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Centro Sociale

inchieste sociali - servizio sociale di gruppo educazione degli adulti - sviluppo della comunità

a. V i l i - n. 37-38, 1961 - un numero L. 400 - abbonamento a 6 fascicoli e allegati L. 2.200 - estero L. 4.000 - spedizione in abbonamento postale gruppo IV - c. c. postale n. 1/20100 - Direzione Redazione Ammini­ strazione: piazza Cavalieri di Malta, 2 - Roma - telefono 593.465. Periodico bimestrale redatto a cura del Centro Educazione Professionale Assistenti Sociali sotto gli auspici dell’UNRRA CASAS Prima Giunta. Comitato di direzione: Achille Ardigò, Vanna Casara, Giorgio Molino, Ludovico Quaroni, Giovanni Spagnolli, Paolo Volponi, Angela Zucconi. Direttore responsabile: Anna Maria Levi

E D IZ IO N E IN T E R N A Z I O N A L E

esce due volte all’anno a cura di Albert Meister e sotto gli auspici della International Federation of Settlements and Neighbourhood Centres. Al­ l’estero la rivista è diffusa sotto il titolo di International Review of Com­ munity Development.

COMITATO DI DIREZIONE D ELL’EDIZIONE INTERNAZIONALE Sorbonne, Ecole des Hautes Etudes, Paris

University of Saskatchewan Società Umanitaria, Milano Association des Maires de France Community Development Clearing House, London University Institut de Sociologie, Université de Liège Sorbonne, Ecole des Hautes Etudes, Paris Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris University of Michigan Verband Deutscher Nachbarschaftsheime Dansk Settlement Samvirke, Copenhagen Université d’Utrecht School of Social Work, Driebergen Boston University G. Balandier W. Baker R. Bauer R. Berrurier E. Clunies-Ross R. démens II. Desroche J. Dumazedier A. Dunham M. Kelber O. Krabbe E. Lopes Cardozo C. Louwerse J. McDowell

M. Margot Noblemaire Fédération française des Centres Sociaux, Paris M. Meirclles Serviço Social do Comercio, Rio de Janeiro F. S. Milligan National Federation of Community Associations, London L Miniclier International Cooperation Administration, Washington R. Nisbet University of California A. Olivetti Movimento Comunità, Ivrea

E. Pusic Université de Zagreb

J . C. Ramchandani Development Commissioner, Delhi State Government

C. Pelizzi Università di Firenze

P. Rock Ministère de l’Instruction publique, Bruxelles B. Rodgers University of Manchester

M. G. Ross University of Toronto

H. Schelsky Universität Hamburg

M. Smith London Council of Social Service

J . Spencer University of Bristol

P. Volponi Rivista « Centro Sociale », Roma E. de Vrics Institute of Social Studies, The Hague

A. Zucconi CEPAS, Roma

Manoscritti, pubblicazioni per recensione, notizie, informazioni riguardanti l’edi­ zione intemazionale devono essere indirizzati al Direttore, piazza Cavalieri di Malta, 2 - Roma

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N. ANDERSON Y. MARTIN

L. REISSMAN S. GROENMAN

P. CHOME ART DE LAUWE A. MAYER J. VIET R. CATELANI E. WEISSMANN W . C. ROGERS C. TREVISAN M. R. CLINARD A. MASSUCCO COSTA H. DARIN-DRABKIN C. BAUER-WURSTER P re se n ta z io n e ... Differenti punti di vista sulla comunità . . . Phénomène métropolitain et organisation so­ ciale ... ... Classe, cità et coesione so ciale... Community Development in Urban Areas . Scienze umane, pianificazione ed urbanistica. Aspetti particolari dello sviluppo di comunità in zone urbane ... Villes nouvelles et développement communau­ taire ... I centri sociali nello sviluppo delle città. . . Community Development and Physical Plan­ ning ... Voluntary Associations and Urban Community D e v e lo p m e n t... Urbanizzazione, ricerca e servizio sociale in I t a l i a ... The Delhi Pilot Project in Urban Community D e v e lo p m e n t... Problemi di urbanizzazione nella Cina Popolare Kiryat-Gat, ville régionale en Israël . . . . The Optimum Pattern of Urbanization - Does Asia Need a New Type of Regional Planning?

