in the heart of urban neighborhood schools, then neighborhoods themselves.

This isn't to say that there aren't powerful counter-currents in favor of renewed community. A bipartisaN Group of elected officials recently approached the Bush administration with a plausible list of initiatives to encourage more vibrant urban neighborhoods. Bush, who extolled "community" in his campaign, fobbed them off on low-level underlings. This is how it, so often, goes: we praise community in the abstract, but avoid taking steps that could actually lead to its renaissance. My own hope is that a groups such as ours can propose realistic, bipartisan, non-ideological initiatives that would encourage community in fact as well as in principle.

2:40) 21-MAY-2001 23:13 Raymond Alden

It seems to me that the strongest forces working against community are themselves dependent on the fact that our version of capitalism seems overly dependent on growth for what we call "prosperity". I wonder if "the dismal science" is at the root of our problem with maintaining a sense of community.

2:41) 22-MAY-2001 08:23 Donald Straus

An extraordinary example of "community" has been the "N Group", several members of which are present here. It was "born" many years ago in the earlier WBSI, and about a dozen of us have stayed with it over the years. It has helped many of us through rough patches in our lives and strong friendships (which seldom meet face-to-face) have remained strong and intimate. Perhaps, part of the "glue" was the early bonding experience of being part of, and leaders in, the e-mail development. But whatever it is, it is a fertile item for analysis and research for those qualified to do it. In some ways, it seems to me to be the essence of community.

2:42) 22-MAY-2001 17:56 Richard Farson

Don and Ray, I think it might be worthwhile for you to give us a bit more detail about the development and life of the N Group, partly because it is such an extraordinary story, and partly because I believe it represents the kind of community that will not be so extraordinary in the future. You might have even developed ideas for how such communities might be encouraged.

2:43) 22-MAY-2001 22:00 Raymond Alden

At the moment, I can't think of a way to describe N Group. It is, of course, the community to which I referred earlier as one which has no other objective except "being" in a community. I can't imagine how to analyze, or even describe its history beyond what Don has said. Factual questions we might answer with ease; beyond that I'm at a loss.

2:44) 23-MAY-2001 01:31 Richard Farson

OK, I'll give a little of the history. When we first started the WBSI online School of Management and Strategic Studies, we were impressed by how personal, and even intimate, the conversation and relationships could be. Since we were an institute that had studied small group processes, and especially group therapy, we wondered if we could add some benefit to the program by organizing what we called "Community Groups" in which members could discuss whatever was interesting in their work or their lives. They first met face to face in our residential session and then continued online. At the beginning, we assigned professional leaders to these groups, but within a few weeks it became clear that the groups would prefer to be on their own. One group named itself the "N-Group" (was that for Natural? I can't remember.) The "N Group" soon became very clear about wanting not to be led or monitored by WBSI. So, I know only what has been reported to me since then by members. The amazing thing about the group is that it has survived for what must be about 15 years, including the closing of WBSI in 1991, switching to other conferencing systems, including this one, and incredibly the membership has remained very stable. As I understand it, the members have confided in each other about the major events and struggles of their lives, and regard the group as a vitally important resource, even though the members are connected only electronically.

Many years ago, one of the members developed cancer, serious internal bleeding and was admitted to intensive care. He was given only 30 days to live. But, he insisted on bringing his laptop computer with him so that he could stay in touch with our program and with his community group. When he had a remission of symptoms and was discharged from the hospital, he credited his wife and his doctors, but said that much of the credit should go to the sustaining power of this online community. When I talked to him about it, he said that while he had taught at Columbia and been on the staff at Carnegie, he had never before belonged to a community. And he was referring to the electronic community of the "N Group". Powerful stuff. Maybe we can examine why.

2:45) 23-MAY-2001 09:48 Ralph Keyes

About Ray's important point on the relationship between prosperity and community: I don't know how many times friends who own spacious homes on large lots have told me with great nostalgia about the crowded neighborhoods of their childhood, where finding a playmate simply required stepping out your door to see who was on the street. Their own kids need to make "play dates" with friends at a distance, then get someone to drive them there and back. When that can't be done, they just stay home and watch television.

