The Community Course
Part 2 - Community Design
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10. Community Design 

 “Community organization is merely an improvement or perfecting of the relationships which make a community. The very idea of community carries with it the correlative concept of organization. The community is itself a form of organization." --Sanderson and Polsori, Rural Community Organization, page 73.

Observing the Reality
The aim of community design and development should be to understand the actual nature and potentialities of men and women and to make possible their fuller realization. Community design should be in accord with what men and women really are, not in accord with theoretical abstractions about them.

For instance, in planning for community development, it sometimes has been assumed, as in the case of the French social reformers Cabet and Fourier, that since association is good, the more association the better, and that the closer the personal relations in all respects, the happier will be the result. Contrary to this favorite theory of community planners, it seems that individuals thrive best with a considerable degree of spacing. Too great proximity and too close association violate deep-seated cravings for freedom of motion and for privacy. Various community undertakings have suffered or have failed through failure to realize this need. Several of Fourier's 'Phalansteries," not greatly different in appearance from pre-elevator apartment houses, were built in the mid-nineteenth century. Most of them failed, partly because they violated a common human craving for reasonable separateness and individuality. One of them, at Guise, France, made a remarkable success financially, but after half a century died out because the pattern of life lacked range and depth and was too confined. Economic success alone was not enough.

Effects of Physical Proximity
Where physical proximity is compulsory people tend to set up emotional partitions. Among the northernmost Eskimos, who of necessity live in close communities and are highly communal, there is great respect for privacy and for individuality. Except where they have been influenced by outsiders, they generally live in separate houses, though combined houses might be easier to build and to maintain, and would be safer. Among them it is bad form to pry into others' private affairs or to use strong pressure to persuade others to a course of action.

Among polar explorers, and other men who are compelled to live in small groups in great intimacy, the strains of too intimate personal relations often become a major difficulty. In some large city apartment houses it is bad form to know one's next door neighbors.

Changes in Proximity
Too great physical proximity sometimes has been a disadvantage of small com­munity life. Today, as never before, because of the automobile, the telephone, and electric power transmission, liberal spacing and correspondingly favorable environment for individuality can be combined with acquaintance and community. This matter of the best spacing of people in communities is discussed as an illustration of the many respects in which a knowledge of men as they actually are is essential to community planning.

The Relation of Community Size to Community Activity
How large should a community be? In the best interests of a social organization it is important that the number of persons included shall be properly related to the purposes of the association. In general, the more intimate the relationships, the fewer are the numbers that may satisfactorily belong to it. For the most intimate social groups, from a dozen to thirty would seem to be the limit. Sometimes even smaller numbers may be more satisfactory. (See Graham Wallas, The Great Society, last paragraph, page 332, to first paragraph, page 337.) But such very small intimate groups are not what we usually think of when we speak of a community.

A community should be large enough to support a feeling of belonging; it should be small enough so that the members quite generally can know each other personally, and especially so that persons in different callings or of different degrees of authority or of status can be fairly intimately acquainted. It should be large enough to supply diversity of ability and interest, as in business, education, art, the professions, etc., and large enough to provide a variety of careers for young people. It should be large enough to provide reasonable choice of intimate friends and acquaintances. It should be small enough to make possible a sharing of burdens, and to encourage a feeling of all-round community.

For a fairly complete and effective community of people who are working out a way of life together with the necessary acquaintance, understanding, and good will, the membership may be from a few dozen to a few thousand. If the numbers are too large, either community relationships will be restricted and more formal, or the community will break down into aggregates made up of several partial communities, often along economic or other class lines, and the total unity of the community will be partially lost. Techniques and methods for developing the substance of community in larger populations can be developed.

Working with Actual Sizes
If we are engaged in creating new communities, or are deciding how large a community we should settle in, then comments on desirable community size are much to the point. However, in general we find ourselves living in certain communities whether or not they are the size we like best. Our business then may be not to decide what size community we should like to live in, but rather, what elements of community spirit and design are feasible in the community in which we actually live.

Towns and neighborhoods of different size will have the characteristics of a community in different degrees and in different ways. In community study and planning it is desirable to come to a conclusion as to the extent to which the population group in question could become a true community, and what kind of community interests and activities should be practicable and appropriate.