11 27 33 53 61 71 99 105 115 123 135 147 161 171 183 1 9 7

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CO N TEN TS SO M M A IR E IN D IC E N. ANDERSON Y. MARTIN L. REISSMAN S. GROENMAN P. CHOMBART DE LAUWE A. MAYER J. YIET R. CATELANI E. WEISSMANN W . C. ROGERS C. TREVISAN M. B. CLINARD A. MASSUCCO COSTA H. DARIN-DRABKIN C. BAUER-WURSTER P résentation... 3 English Introduction 7 Presentazione italiana 11

Diverse Perspectives of Community . . . . 15

Riassunto italiano 27

Phénomène métropolitain et organisation so­ ciale ... 23 Class, the City, and Social Cohesion . . . . 39

Riassunto italiano 53

Community Development in Urban Areas . Scienze umane, pianificazione ed urbanistica. Some Special Points in Urban Community De­ velopment ...

Riassunto italiano 99

Villes nouvelles et développement communau-t a i r e ...105 I centri sociali nello sviluppo delle città. . . 115 Community Development and Physical Plan­ ning ... Voluntary Associations and Urban Community

D e v e lo p m e n t... Urbanizzazione, ricerca e servizio sociale in

I t a l i a ... 147 The Delhi Pilot Project in Urban Community D e v e lo p m e n t... Problemi di urbanizzazione nella Cina Popolare 171 Kiryat-Gat, ville régionale en Israël . . . . 183 The Optimum Pattern of Urbanization - Does Asia Need a New Type of Regional Planning? 197

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Urbanisation et développement communautaire

On limite généralement le développement communautaire au milieu rural; et il est vrai que les programmes de développement communau­ taire les plus connus et ceux qui ont rencontré le plus de succès con­ cernent l’amélioration des conditions de vie dans des villages. En outre, les villages apparaissent des unités d’action plus appropriées a une procédure de développement basée sur l’émergence des cadres locaux, la participation, le fonctionnement des conseils municipaux, etc., que les villes et surtout les grandes villes. Enfin, la taille réduite des loca­ lités rurales et leur relatif isolement permettent davantage d’envisager des actions de développement portant simultanément sur tous les aspects de la vie des habitants, de la création de petites industries à la construction de bâtiments scolaires, de 1 introduction de mesures d’hygiène au renforcement des pouvoirs locaux, etc.

Dans quelle mesure l’approche multi-fonctionnelle du développement communautaire peut-elle être transposée au milieu urbain, où les con­ ditions sont très différentes? Où l’hétérogénéité de la population, l’absence de traditions communes, la disparité très forte des revenus, la dépendance des seuls revenus en espèces tirés d’emplois souvent dé­ gradants, peu sûrs et sans prestige, la diversification des appartenances et des loyautés, la dissolution des liens de famille, l’impersonnalite des relations, les tensions et les luttes entre classes et intérêts differents, etc., s’opposent — bien plus qu’à la campagne — à l’approche commu­ nautaire Malgré ces conditions défavorables, et en réaction contre elles, la ville nous a donné maints exemples de développement communau- taine: sous forme d’entraide mutuelle (sociétés de secours mutuels, co­ opératives de consommation, associations de quartiers, etc.), sous forme de travail social (centres sociaux, centres de voisinage, crèches,etc.), sous forme d’éducation des adultes, sous forme de coordination des associations et des activités, etc.

Toutes ces initiatives portent cependant sur les couches sociales et les quartiers les plus défavorisés de la population et envisagent plutôt la création de services et d’équipements collectifs et, d’une façon générale, l’éducation à des modes désirables de comportement, plutôt que l’ac­ croissement direct des niveaux de vie. D ’où le rôle considérable attribué au voisinage, au quartier en tant que milieu de taille plus réduite, basé

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4 A L B E R T M E I S T E R

sur la proximité et des relations qu’on suppose moins impersonnelles que celles qui sont la règle au niveau de toute l’agglomération, et où il semble davantage possible de recréer des sentiments d’appartenance (qui rappelleraient un peu ceux du village) et de susciter des partici­ pations et des initiatives.