I've been doing some research on my mother's ancestors who came here from Romania over a century ago. One fact is painfully clear: in a new land with little money, the bonds of their extended family were incredibly strong. They had to be for their members to survive. The wealthier this family's descendants grew, the further afield they moved and the less contact they had with each other. Today's members have "done well", for the most part, but have little contact with each other.

I don't know exactly where to go with this point, but I do think, as Ray's suggested, that the tax on human connection that's part and parcel of prosperity is an issue that merits reflection.

As for online communities: this is an issue Dick and I have debated for years. Based on his experience with the "N Group", Dick's enthusiastic about the prospects of community in cyberspace. Based on my own experience of cyber-communities, whose membership is large, anonymous, and amorphous, I'm more dubious. A group whose members come and go, and who don't even know each other's names, can hardly be a close one. Yet, the online community Dick, Don and Ray describe sounds remarkably close. I wonder what specific factors have made it such a viable community. Stability and durability of membership is an obvious factor. Are there others?

2:46) 23-MAY-2001 13:34 Donald Straus

Here are a few impressionistic ideas about the "N Group".

All of us had already begun some bonding as members of WBSI, with its excitement of being pioneers in something new, and with the friendship of a week together once a year for several years.

We had another bond during the early years: discussing with each other the on-line courses we were all taking and, yes, gossiping about Dick and others during the closing of WBSI.

Then, when one of our favorite members, Chris Wright, became terminally ill, we kept in touch with him and his wife, Diana. Chris, while still alive, and Diana during the illness and since, often stated that the N Group was one of the most supporting events to keep up their spirits and courage.

Since then there have been major and minor crises in all of our lives, and virtually, all of us have vented high emotions and supported each other at an emotional level that is different from face-to-face friendships but very deep and often helpful.

Very often, all of us have an idea, sparked by a news story or personal experience or a work-in-progress that we wish to share and get feedback. The medium is always available at convenient times and without feeling we are impinging on other people's time. Some of the best "after dinner conversation" can be found in the "N files".

I hope that Lisa, Ray and other "Ners" will add to the above. Dick is right, in my opinion. This kind of niche for e-mail can be important in the future of our species.

2:47) 24-MAY-2001 19:28 Raymond Alden

Incidental intelligence: "N" stands for "Network". The term was coined soon after "T" groups became fashionable.

2:48) 25-MAY-2001 15:39 Ralph Keyes

I'm impressed by Don's depiction of the "N Group" and a bit envious too. Would that I was part of such a community myself. (Are there many more like it, do you suppose?) At the same time, I wonder if even such a caring and long-lasting cyber community can stand in for one of place. I'm thinking, in particular, of families that may function best in a context of geographical community but could find no comparable support online.

2:49) 25-MAY-2001 21:31 Raymond Alden

There's a ‘flip side’, Ralph. I'm not sure we'd all get along as well face-to-face. With one or two exceptions, we're all full of "warts". <g> For the most part, we only expose our best sides on line.

2:50) 26-MAY-2001 01:46 Richard Farson

Face to face communication is greatly overrated - full of noise. From personal experience online, and from watching other online groups, I can tell you that the intimacy developed is equal to or greater than that achieved in face to face groups. It may not be as close as some families, but curiously, families are not necessarily the most intimate. My experience is that time-limited residential groups or online groups can risk intimacy that families cannot. It’s the same way with strangers on a train.

2:51) 26-MAY-2001 13:16 Donald Straus

There is danger of falling into a "dichotomous trap" when discussing anything as complex as "communities". Both our culture and our language create these traps. How much more often do we use the phrase EITHER/OR rather than AND/ALSO? No one would advocate EITHER living in an electronic community OR a face-to-face one. But, I have no hesitation in suggesting that one's life might be enriched by living in a face-to-face community AND ALSO in an electronic one. As we are doing right here!

