Tell me about these "local communities"
April 7, 2014 5:27 AM Subscribe
So, frequently I will read people (eg on this very website) talking about local communities, how great they are, and the various things which are apparently destroying them. I tend to be "what are these things? Why do people like them so much? I don't get it.". So, where can I read about these things?
This is obviously an emotive question so please stick to reasonably factual answers like "here's this great source where people talk about communities". Let's not have the actual argument!
This is obviously an emotive question so please stick to reasonably factual answers like "here's this great source where people talk about communities". Let's not have the actual argument!
Response by poster: On rereading, I realise that "things" is a little ambiguous. The things I want to know about are communities.
posted by curious_yellow at 6:42 AM on April 7, 2014
posted by curious_yellow at 6:42 AM on April 7, 2014
Often people are talking about people and institutions that have older claims to the area and its identity, rather than new corporations and developers buying up land.
Sometimes people are talking about small businesses, that "have local color" - which really means they are living vessels for the local cultural. This is usually in the context of, you know, mom-and-pop shops being turned into CVSs and small restaurants getting priced out and turned into, I dunno, wine bars and artisanal toast places aimed at twenty-six-year-olds with twitter accounts and disposable income.
posted by entropone at 7:13 AM on April 7, 2014
Sometimes people are talking about small businesses, that "have local color" - which really means they are living vessels for the local cultural. This is usually in the context of, you know, mom-and-pop shops being turned into CVSs and small restaurants getting priced out and turned into, I dunno, wine bars and artisanal toast places aimed at twenty-six-year-olds with twitter accounts and disposable income.
posted by entropone at 7:13 AM on April 7, 2014
I'm not really sure which conversations you are talking about (example, maybe?)
But ... there used to be a coffee shop in my neighborhood. It was the kind of place that hosted a writing group, craft night, a drawing group. People came and bought coffee and got to know their neighbors. That coffee shop was the breeding ground for weddings, friendships, business ventures, and volunteer organizations that are still around today. But the shop itself is gone - a bank bought the space.
The thing about that coffee shop was that it actively encouraged people getting together and meeting each other. If you mentioned to one of the baristas that you really wanted to learn to crochet, he would take you across the room and introduce you to someone who knitted, and you'd get to talking and the next thing you know you're one of the founding members of a knitting club.
In the city that I live in we are constantly surrounded by neighbors, but something more is needed to create connections. Connections are what make life satisfying, what make your neighborhood feel like a home, make you feel invested in local issues. Mere proximity is not enough.
posted by bunderful at 7:25 AM on April 7, 2014 [6 favorites]
But ... there used to be a coffee shop in my neighborhood. It was the kind of place that hosted a writing group, craft night, a drawing group. People came and bought coffee and got to know their neighbors. That coffee shop was the breeding ground for weddings, friendships, business ventures, and volunteer organizations that are still around today. But the shop itself is gone - a bank bought the space.
The thing about that coffee shop was that it actively encouraged people getting together and meeting each other. If you mentioned to one of the baristas that you really wanted to learn to crochet, he would take you across the room and introduce you to someone who knitted, and you'd get to talking and the next thing you know you're one of the founding members of a knitting club.
In the city that I live in we are constantly surrounded by neighbors, but something more is needed to create connections. Connections are what make life satisfying, what make your neighborhood feel like a home, make you feel invested in local issues. Mere proximity is not enough.
posted by bunderful at 7:25 AM on April 7, 2014 [6 favorites]
Response by poster: @bunderful - okay, for example this.
But I really don't want to bring that argument here.
posted by curious_yellow at 7:35 AM on April 7, 2014
But I really don't want to bring that argument here.
posted by curious_yellow at 7:35 AM on April 7, 2014
Have you tried local papers? I live in what could be considered a small community and the newspapers overflow with articles about what is ruining or destroying everything.
