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Green Action: Creating Sustainable Communities - Mar 2010
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Ben's observation about what we consider "community"
Ben wrote this PS at the end of his post, introducing himself. I think it is a great question. I replied to it (not that I had a great answer!). I would like others to chime in as well. I'm reposting as a new discussion topic so everyone will be likely to see this.
Ps. Interesting, I thought, that so far in the assignment submissions when asked to talk about their community people have often choosen to talk about their city, rather than their house, block or street? Makes me think about what constitutes community for different people.. but maybe that's a discussion for a different course!
Submitted by John Kinch on Sun, 2010-03-21 19:46.
I'll bite on your PS, Ben. And what about "community" in terms of ecological (or natural) communities (forests, marshes, rivers)? Ecology shares the the etymological roots with the Greek word for house: eco = oikos. Thus, Gary Snyder argues that ecology means "Earth House Hold." So even the idea of a house (as a subset of a community) could actually be the other direction: all encompassing: the Earth, Gaia, etc. But to Ben's question: why do we typically see our community as our geopolitical locus, i.e., our city or town?
So many of our sources of information and identity operate at a city/town level (local newspapers, sports teams, cultural institutions) not to mention the political bodies that affect our lives (local authorities, mayors, councils) that it seems unsurprising that they are a geo-political unit with which we readily identify.
It also seems to me that in terms of changing our communities perhaps this unit is too large If we were happy to focus on our street, village or suburb then making changes might seem more achievable and people would avoid the apathy that can understandably arise when they confront the idea of convincing the millions of people with whom they share a city to say recycle more or buy local.
At least in the UK, many of the places which have really led the charge for sustainability (from the grassroots) have been people in smaller villages and towns. For example, Totnes a small town which was the UKs first transition town or Modbury a town of 750 households which pioneered the removal of plastic bags from the local economy, an idea which was soon adopted in central government policy.