2:52) 26-MAY-2001 15:57 Richard Farson

Right, Don. Thanks for the reminder. I think our experience in the School of Management and Strategic Studies was that the electronic connections did not reduce the desire for face-to-face meetings but actually increased it. The more people interacted on line, the more interested they were in seeing each other at the semi-annual gatherings in La Jolla. I trust that will happen here in the ILF, too.

Random thoughts about communities that make planning difficult:

Sometimes, communities are formed by reducing the size of the group into a subgroup or residual group. When several people leave a party, for example, those remaining can sometimes feel more together as a result.

Also, they can gossip about those who have left. Gossip, despite its bad reputation, is perhaps one of the greatest bonding elements in the creation of community.

Sometimes, groups that are attacked from the outside, or even believe they are about to be attacked, can become strongly bonded. So, enmity can foster community.

Groups that know they will not continue, and never see each other again, such as weekend seminar groups, can become much more intimate than continuing groups.

People often choose NOT to be in a community, preferring the anonymity of a big city, or retire in an isolated gated California subdivision to get away from all the burdensome connections and consequent responsibilities they had back in Cleveland, where they were active members of a community.

There must be many other factors that make policy formation difficult.

2:53) 26-MAY-2001 22:22 Ralph Keyes

Dick, your last thought about people preferring the anonymity of cities or subdivisions reminds me of the woman who moved from Los Angeles to Bloomington, Indiana, then fled back to LA because she found the number of people who were beginning to recognize her unnerving!

I'm glad you've reminded us that we're not dealing with an either-or issue but a both-and one, Don. When I hear about groups like the "N Group", I'm hard put to say that this isn't a community, nor one of a type I'd like to belong to. As you say, however, and as Dick reiterates, the intimacy of such a gathering can be a function of its members not being face-to-face, of not having to see each other close up - warts & all - on an ongoing basis. Some of the communities I treasure most are those whose members have seen me at my worst (or close, anyway), yet stood by me. Face-to-face communities, geographic ones, certainly have a lower level of intimacy than those that don't meet in person, or in an ongoing way do (potentially, anyway), but they have a greater potential to convey that we needn't be perfect to be acceptable. That's such an important lesson to learn, for children especially. Family is where we learn it best, but community is next best. I think if children grow up feeling connected to, cared about and accepted by a group of people bigger than their family, they enter the world better equipped to handle whatever life throws at them.

2:54) 27-MAY-2001 22:07 Hallock Hoffman

You are all so wise! Indeed, the issues are best described by "and/also". And the types of communities that have been mentioned, online, family, close-knit residential and having a common temporary purpose, to name a few, are all within our mutual experiences. But, I am still not quite sure what we are looking for. How will we know when this investigation is finished? What does this small online community seek to do together, and how will we know when we have done it?

2:55) 28-MAY-2001 14:49 Ralph Keyes

Thanks for asking, Hallock. Since we are a policy forum, we should be moving in the direction of considering policies to recommend that would encourage a revival of community. Some areas we've considered that relate include housing, zoning, design, transportation, education and commerce. Overall, I'd like to think that a new way of evaluating policies would be in terms of whether or not they're "community-friendly". As we've seen, this doesn't just relate to classic neighborhood communities but online ones as well, and other varieties that we haven't even dwelled on. I'll post some specific thoughts shortly about types of policies we might want to consider, but in the meantime, I wonder if anyone else out there has thoughts along this line.

2:56) 28-MAY-2001 15:27 Richard Farson

Two ideas along those lines:

One might be that given the thrust of our discussion so far, we should make room for the coexistence of opposites in our approach to policy development - community AND privacy, etc.

Another might be recognizing that city councils and other legislators and decision makers at all levels seldom consider the effects of their decisions on the development or maintenance of community. Mostly, they are concerned with revenue generation, commerce, esthetics, codes, logistics (traffic, etc.) and environmental considerations. Special interest groups are good at focusing their attention on these matters, and they are often armed with numbers. Perhaps, we could create a kind of community development checklist that decision-makers could use. Perhaps, it could even yield a score that would assess the likely impact of their decisions on community development.

