The Future of Community: Reports of a Death Greatly Exaggerated [Paperback]

 

 

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This book provides a much-needed critique of top-down political strategies to "heel our broken Britain", at the same questioning the extent to which a sense of community has actually broken down. There are undoubtedly problems, most clearly illustrated for me in the reluctance of adults to discipline young people in public (or to back me up on the bus when I've tried to discipline them). The government response to both real and perceived problems ranges from repressive legislation such as ASBOs to strategies to "engage" communities through volunteering, and heeling our "vulnerable" selves (and in the process shifting the blame from the social to the individual), or re-designing public space. However, as is argued, while the desire to engage communities seems sensible, the strategies on offer are often limited and patronising. Distrustful of grassroots community associations, the authorities only want us to engage on their terms. But devoid of a political vision of the good society they want to engage us in, this either ends up as engagement for its own sake, or, as some writers' point out, more to cohere the elite themselves. And no matter how innocuous state engagement strategies can seem, there's also often a level of coercion involved, as the desire to improve "wellbeing" inevitably leads to the politics of behaviour. However, all is not doom and gloom, as the positive experience of Brazilian immigration into the small Galway town of Gort shows, despite elite fears of the inability of people to interact normally left to their own devices; and as people's reaction after the 7/7 London Bombings shows "the capacity of individuals to take responsibility for themselves and to make common cause with others ... remains, and often asserts itself even under the most difficult circumstances."

This is an accessible and enjoyable read, made more so by being able to debate it with joint-editor Dave Clements at Manchester Salon earlier in the year. The 14 self-contained chapters (plus intro and conclusion) analyse specific but overlapping aspects oft he debates around the contemporary sense of loss of community; providing a great introduction to its subject, yet at the same time offering important insights into something that affects us all in one way or another. Communities may not be in great shape, but their far from dead.

This book is of general interest as well as being useful and informative reading for researchers interested in this field. Although published 3 years ago, it touches on very topical issues - that of David Cameron's "Big Society" and Boris Johnson's "Team London".

The book sets out to challenge current perceptions of community, the loss of a sense of community and the idea that community is inherently a good thing.

The book is made up of 4 Chapters each containing a selection of short essays from different contributors. Contributors to the book come from a diverse range of backgrounds and their work derives from their interest in the Future of Community Festival organised by the Future Cities Project.

The barely disguised cynicism and humour of the Introduction to the book gets the reader interested. The book is well structured. Each of the 4 chapters has a specific focus around separate notions of community: In Search of Community, Constructing Communities, Communities in Flux, Undermining Communities. The short essays within each chapter are easy to read and digest and in most cases illustrate their points very clearly. Each essay critiques the way in which various political interventions and/or manipulation and policies, in their effort to promote community are, in their view, actually undermining communities and individuals within them.

After reading this book, the reader is left with an overriding sense of "Big Brother" . There are several arguments put forward to support this:- namely that there is now a dependency on authority which is preventing people in communities from managing their own affairs as they did in the past; that Policy makers have effectively disenfranchised individuals and communities by creating a culture of fear (CRB's, CCTV, ASBO's) and in so doing have undermined the role of the adult in communities which has in turn led to managing rather than socialising young people; that even architects and town planners in their efforts to create communities through their design of public spaces and buildings are in fact undermining the very notion of real community.

The book is very thought -provoking, it deconstructs the impact of numerous government initiatives and the efforts being made to re-engage individuals into community life. It is being suggested that these interventions are in fact hampering individuals from having the freedom to make their own decisions as they are being manipulated into regaining a sense of community by policy makers thus negating the very idea of communality. However, in order that we do not lose all hope of ever being able to manage our communities without government "support", the book does cite two real examples of healthy, well functioning communities that appear to have survived precisely because of the lack of intervention from policy makers and makes the very good point that the political class often ignore the fact that people have " a natural propensity for friendship"(p148)

The topic of "community" has been well covered in this book and provides a good insight into the theory behind this subject. It is a very good starting point for those wishing to engage in a wider debate on this subject, that is to say one which is more critical of the arguments being advanced by the contributors to this book.
As a newcomer to this topic, I really enjoyed reading this book. I found myself agreeing with a lot of its content and look forward to reading the counter arguments which will surely follow.

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