Mais beaucoup plus rapidement qu’en milieu rural, les activités urbai­ nes de développement communautaire doivent dépasser ces limites géographiques restreintes des quartiers et des voisinages: la création de nouveaux équipements collectifs suppose l’intervention des autorités municipales de la ville, l’amélioration des habitations et la suppression des taudis se heurtent à des règlements d’urbanisme (ou, ce qui appa­ raît très fréquent, à leur inexistence) et appellent une politique géné­ rale de réadaptation des structures urbaines aux besoins nouveaux, etc., toutes ces activités d initiative et de portée pourtant limitées mettent en cause des groupements, des associations, des intérêts localisés hors du quartier. Des activités communautaires limitées géographiquement entraînent donc très rapidement à considérer les problèmes de l’éla­ boration d’une planification générale des équipements collectifs, de la classification des voisinages ou des zones urbaines à développer ou à re-développer, de la coordination pour une action commune de la paît de groupements aux interets opposés, de la décentralisation de 1 autorité communale dans certains domaines, de l’élaboration d’une politique générale de changement social planifié au Heu d’adaptations non coordonnées et partielles aux conséquences de ce changement, etc., tous problèmes qui apparaissent moins rapidement dans les activités de développement communautaire en milieu rural.

Ces distinctions entre développement communautaire urbain et déve­ loppement communautaire rural ne doivent pas nous cacher les dif­ ferences profondes entre les phénomènes d’urbanisation tels que les connaissent ou les ont connus nos pays et tels qu’ils apparaissent actuel­ lement dans les pays neufs. Si les taudis des grandes villes d’Asie et d Afrique ne sont pas sans rappeler ceux des grandes villes européen­ nes ou américaines durant la révolution industrielle — et quelles n’ont d’ailleurs pas encore supprimés complètement — , les problèmes actuels dans ces deux types de milieux urbains se présentent très différem­ ment. Dans nos pays il s’agit surtout de réorganiser, de redévelopper, de reharmoniser un milieu par rapport aux besoins nouveaux et aux habitudes nouvelles de travail, de transport, de loisir, et de lutter contre les conséquences (délinquance juvénile, santé mentale, etc.) d’un dé­ veloppement trop accéléré des secteurs de production (travail,

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trans-ports) par rapport à un développement trop lent des équipements de consommation (habitation, équipements de loisirs et de culture, etc.). Dans les pays neufs, au contraire, l’urbanisation risque de précéder l’in­ dustrialisation et l’afflux des ruraux vers la ville (conséquence écono­ mique d’un accroissement démographique trop rapide bien davantage que de l’attrait pour les modes de vie urbains) crée d’immenses ceintures de bidonvilles misérables autour d’un centre commercial souvent trop luxueux et trop moderne mais qui n’assure a ces périphéries que trop peu d’emplois, pas d’habitations, pas de services publics, aucune garan­ tie de santé et d’hygiène rudimentaire. Ce sont la quelques-uns des problèmes qu’affrontent les villes africaines ou asiatiques, dont certaines ont doublé, quadruplé ou sextuplé leur population dans les cinquante dernières années (même si la part de la population urbaine reste faible par rapport à la population totale de ces pays). L urbanisation non ac­ compagnée d’un développement correspondant des secteurs de pro­ duction entraîne donc la misère et la désorganisation sociale et creuse toujours davantage le fossé entre des milieux ruraux non encore tou­ chés par le progrès technique, et des milieux urbains, centres d accueil pour des industries et un développement economique qui n arrivent pas assez vite, et peu à peu séparés du reste de la nation.

Le développement communautaire urbain dans les pays neufs voit donc ses tâches multipliées et, bien plus que dans nos pays, doit s insérer dans une planification de portée régionale (considérant la ville et sa campagne environnante) et même nationale. E t, d une façon semblable que pour la planification urbaine qui doit reprendre, et préciser dans le détail et dans des situations particulières, des objectifs fixes a 1 echelle nationale, le développement communautaire urbain doit s intégrer dans une perspective nationale de développement des collectivites et accom­ pagner le développement communautaire en milieu rural; tant il est vrai que ce n’est pas seulement aux points d arrivée les villes d’une émigration rurale qu’il faut lutter mais aussi aux points de départ, — les villages — par l’améhoration des niveaux de vie agricoles. En effet un des dangers actuels des pays neufs semble bien etre, a la fois, celui d’une vie urbaine misérable pour la très grosse majorité des habitants des villes et celui d’une vie rurale dans des villages aux structures traditionnelles décadentes et aux niveaux de vie très bas; et combattre ce danger implique, malgré les différences de situations, la com plém en tarité étroite des développements communautaires urbain et rural.