2:57) 28-MAY-2001 18:11 Rodrigo Arboleda Halaby

These comments are wonderful food for the soul. Late, but here I am trying to catch up. What a difference from 19 years ago!

I come from Medellin, Colombia, a community that has seen the good, the bad and the ugly. Our Spanish and Mediterranean background fosters a ‘touchy’, warm and personal relationship, like seen in the Italian movies of Cinema Paradiso type. It’s a small town with very earthy interaction. That has produced very good things, and also horrible people like legendary Pablo Escobar. Where is the paradox? I pose this for questioning the participants.

Family life is strong in my culture. We still went to Sunday luncheons at the head of the family home, where all the cousins and uncles gather. Of course, that has been lost in great part to the mobility created by the violence that forced many to migrate. I came to Miami 23 years ago, and I live in Key Biscayne, a small island of 7,000 families. We have four shopping malls of small size, but no big one. That provides the kind of environment that promotes social interchange, but at the same time we live at distances that require us to take the car, or at least a bicycle, to go to the strip. This gives us a regulator valve for social interaction. If we want to see people, we can do so by just going to the mall. For sure, we will find one or two persons we know. Otherwise, we call them on the phone, and we get together. But that's it. This is to reinforce the one AND the other. Face-to-face is important but not decisive on a daily basis. We can do without it for sometime, but here and there, seeing each other is good and complements the relationship. I went to the Napa valley and the little town of Santa Helena and found many of the same features there. Community and privacy. The perennial dilemma.

2:58) 29-MAY-2001 13:50 Ralph Keyes

Dick has asked us to consider a very important dimension of this issue: our competing needs for community AND privacy. In other, more communal cultures this might not be an issue at all. Some barely have a concept of privacy. But we certainly do, and I think any effort to revive community in the United States that doesn't account for our need for solitude as well as company is doomed to failure.

In my own life, I can think of three communal occasions that illustrated how both needs can be accounted for. One was a train trip from San Diego to Flint, Michigan and back. Those who wanted to be alone stayed in their seats. Those who wanted to be in community gathered in the club car. I went back and forth, and enjoyed some wonderful company with fellow passengers in the club car as well as undisturbed time to read back in my seat. (That experience also reminded me that community takes time. Long, slow train trips have far more potential for community than faster trips by plane.) The other two experiences were in college dormitories: once as a student living in a century-old dorm that had unusually wide hallways where community occurred for those who wanted it, but where those who didn't could retreat to their rooms and not be disturbed. The other dorm was one I mentioned earlier, a four-story cube of a building in which those who tired of being in their rooms could come out in the hallways and see at a glance who else was available for community. To me, this suggests that the most successful building designs accommodate both needs: privacy and community. Most, alas, do better at one or the other.

Rodrigo, welcome! I was just talking with a woman from Medellin last week who, like you, misses the warmth of her family life there but not Medellin's current danger.

Your experience in Key Biscayne and Santa Helena sounds like one that accommodates privacy and community fairly well. Like you, I find days in my small town where I don't want to be burdened with familiar faces, and other days when I crave them. As you say, "The perennial dilemma". But I don't think that's a bad tension. At least, in this society, I think the most viable communities accommodate our needs for isolation and company equally.

2:59) 29-MAY-2001 18:11 Richard Farson

Psychologists (and many others) have learned how to create community in the "laboratory". We have experimented a great deal with that phenomenon in the earlier days of WBSI. It is clear that we can take almost any group of strangers and arrange the circumstances, with or without a professional leader, in which they will, in a short space of time, become intimate, personal and bonded for as long as the group continues to meet. We can even create such a "community" when the group will be together only for about 45 minutes, where the members will be crying and falling into each others arms at the end. Predictably. Practically every time. Now, when we try to take those arrangements into our families, or other situations, we can't make them work at all. That is, the more connected we are, and the more important our relationships with each other are, the less such techniques work. Thank God.