Creating a Community of Neighbors
Consider first a small neighborhood of only a dozen families. To what extent can it become a real community? Many of the programs discussed in books and articles on community organization are impossible for such a small group. Yet there are other ways in which its size is ideal for community organization. If the members of this neighborhood should make a habit of spending one or two evenings a month together, the time to be divided between recreation and study or planning, they would find the group to be as large as is feasible for general discussion in which everyone takes part. For mutual neighborly help in trouble a neighborhood of that size may develop finer relations than a larger group.

A group of a dozen families may make one of the finest communities, or one of the worst. If jealousies, quarrels, and personal antagonisms are eliminated, and if tolerance and good will control, then young people growing up in such an environment may look back to it as the most valuable formative influence in their lives.

If such a neighborhood consciously undertakes to make a community of itself it should make a point of finding out the ways in which it can be a real community, and the ways in which it cannot. It will not try to be a poor imitation of a large community. It probably will not try to promote paid music courses and lecture courses. It probably will not try to secure the services of professional recreation leaders. It will not try to create a community council in the manner described in a later chapter. It may well have a study program for all its members; it may work out a fairly definite program of picnics and other recreation.

Using the Abilities of People
What is undertaken will depend on the abilities and interests of the different members. If one should be musical he or she might guide occasional neighborhood sings. If some member should be skillful at woodwork, his shop might be a place for an evening a week of handicraft work for the children of the community and their parents. Various pieces of equipment might be purchased by the community for co-operative use, which would be too expensive for any one family. Such equipment might include a small canning outfit, a large tractor for the heavier farm work, or a community refrigerator.

The combined effort of the group probably would bring agricultural experts, a representative of the state department of health, representatives of the state cooperative organization, etc., to address neighborhood meetings. Unless the members belong to larger co-operatives they could profitably buy fertilizer, seed, stock feed, cans, sugar, and other goods together, often with considerable saving. The local merchant generally will co-operate in such buying. There are many opportunities for buying supplies at wholesale from the original producers--figs and dates from California, pecans from Mississippi, unpolished rice from Louisiana, at half or two thirds the retail price. Textile mills sell "mill ends" of cloth at half or less the retail price. By bringing the community needs together very considerable savings can be made.

If a small neighborhood will explore for ways to do things for which it is just about the right size, it will discover many opportunities for community undertakings, and the process of working together will make the spirit of community grow strong.

A Community of 20,000
On the other hand, consider a small city of ten or twenty thousand population. Many people would consider such a city to have exceeded the limits of size for a true community. Yet, if it will face the facts and do what it reasonably can to create a community spirit, without trying to imitate either a community of one or two thousand people or a city of a hundred thousand, it may develop many of the characteristics of a true community. It probably will need a Community Council. Where class differences actually exist, as is true in most cities of such size, there may well be an effort to have every element of the population become directly acquainted with every other through "cross section clubs," the members to be selected from the entire population in proportion to their relative numbers, by scientific sampling, after the manner of the Gallup polls.

Since many of the available discussions of community planning in health, recreation, music, education, and other fields deal largely with urban conditions, it is not in place to discuss such possibilities here. The point we are making is that there can be no standard pattern of community design. Each potential community should undertake to discover in what ways it can become a real community, and should pursue those ways. It should realize that in many respects its relations will naturally be with larger or smaller groups.

Conditions Affecting Community Design.
Among local groups more limited than the community which may be normal and wholesome are local intellectual and cultural associations, such as science clubs, musical organizations or recreation associations with special interests; ethical, religious, and reform groups of persons who are pioneering beyond general community standards; and commercial, agricultural, professional or other groups with specialized economic interests; all of these perhaps with memberships in widespread organizations.

Extending Community Traits
The community feeling which originates and develops in the intimate community tends to spread beyond it and to give some of the characteristics of community to larger groups such as city, state and nation. The number of persons who can be moved in some degree by a feeling of community, by varying degrees and elements of mutual confidence, respect, good will, and cooperation, in city, state, and nation, will depend on the unity of purpose, the quality of character and culture which exist, on the character of education and communication, and on facilities for transportation and communication; and may range from a few score to a great nation. It is a basic social fact of great importance, which commonly has been overlooked, that whenever we find the spirit of community in large groups, it generally is the outgrowth of the development of that spirit in small groups.