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6

A L B E R T M E I S T E R Ce sont les divers aspects de cette problématique que désire affronter le présent numéro (et, très probablement, un des suivants sur le même thème): les divers aspects de la planification et les recherches qu’ils supposent1, les rapports entre urbanisation et milieu rural et leurs implications pour le développement communautaire, les institutions du développement communautaire en milieu u rbain 2, les coordinations entre développement communautaire et bureaux d’urbanisme et pou­ voirs locaux, la place des participations et des initiatives populaires à ces divers niveaux.

A .M .

1 Voir également à ce sujet le No. 2, 1958, enquetes d e développem ent communautaire. 2 Voir également â ce sujet le No. 1, 1958, centres communautaires.

de Community Developm ent consacré aux de Community Development consacré aux

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Urbanization and Community Development

Community Development is often thought of as limited to rural settings, and it is true that the best known and most successful community development programs have been concerned with the betterment of village life. Moreover, villages appear to be more appropriate units for a process of development based on the emergence of local leader­ ship, participation, better functioning of local governmental agencies, etc., than towns and, above all, big cities. Finally, the small size of rural neighborhoods and their relative isolation promise better possibilities for the initiation of programs which bear simultaneously on all aspects of life: from the creation of little industries to the building of schools, from the introduction of hygiene to the reinforcing of local authorities, e t c . . . .

To what degree does the multi-purpose approach of community devel­ opment lend itself to being transposed into urban settings, where con­ ditions are different? W here heterogeneity of the population, lack of common traditions, big differences of income (incomes being solely in money and often paid for work that is degrading and lacks security and prestige), conflicting loyalties and confusion about group identifica­ tion, dissolution of family ties, the impersonal character of social relation­ ships, sharpened class tensions and struggles, etc. . . . all these conditions oppose themselves — much more than in rural settings to the com­ munity development approach. But, despite these unfavorable condi­ tions, and as a reaction against them, towns offer many examples of community development, either under the form designated as self-help (mutual or friendly societies, consumers’ cooperatives, neighborhood clubs, etc.); or that of social work (social centers, community centers, kindergardens, etc.); or that of adult education; and even in the form of coordination of neighborhood groups and activities, etc. .. Howevei, all these undertakings are designed for the poorer neighborhoods and lower social strata of the population, and their purpose is mainly to develop services and, generally speaking, to educate the clientele to socially desirable patterns of behavior, than with direct betterment of living standards. Thus the important role accorded by this approach to neighborhoods and local districts, is based on their being smaller units

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8 A L B E R T M E I S T E R

than the town itself and therefore more likely to enjoy less impersonal relationships since the population shares a common area of habitation. It seems more possible under such conditions to hope to re-create feel­ ings of belonging (more or less similar to those of the village) and to evoke social participation and popular initiative.

But, much more rapidly than in rural settings, community development in urban areas must overcome the geographical restrictions of district or neighborhood: the creation of new services supposes the intervention of centralized local governements. Housing betterment and slum clear­ ance may be contrary to housing and zoning codes, or, more frequently, may require special legislation and call for formulation of a general policy of urban renewal, e t c . . . . All such activities when confined within narrow locality boundaries raise the opposition of groups, asso­ ciations, powers and interests located outside the area. Thus, when begun as geographically limited activities they very quickly force consideration of problems of elaborating a general planning of construction of services, of classifying neighborhoods or zones for development or re-develop­ ment, of coordinating groups with opposed interests in support of a common goal, of decentralising local authority in certain fields, of esta­ blishing a general policy of planned social change instead of uncoordin­ ated and partial adaptations to the consequences of this social change, e t c . . . . All these problems appear much more quickly in urban than in rural community development.