2:60) 30-MAY-2001 11:27 Ralph Keyes

Amen. Years ago - in what seems like another life - I took part in, and sometimes led, what were then called "encounter groups". Our experience was exactly what you describe, Dick. Almost without fail, the most intense kind of intimate community ensued when a group of people who didn't know each other spent a weekend trying to be more open. In theory, this was due to the effectiveness of our community-building techniques. In fact, as my wife Muriel often suggested, the same thing would probably happen with any group of strangers who were thrown together for a brief period of time, knowing they'd probably never see each other again. Temporariness - the strangers-on-a-train syndrome - was encounter-grouping's key ingredient. Every group leader's nightmare was that one of the participants with whom he'd been so intimate during a weekend group would show up at his house on Monday wanting to continue the relationship.

I always thought that an interesting short story could be built around a weekend group encountering each other in a mountain cabin, ending the experience with moist-eyed embraces on Sunday afternoon, opening the cabin's door to leave, and discovering 12 feet of snow blocking their exit. What then?

Such experiences and thoughts left me feeling that I'd rather have intimacy that's less intense but longer lasting. That feels more real-to-life, more like actual community.

2:61) 01-JUN-2001 12:57 Ralph Keyes

Our Webmaster, Kip Winsett, e-mailed me a thoughtful comment that pertains to our discussion, and I'd like to enter it into the record, along with my response:

Kip: America is having to deal with the results of population density combined with a wide diversity of cultures. Throughout much of the country, there are population centers with Black, Latino, Arab, Vietnamese, Chinese, Japanese, Filipino, Russian, etc. enclaves. Their cultures are significantly different from each other. If I'm not mistaken, this period of time in America is the only time in the history of the world where so many diverse groups of people have been virtually shoved up against each other in such tight quarters. China and Japan have had to deal with population density for centuries, but they are not multi-cultural environments. In addition to the cultural differences arising from ethnic origin, race and religion, there are social differences: suburban, rural, laborer, technocrat, gay, etc. How is it possible in the face of such cramped diversity to achieve a general sense of community? My concern is that any reform policies, in order to work, must address the needs and the perceptions of many different sub-communities.

Ralph: I think you're right that greater population density, combined with the numbers of immigrants here in their enclaves, work against any sense of national community. (It's probably true that there is a wider range of ethnic groups living here than ever before, though I don't know that for a fact.) As you point out, we're also segmenting on many other lines. These realities do mitigate against a general sense of community. However, I wonder if the United States has ever had such a broad feeling of community except for fleeting moments during times of war or other national emergencies? Our country was created out of squabbling colonies, and we've squabbled over any and everything since then. Unlike a more homogeneous society such as Japan's, our strength is in our diversity. I like it that way and wouldn't want to sacrifice the richness of America's variety for a more coherent sense of national identity. My concern is more that a stronger sense of community be possible for each one of us closer to home. In that sense, immigrant groups, especially, may be part of the solution with their emphasis on extended kinship and strong sense of group.

2:62) 01-JUN-2001 18:26 Raymond Alden

Kip asks: How is it possible in the face of such cramped diversity to achieve a general sense of community?

Is it not possible to have "cramped diversity" itself be the basis for a general sense of community? As Ralph says, "our strength is in our diversity". And surely, a shared sense of strength is a basis for community. I think it was Jivan Tabibian who gave a lecture at WBSI a century or two ago on the theme that "Only in America can someone born and raised elsewhere be accepted, after attaining citizenship, as 'American'." As American as is anyone else, in fact. Try that in France!

And then of course there are all manner of communities besides the "general" sense.

Perhaps we could make a useful distinction between a "general" sense and a "particular" sense of community. I think that they may be equally useful, depending on the circumstances.

2:63) 02-JUN-2001 10:17 Ralph Keyes

I think Raymond's distinction between a "general" and "particular" sense of community is very helpful. "General" senses of community happen rarely, usually during times of emergency, and among people who have no actual contact with each other. In that sense, they contribute little to the type of healthy social connection that "particular" communities promote. The latter, I would think, is what we, as a forum, are hoping to encourage.

