Community Defined
Excerpt # 2 from
Beyond The Numbers: Inadequacies of Creative Placemaking Criteria
There are many definitions of the word community and therefore there are innumerable ways any one community can be defined. The meaning of the word has grown and changed over time with the development of new technologies and new ways in which people interact with one another.
According to Webster a community is:
a unified body of individuals: as state, commonwealth; the people with common interests living in a particular area; broadly: the area itself; an interacting population of various kinds of individuals (as species) in a common location; a group of people with a common characteristic or interest living together within a larger society; a group linked by a common policy; a body of persons or nations having a common history or common social, economic, and political interests; a body of persons of common and especially professional interests scattered through a larger society. A community is also defined as a society at large; joint ownership or participation common character: likeness; social activity: fellowship or a social state or condition.
In 1887 Ferdinand Tonnie, a German sociologist distinguished two ideal types of human association, Gemeinschaft, the communal society and the Gesellschaft, the associational society. He believed that the Gemeinschaft is a society determined by natural will and regulated by traditional social rules. Gesellschaft on the other hand is a society that is the creation of rational will and is characterized by relationships that were more impersonal and indirect.
In the Gesellschaft, rational self-interest and calculating conduct act to weaken the traditional bonds of family, kinship, and religion that permeate the Gemeinschaft’s structure. In the Gesellschaft, human relations are more impersonal and indirect, being rationally constructed in the interest of efficiency or other economic and political considerations.
What is being described by distinguishing the two different types of human association is that there is a difference in a community that is created rather than developed. The difference is in the relationships. The goals of the Gesellschaft are based on economic or other political achievements that are not necessarily a reflection of the natural organization of community. In essence the goal of association in the Gesellschaft is outside the natural order and therefore creates abhorrent, unnatural relations.
Tonnie’s definition also distinguishes certain bonds. Family and religion are easily understood, however, the choice of the word kinship is interesting. The definition of kinship is literally “the state of being kin” and is most often thought of as “blood relationship.” However, the second definition of the word kinship is “a sharing of characteristics or origins.” The word kinship in relationship to community has strong implications for understanding the root of community.
The organization and definition of community first stemmed from an organic place of natural order. “The foundation of social organization, and hence of government, the tangible form of social organization, was originally the bond of real and legal blood kinship. The recognition and perpetuation of the ties of blood kinship were the first important steps in the permanent social organization of society.” The organization of community is a direct reflection of nature and the principles of community can be found in the natural order.
This is further demonstrated by looking at the definition of community from a scientific perspective. In biology a community is defined as “An ecological unit composed of a group of organisms or a population of different species occupying a particular area, usually interacting with each other and their environment.” The definition is expanded to describe the interaction in a community; “The organisms living in a community interact with one another, often, affecting each other’s abundance, distribution, adaptation and existence.” A communal society is a man-made ecosystem.
Here it is important to pare down the definition to the most simple and easily identified characteristics of what actually comprises a community. Two common threads are found within the varied definitions of community that reflect the nature of an ecosystem. It requires more than one individual to make a community, and how the individual members interact, the relationships, is just as important in defining the community as are the individuals themselves. A community is therefore, defined by the very people that make up the community. In essence, the members who make up the community and the relationships through which the individual members interact are what define a community and therefore determine its ability to thrive. People need one another and ultimately, without relationships there is no community.
If the structure of a community can be found within nature, and its structure is inseparable from its ability to thrive, it is logical to assume that the indicators of a thriving community can also be found in nature. Therefore, the principles of community, like nature, are everywhere and can be recognized and mirrored. Success can theoretically, be gained by aligning with the structure and principles demonstrated in nature.
Copyright 2013