What is Community?

Community has become increasingly central as a focus for sustainability action in Australia with numerous initiatives and policies targeting the community as both the beneficiary and the agent of change; for example there is the Sustainable Communities Initiative, the National framework of Green Star Communities and the Community Energy Efficiency Programme to name but a few, In short community is currently somewhat of a catch phrase within the field of urban sustainability policy - and intuitively it feels good. 

Community focused action seems to represent a positive step-change away from traditional top-down legislation towards policy that aims to empower people and give them ownership over their future - something rare in a world dominated by big business interests and in which the citizen is viewed largely as a passive consumer. But what is this unit we are aiming to empower? If we pause for a minute to consider what a community actually is, it all starts to get a little foggy.

The Oxford Dictionary defines community as 1) ‘a group of people living in the same place or 2) ‘the condition of sharing or having certain attitudes and interests in common’.

In terms of the first definition - is living together enough to be considered a community? Residential proximity appears to define not community but neighbourhood. Living in an area you become by default a part of that neighbourhood whether you like it or not. However there is no guarantee that a self defining neighbourhood community with any shared identity or interests will exist within a particular geographic area, and even where a neighbourhood community does exist there is still no guarantee that you as a resident will necessarily identify as a member. In truth it is often the case that several (sometimes conflicting) communities will exist within one neighbourhood. This can create a situation in which the empowerment of one community may be seen to occur at the exclusion or at least the sheer indifference of another.

Community isn’t just about location but about identification. Hence community can also extend beyond the neighbourhood to the district or city level. In fact, as the second definition provided by Oxford describes, communities can transcend geographical boundaries altogether. In terms of these ‘communities of interest’ it is important to think about how membership to such online forums or ideological associations is actually enacted in daily life and how much impact they really have. One can consider oneself to be a member of the vegan community, the Christian community, the gay community and the Indonesian community and yet have no interaction with anybody on ones street whatsoever.

Communities do not exist by virtue of residential proximity yet when discussed in the urban policy context the physical place is also paramount. Community is not a synonym for neighbourhood as it is often mistakenly employed.  Rather community, as it is intended in this context, presents a marriage of shared geographical place with shared interests. Maybe the ambition with Thriving Neighbourhoods can be seen to be the transformation of existing neighbourhoods into new communities of interest; the interest being the quality of life in the neighbourhood itself.