On the diversity issue: I don't know how many of you have visited Toronto recently. Three decades ago, Toronto was a tedious, bland, predominantly WASP city. After Canada loosened its immigration policies, groups of people from every point of the globe have settled in Toronto. In the process, they've made it into one of the most vibrant, colorful and exciting cities I've visited in some time.

2:64) 02-JUN-2001 13:03 Richard Farson

I attended a party last night and sat next to a man from Toronto who said that it is now the most ethnically diverse city in the world. Their police department has translators for 167 languages. He loves that aspect of the city. Are we getting into immigration policy?

2:65) 03-JUN-2001 19:05 Ralph Keyes

Perhaps we are getting into immigration policy, in the sense that immigrant groups often bring with them commitments to family and community life that can fertilize our own withered sense of community. (One reason I like eating in ethnic restaurants is that the owner's family so often occupies a table of their own there, and remind me that such vibrant social connections are possible.) Were we to restrict immigration even more than we do - as some propose - we'd restrict our own access to such positive models of community.

2:66) 03-JUN-2001 21:28 Donald Straus

I think Ray is on to something when he in 2:62 talks about a "general sense of community". When we speak of "Hispanics", do we not really mean immigrants from many different Spanish-speaking cultures - all of whom are demonstrating a new flavor of being an American? Not so long ago, this was the "melting pot" process which, when I was young, had a positive connotation. What may have happened in more recent times, is that the speed and quantity of immigration has been too great for the "melting pot" to work, and as a result, it has taken on a "politically wrong" connotation - implying a repudiation of still-strong patriotism for the culture of birth. Perhaps, we can build on Ray's "general sense of community" to mean - e.g., in the case of "Hispanics" - a pride in bringing to the American mix a new and enhancing flavor to being an American.

Related, but even more complex, is to what extent can a modern nation flourish without a single and uniformly understood language.

2:67) 05-JUN-2001 12:35 Ralph Keyes

In his book The Other Americans: How Immigrants Renew Our Country, Our Economy and Our Values (Viking, 1999), Joel Millman notes how many Spanish-speaking immigrants to the United States bring with them a "village culture" that assumes one will help another. Many have settled in crumbling inner cities and contributed to their renaissance. As Don points out, at one time we assumed that the "melting pot" effect would absorb all immigrants into the ‘American Way of Life’. I like his notion that, under the current circumstances, this process would include pride in contributing to our culture as much as drawing on it, "bringing to the American mix a new and enhancing flavor". One hopes that a renewed emphasis on family and community life would be part of this flavor.

2:68) 06-JUN-2001 12:27 Ralph Keyes

George Will's column in the current Newsweek is on a new book (Michael Barone's The New Americans: How the Melting Pot Can Work Again) that reiterates some of the points we've been discussing. Barone suggests that in the midst of a society suffering from frayed family ties, Latinos have become our most family-oriented ethnic group.

While pulling together some policy suggestions, I just reviewed our entire discussion to date. My overall impression was one of how much ground we've covered, and our willingness to consider the complexities and subtleties of this issue. Discussions of community too often are vague and simplistic (e.g.: "It's time in this country for an end to the politics of division and a renaissance of American community." Bill Clinton.) Ours hasn't been.

A couple of points got lost along the way that I wanted to pick up. One was Dick's suggestion that gossip is an integral and healthy part of community life. Of course. Knowing others well enough to gossip about them suggests we feel tied to those people. Talking about them reiterates those ties. Like so many other aspects of community, the value of gossip is hard to swallow because of its negative connotations.

The other point that deserved more attention was Mary's suggestion that living environments designed by residents might best promote a sense of community. I couldn't agree more. As it is, we leave such design to architects and developers who seldom consider community building part of their job. As a result, their developments are, at best, indifferent to social ties, at worst, antithetical to them. A rare exception is a housing complex in Oakland called Hismen Hin-Nu ("Doorway to the Sun") that was designed by what its architect called "a community of coauthors": those who would be living there. Long before ground was broken, future residents met in teams that considered everything from building materials through security to encouraging a sense of community. One result was a central courtyard that became an important hangout for residents.

