FIVE CHARACTERISTICS OF A COMMUNITY[1]


1. Size (Blue)

Communities must be both small enough to give people a sense of identity, but large enough to help them feel part of something bigger. This means that all groups are not really communities. The friends you eat lunch with are probably not a big enough group to be a community. Football players in the state of Texas are probably too big a group to be a community.

2. Focus (Green)

Communities focus on a key part of social life for their members. They deal with problems or an area of central importance in the lives of their members. Your church, for example, helps people deal with both individual and social problems.


3. Stability (Red)

True communities last and the core of their membership stays in the community for a long time. Constant high turnover rates for members does not provide a sense of stability or significance.

4. Structure (Black)

Communities must have a structure that enables people to identify and interact with other members. Typically communities have a sense of organization that allows for ease of interaction and communication. Without structure a group cannot communicate effectively, they cannot define themselves accurately, and they cannot maintain stability.


5. Interaction (Orange)

Members of a community must communicate regularly through visits, phone calls, emails, meetings, or letters. They may also communicate through media like television, newsletters, radio, fliers, or internet.


SO WHAT IS MY COMMUNITY?
Location, Location, Location
We often tend to think of community simply as the people who live close to us in our city or neighborhood. Years ago, this was, more often than not, the only community most people had. Before communication technologies and advances in travel linked people together, communities were primarily limited to a geographic region.

But with technological innovations and a diversity of lifestyles, people are more likely to choose to develop relationships with others who share similar values, backgrounds or interests rather than with just the people who live down the street. With the increasing popularity of the internet people with similar interests can form communities with others who may live hundreds, even thousands of miles away. Some people worry that the new focus on cyber communities may isolate people from their physical neighbors, leading to a disintegration of local communities.
While cyber communities are becoming more and more popular, the community which is most frequently mentioned is the geographic community within your town or city made up of individuals, families, organizations, businesses, schools, hospitals, and political institutions. The inter-working of all these components makes up the economic, psychological, environmental and social life of a community.
If we begin by assuming that we all belong to a community, then we should be able to think of criteria or reasons for how we define our community.

Why are community problems important?

A community is not static or unchanging. Instead, it changes and behaves much like a living organism made up of many different interrelated parts. All of the parts relate to each other, so if one part is in poor shape, it will affect the others. For example, you may have heard people without children talk about having to pay to improve schools. A well educated society is in everyone’s best interest. Schools affect an entire community, because if a school suffers the children will not become contributing adults within the community. Also a good school system can be a draw for business and can increase the value of living in a community. In this way, schools affect everyone, not just parents, children and teachers.

[1]Warren & L. Lyon (Eds.), New perspectives on the American community (pp. 54-61). Homewood, IL: Dorsey Press.