-a mayor authorized chopping down a tree and caused outrage (he has done other stuff to cause a kerfuffle and is a regular in the newspaper)
-a derelict vessel sank and shut down mussel collection for a time, this caused hardship for the company selling the mussels, the people buying the mussels, and massive money was spent to get the vessel out; to prevent further ruination, now there will be new laws about such vessels
-local farmers versus local salmon versus regulations (which are not enforced; no police)
-not enough police/enforcement of laws to deal with the drug problem, so lots of break-ins and no response or capture of the breakers-in
-apparent demand (lots of hunters and burglary victims) makes local spot a good place to open a new gun shop; protestors are noisy online and on opening day gun shop owner prepares by laying in a supply of coffee, bagels, and banana bread (protestors apparently skipped out, though)
-the government had an idea they would put restrictions on what can be grown in a certain area only to lift that restriction upon the stunned discovery that actual farmers did not like that plan
In a "local" community, it's the little things that have an impact. All the above are summarized from memory; I have no idea if my memory is accurate. :)
posted by AllieTessKipp at 7:42 AM on April 7, 2014
-a mayor authorized chopping down a tree and caused outrage (he has done other stuff to cause a kerfuffle and is a regular in the newspaper)
-a derelict vessel sank and shut down mussel collection for a time, this caused hardship for the company selling the mussels, the people buying the mussels, and massive money was spent to get the vessel out; to prevent further ruination, now there will be new laws about such vessels
-local farmers versus local salmon versus regulations (which are not enforced; no police)
-not enough police/enforcement of laws to deal with the drug problem, so lots of break-ins and no response or capture of the breakers-in
-apparent demand (lots of hunters and burglary victims) makes local spot a good place to open a new gun shop; protestors are noisy online and on opening day gun shop owner prepares by laying in a supply of coffee, bagels, and banana bread (protestors apparently skipped out, though)
-the government had an idea they would put restrictions on what can be grown in a certain area only to lift that restriction upon the stunned discovery that actual farmers did not like that plan
In a "local" community, it's the little things that have an impact. All the above are summarized from memory; I have no idea if my memory is accurate. :)
posted by AllieTessKipp at 7:42 AM on April 7, 2014
I suspect that part of the difficulty of finding resources to help you understand what these "communities" are is that they are by their nature idiosyncratic and ephemeral, and that the things that make them so important to the people who are part of them won't always make sense to the people on the outside. You could probably start to get a sense of how communities work if you, say, read small town newspapers for a few months-- but not really, because you'd never learn who was plowing whose driveway for free or who had been trading vegetables from their garden for deer meat or even fresh fish, babysitting, or house-painting for medical care.
So maybe if you spent a week shadowing the guys on my block in Brooklyn who are outside all the time and know everything that happens and keep track of everyone and ask me about my vacation when I've been gone for a week and know who is parking on top of the storm drain and whose cat is pissing in whose flowerbeds and whether or not I've been digging my car out of the snow with every storm. And sometimes it's irritating, because I know I'm parked overtop of the storm drain and need to dig it out better but I just don't own a shovel, but sometimes they figure that out and offer to let me use a shovel or just do it for me because they like me.
These are the kinds of things you are looking for, I suspect (and these are all real examples from my life), but they're not the kinds of things that lend themselves easily to academic sources-- they're anecdotes, which don't transform easily into data or anything objective-seeming. If you're open to reading novels or watching TV shows, rather than finding non-fiction sources, you might find that they're good sources for understanding what people mean when they talk about community. It won't, in general, be the topic of any novels or TV shows, but it can be something you get a feel for over the course of a longer narrative arc. I might look to Marilynne Robinson's novels, or TV shows like Cheers, Northern Exposure, or even Twin Peaks, if you want to see a twisted version of it.
posted by dizziest at 7:54 AM on April 7, 2014
So maybe if you spent a week shadowing the guys on my block in Brooklyn who are outside all the time and know everything that happens and keep track of everyone and ask me about my vacation when I've been gone for a week and know who is parking on top of the storm drain and whose cat is pissing in whose flowerbeds and whether or not I've been digging my car out of the snow with every storm. And sometimes it's irritating, because I know I'm parked overtop of the storm drain and need to dig it out better but I just don't own a shovel, but sometimes they figure that out and offer to let me use a shovel or just do it for me because they like me.
These are the kinds of things you are looking for, I suspect (and these are all real examples from my life), but they're not the kinds of things that lend themselves easily to academic sources-- they're anecdotes, which don't transform easily into data or anything objective-seeming. If you're open to reading novels or watching TV shows, rather than finding non-fiction sources, you might find that they're good sources for understanding what people mean when they talk about community. It won't, in general, be the topic of any novels or TV shows, but it can be something you get a feel for over the course of a longer narrative arc. I might look to Marilynne Robinson's novels, or TV shows like Cheers, Northern Exposure, or even Twin Peaks, if you want to see a twisted version of it.
posted by dizziest at 7:54 AM on April 7, 2014
There's a Local community article on wikipedia, which might be a good starting place. Social capital is another concept you may find useful. You may not be getting lots of hard data here because of the fish in water problem.
There are these two young fish swimming along, and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, "Morning, boys, how's the water?" And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes, "What the hell is water?"posted by zamboni at 8:30 AM on April 7, 2014
... The immediate point of the fish story is that the most obvious, ubiquitous, important realities are often the ones that are the hardest to see and talk about.*
Best answer: I think Jane Jacobs is considered to be the seminal diseminator of the idea of communities in an urban contex. Most higher level writing would assume you are familiar with her ideas.
posted by saucysault at 9:17 AM on April 7, 2014 [3 favorites]
posted by saucysault at 9:17 AM on April 7, 2014 [3 favorites]
In the specific context of gentrification 'ruining' communities in the UK, what is often meant is that when prices go up, the next generation of families who have lived there for generations are unable to - so family networks and friendship groups are disrupted as people have to move out of the area.