2:69) 06-JUN-2001 13:26 Raymond Alden

On gossip: It's an elementary, but usually overlooked, principle of corporate management that the "grapevine" is the most used medium of communications, and the challenge to management is to supply it with positive thoughts. The same is true in schools & colleges, churches and probably any sort of community one can think of.

But, whose job is it to supply the grapevine? It doesn't appear on any organization chart that I ever saw. In one place I know of the assignment was clear, if unspoken: Hewlett Packard, and "Managing by Wandering About", where I'm sure the grapevine was well supplied.

2:70) 06-JUN-2001 13:31 Raymond Alden

I'd surely like to hear more about living environments designed to foster a sense of community. The Oakland "Doorway to the Sun" is an interesting illustration but not obviously useful as a model. In the ordinary planning process for living environments, where does the opportunity arise to move in this direction?

Is it in the Planning Departments or Commissions of Cities and Counties? Does it depend on the "Developers" who acquire and subdivide land? I can see architects playing a central role in high-rise housing projects - but usually only if they are so instructed by some agency or developer.

We should talk more about this!

2:71) 07-JUN-2001 14:45 Ralph Keyes

Agreed. I hope the elements in what follows that apply to design & development can provide a basis for that discussion.

Since this is a policy forum, I’d like to suggest some policy proposals for us to consider.

The rationale for these proposals is that robust human connections – what we call "community" – are essential for physical, emotional and social health. Lost civility can be rediscovered best in a context of community. The "social capital" accrued by those who engage each other in neighborhoods, government and civic groups is the foundation of political and economic stability. This is not a product of some vague "sense of community" incorporating vast numbers of people who don’t even know each other. A genuine feeling of community emerges among small groups of people who develop ties over time. Can we propose policies that promote such ties?

Community-friendly policies create incentives for human connection (or at least eliminate disincentives). They make hidden costs apparent. As is, the negative impact on community life of urban sprawl, automobility, mass commerce, huge schools and restrictive zoning regulations are seldom taken into account. Vibrant neighborhoods should not be razed simply because the land they sit on has become more valuable for other purposes. Farmland should not be converted into sprawling developments without considering the social cost. New highways should not be built as mass transit is allowed to languish.

How do we reverse this trend? The best way might be to propose a Community Impact Statement that would assess social projects by their impact on human connections. How do zoning regulations, new housing and commercial developments, building design, urban renewal and transportation methods add to or detract from our ability to gather in community? Raising such questions is not obstructionist. They lie at the heart of our health as a society.

Take zoning. Regulations that overly restrict land use and lot size encourage the sprawl that frustrates community. Permitting greater density of housing and mixed-use developments (residential-commercial-industrial) can decrease dependence on cars, and increase pedestrian life in which people mingle. So do requirements that sidewalks are to be included in new developments, and that mass transit is to be provided as an alternative to car use.

Community-based police officers who walk a beat, get to know who lives there, and become known to them don’t just lower crime rates (as studies have shown) but contribute to community life as a whole. Can we restore funds for community-based police officers that were eliminated by the current administration?

Community-friendly initiatives such as these converge with those that protect the environment. Policies that make ecological sense also promote human connection. By discouraging excessive use of cars, higher taxes on gasoline don’t just raise revenue and improve air quality but encourage us to live more locally. This is good for clean air and community alike. Mass transit will only become viable, as car use grows less viable. When it comes to community, the hundreds of millions of dollars it takes to build a new highway interchange might better be devoted to light rail systems. Rising electricity rates, too, have the upside of discouraging routine use of air conditioners and encouraging functional, rather than ornamental, front porches on homes. Cluster housing preserves green space and facilitates neighborliness – especially when it’s designed to facilitate gathering.

There is a need for better attention to community in design and also for privacy. As we’ve noted, Americans crave both. In general, we’ve provided for privacy far better than community in design, but sometimes flip-flop and go too far in the other direction (as, say, with office-free workplaces). The ideal is to seek a balance between private and communal space in residential, educational and working spaces alike. Self-designed housing developments can emphasize social as well as esthetic concerns. Gathering spaces are an essential part of such developments. From the standpoint of social health, hangouts are not an amenity but a necessity. Community-encouraging facilities should be considered as important a part of new developments as curbs and sewer lines. Streets that inhibit traffic flow (except for arteries), crosswalks and nearby schools all encourage pedestrian life.

