HOW DO COMMUNITIES JUST HAPPEN?

     While thinking about "Levittown and America," I'm plagued with a curiosity of how communities originate without third-party force? Often time, particularly in contemporary design, we see community as a sort of goal or a marker of success. "I have created a wonderful, healthy community; therefore, my masterplan is a success," but how much of that is the role of the design? I'm reminded of all the communities I consider myself a part of - from my childhood neighborhood to collections of artists and design organizations. Arguably even my workplace is a community of like-minded individuals in a grand collaboration for the success of the firm. Can communities be designed? Or does it simply require the shared interests and goals that link us together as humans? The desire for unity, acceptance, understanding, and support so that we all feel a little less secluded in the world? What happens when someone cannot or does not wish to partake in any community? Is that how we achieve the ultimate level of freedom and independence, by refraining from required social conventions and dictations for certain behaviors or actions? 

    One of the most powerful points that Herbert Gans makes in "Levittown & America" about communities is that "each group demands that the other conform to its values and accept its priorities" (65), and I am reminded of religion in that instance. Religion is by far the strongest communal force I can think of, but what about the detriment? Countless wars have been fought over the differences in theology and belief because each of those communities believe their philosophies are the correct one. Even in Christianity which sources from the same book and the same deity, there are numerous denominations that often criticize others for their wrongness. Are these communities good? Is it not selfish to say "this community (church) has helped me and I feel welcome and accepted here, but goodness those other guys are wrong in their beliefs. We don't want those type of people here." That may seem hard to believe in a place of worship, and it's not universal by any means, but I have personally seen it happen. What if communities are good for the individual, but ultimately bad for the whole as they sector people into sections, groups, areas, or even cults that only focus on the differences and not what binds all the communities together?  Is that not how it works with the upper, middle, and lower classes of people, financially? Gans even goes on to say "the second shortcoming, closely related to the first, is the inability to deal with pluralism" (65). 

    My way of living is correct, and my community understands that; therefore, everyone should live by our standards and rules and philosophies and beliefs and values, but they are not welcome to join my group - they can create their own.