Dangers of Cliques
Within a real community there will be an absence of arbitrary exclusiveness. While the formation of small social groups within a community may be desirable for the sake of intimate association, or because of particularly exacting cultural, intellectual, ethical or aesthetic standards, there is danger that such groups may divide the community into cliques, classes, and factions. Conscious effort should be made to insure that such small groups shall harmonize with and contribute to the common community life. It should be contrary to the standards of a community for any social or economic class to insulate itself and to build up exclusive communities within the community. A smaller cultural group should be an element of leadership in the community, not an escape from it.

Sharing of Knowledge
There should be readiness to share any field of interest with whomever is interested and qualified. That sharing should not be left wholly to chance. Persons or small groups with special interests should endeavor to contribute their interests to the community as a whole to whatever extent that is feasible. For this purpose they will use various community functions, such as music programs, meetings for discussion, lecture programs, community picnics, and other social events, as well as more serious community undertakings. They will explore the community for young people capable of developing similar interests.

Selecting outside undertakings
The community will be broadened and enriched, or made superficial and debased, by outside undertakings, such as newspapers, magazines, radio programs, parent ­teacher associations, colleges and universities, and many other influences. The selection and use of these can be influenced to a large degree by the development of strong community purpose and standards. Also, the community must learn to maintain its own existence and individuality while continuing relations with civic and educational organizations for common undertakings and for the exchange of data and experience. It should be a loyal part of the nation without losing its individual character as a community. The local community will never again be an isolated area, and there should be no effort to make it such.

Overlapping organizations
Questions of overlapping activities and organizations will always be present. Among such are newspapers, radio stations (both community newspapers and local community radio stations may become feasible), water supply, electricity, freight shipping points, packing plants, creameries, breeders' associations, recreation areas, schools, political governments. The working out of natural community bounda­ries will require attention. An area may be satisfactory for one community purpose, but not for another. The market area may not coincide with the school area or the recreation area or the health center area. (See Kolb and Brunner, A Study of Rural Society, pp. 114-129). This overlapping will not be entirely undesirable. It will furnish opportunity for neighborliness and cooperation with surrounding areas. Yet in general it is desirable that many community interests be in common.

A community will thrive best if there is unity of plan and action on matters concerning which there is substantial unity of need and of purpose, with individual or smaller group action retained for interests that are not general, or on which there is no general unity of opinion. In the new community there will be conscious effort to discover what activities and interests can well be the concern of the community as a whole_, which can best be individual or small group interests, and which should be parts of larger relationships, such as the state or nation, or great private industries. There will be no effort to force all life into the community mold, but there will be constant efforts to discover what phases of life can best find expression through the community.

Complexity of the Community 
One of the aims of this general discussion is to indicate the complexity of the community issue. In that respect the community is like the family. The interests and issues which arise in the family are too varied and complex to be foreseen or accurately described or to be worked out by any single definite plan. A family which should work wholly by a plan would be a deadly affair. Yet a family needs to plan. Will there be enough money to send the children to college, or to buy a new auto or to pay for the home? Which is more important, or how much should be spent for each? Family planning is necessary, not only in financial matters, but in many other respects, but a family "plan," by which all the activities of the family would be controlled, is neither necessary nor desirable. So it is with the community.

A Community Plan
In view of the complexity of community relationships, a "community plan" to govern all the activity of the community would be most undesirable; but community planning, a constant effort to eliminate waste, to increase economic, personal and social values, to discover community possibilities and to work out designs for their realizations--that is good and it is necessary.

No one could reduce to rules all the spirit and attitudes which go to make up a well-bred family. The members of such a family do not live chiefly by rule, but by motives and by training and intelligence in what is appropriate to the occasion. A good member of a good community will not live chiefly by rule, but by being educated to have motives of good will and mutual confidence and to act as an intelligent person of good will would act in the circumstances. Some definite rules are possible and necessary, such as obeying traffic signals, but community life as a whole is too complex for anything less than community good breeding.