These distinctions between urban and rural community development should not be allowed to obscure the profound differences between the phenomenon of urbanization as it took form in W estern Europe and America and the phenomenon called by the same name which has been making its appearance in newly developing countries. If the slums of the big Asian or African towns are comparable to the slums of European or American cities at the time of the Industrial Revolution — and which they could not entirely eliminate until now, — the present pro­ blems of these two types of urban agglomerations are very different. In the West, our job is to re- organize, re-develop, re-harmonize a milieu in relation to new needs and new work, to new transportation and new leisure habits, as wrell as to fight against the consequences (such as juvenile delinquency, mental ill-health, etc.) of a too quick growth of the production sector of our economies: work and transportation having grown at too accelerated a rate compared to the relatively slow devel­ opment of the consumption services (such as housing, leisure and edu­ cation activities, etc.).

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The new countries, however, present the serious danger of urbanization p reced in g industrialization. There as a consequence of too rapid demo­ graphic growth rather than of the attraction of the urban way of life, the inhabitants of rural districts are flooding into towns and cities which are little more than modem luxurious commercial centers. Around them the immigrant populations create wide belts of miserable slums while the host town or city lacks the ressources to provide the newcomers with jobs, decent housing, minimum public services, with even rudi­ mentary protection for health and hygiene. These are some of the problems that Asian and African towns encounter. Some of them in the last fifty years experienced a four-fold and six-fold growth of population, even of the proportion of the urban population to the total popul­ ation remains low. Thus, if urbanization is not accompanied by a cor­ responding growth of the production sectors of the economy, it can result only in misery and social disorganization. Moreover, it continually widens the gulf between rural regions as yet not touched by modern technical progress and the urban milieux which are the reception centers for an industry and economic development too slow in arriving. Thus the nation becomes more and more deeply split into two separate parts. In consequence, the tasks of urban community development in new countries are multiplied and, to much greater degree than in the West, they must include creation of regional development plans which con­ sider both the town and its rural environs, and even creation of national overall plans. Like urban planning, which implements in detail and precisely at the urban level the aims determined at the national level, urban community development must be integrated in a national per­ spective of community development which includes full provision for corresponding rural community development. It must never be forgotten that one must not only work at the arrival points — the towns — of rural emigration, but also at the departure points — the villages — in order to better living conditions. Unfortunately, the present dangers threatening new countries appear to be the prospect of a miserable life for the great majority of urban inhabitants while, at the same time, village rural life suffer decay of its traditional supporting structures and is forced to endure very low standards of subsistence. To fight against these dangers demands, despite the differences in the situations, inti­ mate com plem en tarity between urban community development and rural community development.

This issue of Community Development — and very likely a subsequent issue on the same topic — intends to deal with some aspects of these problems: the different aspects of planning and of the research it is

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10 A L B E R T M E I S T E R

based on *; the relations between urbanized centers and rural milieux and their implications for community development; the institutions of urban community development2; the coordination of community devel­ opment, town planning and local government; the place at all these different levels for general participation and popular initiative.

A. M.

\ Se,e also Community Development, 2, 1958, devoted to fields studies in community

development. v

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Urbanizzazione e sviluppo comunitario

Si limita generalmente lo sviluppo comunitario all ambiente rurale, ed è vero che i più noti programmi di sviluppo di comunità e quelli che hanno ottenuto maggiori successi riguardano il miglioramento delle condizioni di vita nei villaggi. I villaggi inoltre appaiono delle unità di azione più appropriate ad un processo di sviluppo basato sulla valo­ rizzazione dei quadri locali, sulla partecipazione, sul funzionamento dei consigli municipali, ecc., piuttosto che le citta e soprattutto le grandi città. Infine le dimensioni ridotte delle località rurali ed il loro relativo isolamento permettono maggiormente di concepire azioni di sviluppo che abbiano riflessi simultaneamente su tutti gli aspetti della vita degli abitanti, dalla creazione di piccole industrie alla co­ struzione di edifìci scolastici, dall introduzione di norme di igiene al rafforzamento dei poteri locali, ecc.

