Recommendations for books on communtity building

March 8, 2013 10:59 PM

What are the best general books or other resources on the subject of community building? They can also be very specific if the lessons from the book can be applied generally.
posted by Bunny Ultramod to society & culture (8 answers total)

Are you asking about building an online community, by any chance? If so A List Apart has a "community" tag for their articles where you can sample some authors' writing.
posted by XMLicious at 11:08 PM on March 8

I quite like Ife and Tesoriero 'Community Development: Community-Based Alternatives in an Age of Globalisation'. I'm pretty sure at the end of each chapter there's exercises of you to put what was discussed into your own context and there's lots of case studies. It is a text book.
posted by jujulalia at 1:14 AM on March 9

A community-building (civic) group where I live used Community: The Structure of Belonging by Peter Block to facilitate a series of discussions and workshops.
posted by Sweetie Darling at 4:52 AM on March 9

I highly recommend reading Bowling Alone and Better Together by Robert Putnam and checking out the website for the Saguaro Seminar on Civic Engagement.
posted by brookeb at 6:49 AM on March 9

How about fiction? I read A Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute years ago, and the part of the story that sticks with me is how they went to the Australian outback and built a community there. I keep thinking that those principles would work anywhere. You'll have to wade through a lot of story about war and torture before you get to Australia, but all these years later I don't remember that part; only the community.
posted by CathyG at 8:14 AM on March 9

Ubuntu community manager Jono Bacon wrote The Art of Community Online.
posted by mbrubeck at 8:29 AM on March 9

I do online community management, but my favorite books about communities are the classic ones about cities - The Death and Life of Great American Cities and The Great Good Place: Cafes, Coffee Shops, Bookstores, Bars, Hair Salons, and Other Hangouts at the Heart of a Community.
posted by dreamyshade at 12:32 PM on March 9

I've read a lot of the 2nd edition of Community Organizing and Community Building for Health edited by Meredith Minkler - looks like the 3rd edition is out now. There's a strong public health focus, obviously, but a good discussion of the big theories behind community building as well as lots of specific examples.
posted by pants at 9:38 AM on March 10