Learning to Plan
One is not going to learn community planning as an engineer learns to design bridges, but rather as a member of an orchestra learns, and enters into the spirit to cooperate with the whole, whatever may be the music. Community planning will not be good or bad, it will be better or worse. It always might be worse, and always might be better. In the process of making it better everyone can help, though some will help more than others, as a good conductor of an orchestra may help more than a first violin, and a first violin may help more than the drum. Yet all are necessary. The man who plays the drum does not feel irresponsible and play carelessly because he is not the conductor or first violinist. He does his part as well as he can. Without that attitude there cannot be a good orchestra or a good community or a good nation.

A Classless Society
The picture I have presented of the community as a classless society, in which all association rests on loyalty, on interest, and on qualification, and not on vested privileges and possessions, is a very radical picture. In most large towns and cities it will be smiled at or frowned at as chimerical. Yet it is approximately the actual condition in numberless small villages and neighborhoods. The reality of a classless society must be won by actual experience. It was easily approached in Russia because it was already the status of probably more than ninety per cent of the people. The revolution simply broke a very thin and very rotten shell of caste. The situation is very different in America. No violence will achieve that goal.

Democracy in the Community
To actually achieve cases of such communities as I have described it may be easiest to begin with small communities where there are no inflexible economic or social barriers to keep people separate from each other. Yet such small communities often are provincial, lacking cultural breadth and depth. Is it easier to take advantage of the actual democracy of very small rural communities and to try to develop cultural quality, or to begin with larger communities with a greater cu1tural development, and try to develop a democratic spirit? Wherever we work we shall find disadvantages, but also in almost every place we shall find encouragement and hope. The small community is about the only place in America where democracy is actually a way of life, and those who wish to promote that way of life may find their best chance there.

The Aims of Community Planning
In planning for the welfare of the community it is necessary to keep a sense of proportion and perspective. Many community projects have been marred or destroyed because those who planned them gave attention to only a few of the elements that constitute a good community, and overlooked others. Industrial towns like Pullman, Illinois, like Gary, Indiana, and like Kohler, Wisconsin, are cases where chief attention was given to industrial production and to housing. Brook Farm, Fairhope, Alabama, and New Harmony, Indiana, are cases where some idealistic concept had the right of way, while practical considerations were overlooked. Most American small communities suffer from this lack of an all-round idea of community life. 

Various students of the community have outlined what they believe to be the chief issues with which community planning should be concerned. Sanderson and Polson of Cornell University, in their book Rural Community Organization, present substan­tially the following aims:

Nine Aims of Community Planning

1. To lead the people of the community to become conscious of the existence of their community as such and of the significance of the community as a basic unit of civilization, and to encourage them to feel that they are members of it.
    

2. To satisfy unmet needs, whether economic, cultural, or physical.
    

3. To incline the people of the community to plan and to act together for common ends, and for development of common acquaintance and interests, so that there will be "all-round participation in the thinking, the feeling, and the activities of the group."
    

4. To develop a community spirit and common community standards, and to maintain them in a spirit of loyalty.
    

5. To get the groups within the community to increase effectiveness by avoiding duplication, interference, and waste in programs and undertakings, and by pooling their efforts where that is desirable.
    

6. To preserve the community from the entrance of undesirable influences and conditions.
    

7. To cooperate with other communities, with public and private organiza­tions, and with the larger units of region, state, and nation.
    

8. To develop ways of mutual understanding and agreement, that is, of consensus of opinion.
    

9. To develop leadership within the community.

Most of these, it is evident, are general, long time aims which cannot be fully realized by any quick campaign or program, but only by patient conviction, determination, and loyalty of community leaders and of others who will not be discouraged. When we get down to actually working to realize these aims we come to more definite undertakings. A community development program should not aim to take over the work of local government or of other agencies, but to understand and to support and cooperate with those agencies, to supply elements of planning not other-wise supplied, and to do or promote what is not being done but what can be done for the improvement of community life.

Creating Strong Community Life - 16 steps
The following may serve as an outline of the practical things a community, or the people in it, can do to create a strong wholesome community life:

1.      Increase the range of community interests. A thorough and careful study of community needs and possibilities by a small but deeply interested group or organization, with the help of what experienced men in the field have written concerning community surveys, is a good beginning of community development. This cannot well be turned over to paid experts from outside. After the people of the community, or a small group of people, have educated themselves in com­munity affairs in general, and their own community in particular, they may need the technical help of specialists on technical problems. But the job of learning one's community cannot be delegated to outsiders.