In quale misura l’approccio multi-funzionale dello sviluppo comuni­ tario può essere trasportato in ambiente urbano dove le condizioni sono molto diverse? Dove l’eterogeneità della popolazione, la mancanza di tradizioni comuni, la fortissima disparità dei redditi, la dipendenza del­ le sole entrate in contanti e provenienti da lavori spesso degradanti, poco sicuri e senza prestigio, le differenze di origine e di educazione, la dissoluzione dei legami familiari, 1 impersonalità delle relazioni, le tensioni e le lotte tra classi e tra interessi diversi, ecc., si oppongono — molto più che nelle campagne — all approccio comunitario. Malgrado queste sfavorevoli condizioni, ed in reazione ad esse, la citta ci ha dato parecchi esempi di sviluppo comunitario : sotto forma di aiuti reciproci (società di mutuo soccorso, cooperative di consumo, associazioni di quartieri, ecc.), sotto forma di lavoro sociale (centri sociali, centri di vicinato, asili-nido, ecc.), sotto forma di educazione degli adulti, di coordinamento delle associazioni e delle attività, ecc.

Tutte queste iniziative si rivolgono tuttavia agli strati sociali ed ai quartieri più disagiati della popolazione e mirano alla creazione di servizi e di attrezzature collettive e, in senso generale, all educazione a modi desiderabili di comportamento, piuttosto che all accrescimento diretto del livello di vita. Di qui il considerevole ruolo attribuito, in questo approccio, al vicinato ed al quartiere in quanto ambienti di

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1 2 A L B E R T M E I S T E R

dimensioni più ridotte, basati sulla prossimità e sulle relazioni meno impersonali (o supposte tali) di quelle che sono di regola al livello del­ l’agglomerazione più vasta, ambienti nei quali sembra maggiormente possibile ricreare sentimenti di appartenenza (che richiamino un po’ quelli del villaggio) e suscitare la partecipazione ed iniziative.

Ma molto più rapidamente che in ambiente rurale, le attività urbane di sviluppo comunitario devono oltrepassare questi limiti geografici ristretti dei quartieri e del vicinato: la creazione di nuove attrezzature collettive presuppone l’intervento delle autorità municipali della città, il miglioramento delle abitazioni e la soppressione delle catapecchie contrastano con regolamenti urbanistici (o molto frequentemente con la loro inesistenza) e richiedono una politica generale di riadattamento delle strutture urbane ai nuovi bisogni, ecc.: tutte queste iniziative di portata pur limitata mettono in causa dei raggruppamenti, delle asso­ ciazioni e degli interessi localizzati fuori del quartiere. Le attività co­ munitarie limitate geograficamente portano dunque molto- rapida­ mente a considerare i problemi dell’elaborazione di una pianificazione dei vicinati o delle zone urbane da sviluppare o da risviluppare, del coordinamento per una azione comune di gruppi con interessi opposti, della decentralizzazione dell’autorità comunale in certi settori, dell’ela­ borazione di una politica generale di mutamento sociale pianificato piuttosto che adattamenti non coordinati e parziali alle conseguenze di tale mutamento, ecc., tutti problemi che appaiono molto meno rapi­ damente nelle attività di sviluppo comunitario in ambiente rurale.

Queste distinzioni tra sviluppo comunitario urbano e sviluppo comuni­ tario rurale non devono nasconderci le profonde differenze fra i feno­ meni di urbanizzazione come li conoscono o fi hanno conosciuti i nostri paesi e come essi appaiono attualmente nei paesi nuovi. Se le catapec­ chie delle grandi città dell’Asia o dell’Africa ci fanno ricordare quelle che le grandi città europee o americane hanno conosciuto durante la rivoluzione industriale — e che non sono del resto ancora scomparse completamente — i problemi attuali in questi due tipi di ambienti urbani si presentano molto differenti. Nei nostri paesi si tratta soprat­ tutto di riorganizzare, risviluppare, riarmonizzare un ambiente in rap­ porto ai nuovi bisogni e alle nuove abitudini di lavoro, di trasporto, e di svago e di lottare contro le conseguenze (delinquenza giovanile, ma­ lattie mentali, ecc.) di uno sviluppo troppo accelerato del settore pro­ duttivo (lavoro, trasporti) in confronto ad uno sviluppo troppo lento delle attrezzature di consumo (abitazioni, organizzazioni di svago e di cultura, ecc.).