Education is at the heart of this issue. Healthy communities revolve around their schools. Whatever makes it easier to teach and learn close to home facilitates community life. This means breaking up huge schools and school districts. Renovating smaller local school buildings rather than building big new ones. Adapting vacant buildings for re-use as neighborhood schools. Creating schools that double as community centers. Eliminating busing wherever possible. Study after study has found that the success of schools and their students depends on parental involvement. The closer schools are to home the more likely parents are to get involved, and the better their kids will do in school. The better their kids do in school, the less likely parents are to flee to a better school district.

Although tax policy is probably beyond our purview, we might want to note that sprawling commerce and industry – shopping centers, office parks, etc. – took off after accelerated depreciation was permitted in 1950s. Once developers could depreciate the cost of building new outlets in as little as 15 years (rather than 40) it made more sense to build new complexes than to maintain old ones. (That’s the key reason why U.S. has twice as many shopping centers as Canada, which has no such policy.) As a result, shopping centers are now being abandoned by the thousands. Rather than allow old malls to revert to thrift stores and 99-cent emporiums, why not use tax incentives to encourage their adaptive re-use as community centers? Such centers could incorporate schools, day care centers, senior-citizen hangouts and health facilities.

Policies that encourage certain types of wired and wireless communication can contribute to a restoration of community life by facilitating our ability to live locally in a global context. Being able to conduct business online vastly increases one’s options for earning income while staying in a small community. The cyber world itself hosts vast numbers of online communities. Some are intimate and lasting. Others are ephemeral. Research indicates that the most fruitful online communities involve members who actually know each other. Some of the most exciting experiments in cyber-aided community building involve the wiring of towns and cities. (A new town being designed in Finland will rely on wireless technology to connect all residents and enhance their community life.) Well-wired communities are more likely to stay vibrant and not suffocate in parochialism, if that process is handled well.

That’s it, for now. Other policy initiatives we might consider could deal with immigration, campaign finance reform (to discourage excess influence of anti-community developers, etc.), strengthening urban neighborhoods and encouraging family-friendly workplaces that promote community by easing strain on families.

2:72) 07-JUN-2001 19:05 Raymond Alden

An extraordinarily eloquent statement, Ralph!

One paragraph near the end reminds me of the late Peter Goldmark - best known as the inventor of the long-playing phonograph record - who, in the 1970's, proposed a serious effort to apply telecommunications technology toward bringing small towns the amenities that were causing people to abandon small towns in favor of big cities. He theorized that there is NO incentive to leave rural communities for urban centers that cannot be addressed, and probably ameliorated, through the application of telecommunications.

Perhaps that thought has a place in our consideration of policy.

2:73) 07-JUN-2001 19:13 Raymond Alden

For policies such as Ralph has suggested to be effective, there must be a parallel effort to convince the public - and thereby the representatives of the public - of the truth and the importance of Ralph's opening paragraphs on the value of "Community" to social health.

How many, do you suppose, of our elected representatives today would be able to make, or would even support with enthusiasm, a declaration that, "The ‘social capital’ accrued by those who engage each other in neighborhoods, government and civic groups is the foundation of political and economic stability."

This is an essential truth (!), which, if said on the floor of the Congress, would be likely to generate such a response as, "Duh!" Anyway, it wouldn't be likely to make the evening news.

2:74) 08-JUN-2001 00:30 Richard Farson

Ralph, you have made us look good by teasing out and enriching our various comments, and shown us that we were really generating policies.

I have never before heard of requiring a "Community Impact Report" as we do Environmental Impact Reports. Perhaps that happens in some places. Some of the architects in our group should know. I find it very interesting. Perhaps if that proposal could be wed to a description of the real costs of losing community, it could generate interest. Hearing about real costs can be quite compelling. For example, in a new book by Dani