2.      Interest the people of the community in the significance of communities in general, and in their own community in particular. The local newspaper might subscribe to a community column, telling stories of interesting and successful community undertakings in this and other countries, and discussing the philosophy and possibilities of community life. Then the people of the community who are undertaking to help in the development of community life should supplement such a column by articles on the history, accomplishments, needs, and possibilities of their own community.

3.      Perhaps organize a Community Council. After the development of general interest in community life, that may be the most important single step in the program.

4.      Continue active support of the Community Council, as that will be necessary to give it life and strength and standing.

5.      Include efforts for town and country co-operation, so that they will con­stitute one community. For every person who lives in an American town of less than ten thousand there are on the average two living in the surrounding country. To some extent the rural families have neighborhood community life of their own, and that should be encouraged. Yet often the people in the surrounding country have no community center except the town. They trade there, go to shows there, meet their neighbors on the streets, often send their children to school there, and frequently belong to churches in the town. Not withstanding these many relationships, the people of the surrounding area often are not considered to be part of the community. They should come to be an indivisible part of the community, as has become the case at Alexandria, Ohio, as a result of an excellent community program. In time many communities should be so reorganized that the town and the surrounding country shall have a single local government.

6.      Study and co-operate with the local government, to the end that local tax resources shall be budgeted, and efficient and useful government shall be developed. The possibility of enlarging the town boundaries to include the surrounding rural areas should be studied.

7.      Consider the possibilities of the planning of streets, sidewalks, parks, building subdivisions, transportation facilities, the zoning of real estate, the elimination of smoke, smells, and other industrial handicaps, the planting and care of shade trees, the preservation of natural beauty spots, the removal of roadside dumps, unsightly billboards, etc., the correction of dangerous road and street crossings, the planning of attractive business signs on the business streets--all such activities come under the head of town planning.

8.      Deal with problems of public safety, crime prevention, and the elimination of carelessness and destructiveness as proper concerns of a community organization.

9.      Give attention to problems of public health, water supply, milk supply, sewage disposal, the keeping of animals in the town, and other matters affecting public health.

10.  Study the economic life and welfare of the community and work to make the community a well-balanced economic unit, with reasonable economic opportunity for everyone and wholesome economic relations with other or larger units.

11.  Plan and develop community recreation, which is a vital part of community life, and should be one of the important interests of a community program.

12.  Study the educational program of the community, which needs help, encourage­ment, guidance and cooperation, not only in the public schools, but in the adult education program. Orphan schools, that is, schools in which the public is not deeply interested, cannot maintain very high quality. The home economics or homemaking program of the public school should be broadened to include all young people in a period of training for better home life and management.

13.  Take into account the interests of young people. Provisions should be developed for treating youthful delinquents in such a way as to develop character and self-respect. A program of vocational guidance should help young people to appropriate callings. Interesting and useful ways of spending spare time should be developed and maintained.

14.  Study the general cultural interests of the community and see that they are encouraged, planned and promoted. These include a library, music, handicrafts, dramatics, a possible village institute, containing a museum, library, and com­munity center, and various other undertakings.

15.  Give consideration to common community undertakings, such as the develop­ment of a community calendar of meetings, with effort to arrange meetings to result in the least possible conflict. The co-ordination of relief and charity work, the support of a community chest, and other common community activities require study.

16.  Give attention to that part of the population which is left out of community activities. Even in an over-organized community it generally will be found that a considerable number of people are left out of nearly all community affairs. This may be true of tenant farmers and their wives, of elderly people, of foreigners, and of low-income people. A good community will be concerned with making life interesting and wholesome for these people, as well as for others.

Of course, not all these activities will be undertaken in any community at any one time. In almost every community some of these activities never would be needed. It is the business of a community to discover which issues are of greatest importance, and to give greatest attention to them, not forgetting lesser issues that are vital to some of its members.

The first step toward a better community is a study of its needs, interests, and possibilities. The next chapter is devoted to that subject.