Some communities also resent people who buy holiday homes in, for example, a rural Cornish village. This means that the village is dead during winter and week days, and full of tourists in summer and weekends. And holiday-homers buy all the houses, so local kids can't..
Sometimes, not in the context of gentrification, it comes from white working class families who have lived in an area for generations towards new immigrant groups. Ironically, it is sometimes an influx of immigrants that actually keeps a community alive that would otherwise have turned into a street of betting shops and boarded up buildings...
posted by Dorothea_in_Rome at 9:47 AM on April 7, 2014 [1 favorite]
Some communities also resent people who buy holiday homes in, for example, a rural Cornish village. This means that the village is dead during winter and week days, and full of tourists in summer and weekends. And holiday-homers buy all the houses, so local kids can't..
Sometimes, not in the context of gentrification, it comes from white working class families who have lived in an area for generations towards new immigrant groups. Ironically, it is sometimes an influx of immigrants that actually keeps a community alive that would otherwise have turned into a street of betting shops and boarded up buildings...
posted by Dorothea_in_Rome at 9:47 AM on April 7, 2014 [1 favorite]
TYWKIWDBI - a great blog in general - had an entry recently with a link to a short OpEd about the troubles facing small towns in Minnesota. Rural small towns are surely one of your categories of "local communities" that are in danger (in their case from large agribusiness, more mobile young people, Wal Mart, an aging population, the Interstate Highway System, and others.)
Just last week, my family took a trip to "southernmost Illinois." We drove through a half-dozen tiny little towns that grew up around trade on the Ohio River; in most, you could see remnants of the community that used to be there. Now, they are noteworthy only in that you need to slow down for a couple of blocks as you pass through the old business district.
posted by AgentRocket at 11:21 AM on April 7, 2014
Just last week, my family took a trip to "southernmost Illinois." We drove through a half-dozen tiny little towns that grew up around trade on the Ohio River; in most, you could see remnants of the community that used to be there. Now, they are noteworthy only in that you need to slow down for a couple of blocks as you pass through the old business district.
posted by AgentRocket at 11:21 AM on April 7, 2014
If you're interested in a longer view, you might want to check out Family and Kinship in East London, written in 1957 and updated in the 1980s. There's an interesting review and summary at Blue Stockings blog.
Also, a web search on "can't afford to live here anymore" or "can't afford to buy a house here" + "my family" will probably turn up zillions of anecdotes.
posted by kristi at 9:09 PM on April 7, 2014
Also, a web search on "can't afford to live here anymore" or "can't afford to buy a house here" + "my family" will probably turn up zillions of anecdotes.
posted by kristi at 9:09 PM on April 7, 2014
The Atlantic Cities and The Guardian Cities are two general-interest publications where you can follow these types of issues. They do have a mostly urban focus, but more than half the world is urban.
There are a number of related sites that I follow, mostly via Facebook right now. Strong Towns is a group that has some good ideas that I like about American communities in particular. Streetsblog (local versions on top bar) talks about transportation stuff. Next City covers more abstract think-tanky stuff. Greater Greater Washington covers DC and environs but I really like their point of view.
In a more communitarian/interpersonal way YES! Magazine looks at sustainability and adaptability, more about what we do in communities than how communities are planned or set up.
I would look for something in your general area that has relevance here, anything from an architectural or historic preservation group to a business promotion center.
Personally, I belong to a group that runs a "community page" on FB, with mostly stuff that's happening around the city and may not get highlighted or even into the paper (which is despite complaints pretty good for a city our size in this late era of print media). There are vigorous debates that take place and some interesting stuff that gets posted, but it's mostly fairly middlebrow in outlook. We also have "community coffee" that meets weekly for a roundtable discussion with no structure. It's a classic third place in the way that is defined in books like Bowling Alone -- not work, not home.
posted by dhartung at 1:37 AM on April 8, 2014
There are a number of related sites that I follow, mostly via Facebook right now. Strong Towns is a group that has some good ideas that I like about American communities in particular. Streetsblog (local versions on top bar) talks about transportation stuff. Next City covers more abstract think-tanky stuff. Greater Greater Washington covers DC and environs but I really like their point of view.
In a more communitarian/interpersonal way YES! Magazine looks at sustainability and adaptability, more about what we do in communities than how communities are planned or set up.
I would look for something in your general area that has relevance here, anything from an architectural or historic preservation group to a business promotion center.
Personally, I belong to a group that runs a "community page" on FB, with mostly stuff that's happening around the city and may not get highlighted or even into the paper (which is despite complaints pretty good for a city our size in this late era of print media). There are vigorous debates that take place and some interesting stuff that gets posted, but it's mostly fairly middlebrow in outlook. We also have "community coffee" that meets weekly for a roundtable discussion with no structure. It's a classic third place in the way that is defined in books like Bowling Alone -- not work, not home.
posted by dhartung at 1:37 AM on April 8, 2014
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posted by sockermom at 6:15 AM on April 7, 2014 [1 favorite]