As I think about the components of an effective community I thought it would be valuable to list what I think are the essential parts of an effective community. I will try to define them just enough here to make it clear what I am thinking. If anyone finds anything I have missed, or a definition that they think should change, please let me know.
Perhaps I should start be defining what I mean by “community.” I am specifically thinking about a city or town, in other words a physical community of people who live within some defined proximity. Despite that, I believe that the elements of a community that I am considering are applicable to other kinds of community such as a business, or a virtual community.
Government – a body responsible for defining the community and the rules that govern the community. The government of a community would be responsible for arbitration if community members have a dispute about what is acceptable within the community.
Communication – a way for community members to share information about the community, to voice their opinions, or to record events of significance.
Commerce – something to facilitate transactions between members of the community in an organized way so that those transactions are recognized by other members of the community when necessary.
Entertainment – a means of promoting informal interaction between community members which is not focused on commercial repercussions (although there may be commercial elements to the interactions).
Ritual – a celebration of community identity. The purpose of ritual is to solidify the community identity and help members remember the purpose and/or history of the community.
[…] I have long been interested in the need for and value of communities and the fact that we have lost the value and sense of communities to a large degree in our modern society. I have said many times in private and even in public that most of our problems in society would be improved if not altogether eliminated by a revival of community life. Prior to reading Communities vs Networks however, I had never really paid attention to the specific similarities between networks and communities. After pondering the post however I would suggest that rather than networks and communities being on different ends of a continuum the reality is that communities are networks by definition even if most networks don’t rise to the level of community. Allow me to support that claim by sharing tweaked versions of the statements from that post which contract networks and communities: […]