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Nei paesi nuovi, al contrario, l’urbanizzazione rischia di precedere 1 in­ dustrializzazione e l’afflusso dei rurali verso la città (conseguenza eco­ nomica di un accrescimento demografico troppo rapido, molto piu che dell’attrattiva per i modi di vita cittadini) crea immense cinture di « bidonvilles » miserabili intorno ad un centro commerciale spesso troppo lussuoso e troppo moderno ma che non assicura a queste peri­ ferie se non troppo pochi posti di lavoro, nessuna abitazione, nessun servizio pubblico, nessuna garanzia sanitaria ed igienica sia pur rudi­ mentale. Questi sono alcuni dei problemi che affrontano le citta afri­ cane o asiatiche, fra le quali alcune hanno raddoppiato, quadruplicato o sestuplicato la loro popolazione negli ultimi cinquanta anni (anche se la parte della popolazione cittadina resta debole in confronto di quella totale di tali paesi). L ’utilizzazione non accompagnata da uno sviluppo corrispondente dei settori di produzione provoca dunque la miseria e la disorganizzazione sociale e scava sempre di più il fossato tra ambienti rurali non ancora toccati dal progresso tecnico e gli am­ bienti urbani, centri di raccolta di industrie e di uno sviluppo econo­ mico che non arriva mai abbastanza rapidamente, ed a poco a poco separati dal resto della nazione.

Lo sviluppo comunitario urbano nei paesi nuovi vede dunque molti­ plicarsi i suoi compiti e, molto piu che nei nostri paesi, deve inserirsi in una pianificazione di portata generale (che consideri la citta con la campagna ad essa circostante) ed anche nazionale. Analogamente alla pianificazione urbana che deve esaminare e precisare, nei dettagli ed in situazioni particolari, gli obiettivi fissati su scala nazionale, lo svi­ luppo comunitario urbano si deve integrare in una prospettiva nazionale di sviluppo delle collettività ed accompagnare lo sviluppo comunitario in ambiente rurale; tanto e vero che bisogna lottare non soltanto al punto di arrivo — le città — di una emigrazione rurale, ma anche al punto di partenza — i villaggi — per mezzo del miglioramento del livello della vita agricola. In effetti uno dei pericoli attuali dei paesi nuovi risulta essere una vita cittadina miserabile per la più gran parte degù abitanti delle città e, nello stesso tempo, una vita rurale in villaggi con strutture tradizionali decadenti e a livelli di vita bassissimi; e combattere questo pericolo implica, ad onta delle differenti situazioni, la stretta com ­ p lem en tarietà dello sviluppo comunitario urbano e dello sviluppo co­ munitario rurale.

Sono i diversi aspetti di questa problematica che desidera affrontare il presente numero (e, molto probabilmente, uno dei prossimi sullo

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14 A L B E R T M E I S T E R

stesso tema) : i diversi aspetti della pianificazione e le ricerche che essi presuppongono1, i rapporti fra urbanizzazione ed ambiente rurale e le loro implicazioni sullo sviluppo comunitario, le istituzioni di sviluppo comunitario in ambiente urbano2, il coordinamento fra sviluppo comu- unitario ed uffici di urbanistica e poteri locali, il ruolo della partecipa­ zione e delle iniziative popolari a questi diversi livelli.

A. M.

1 Vedere anche sullo stesso tema il N. 2, 1958, di Co m m u n it y De v e l o p m e n t dedicato alle inchieste di sviluppo comunitario.

Vedere anche sullo stesso tema il N . 1, 1958, di Co m m u n it y De v e l o p m e n t dedicato ai

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All of us live in communities and all of us use that term every day, but if we are asked what community is we may grope for words. The usefulness of the term is indicated by the many meanings with which it is loaded. For this reason the occasional purist may feel uncomfortable but he would have difficulty finding a substitute term.

Sometimes, when existing words cannot be used, it may be quite pro­ per to invent terms. Thus, for example, came the very useful word, « autom ation». But the invention of new terms to replace old ones may involve risks, as when the invented term fails to win adoption, wich may prove embarrassing for the well-meaning inventor.

On the other hand, the invented term may itself become popular and it may also acquire diverse meanings. Two terms examplify this pro­ cess of popularization: Diebold’s « automation » and Ogburn s « cul­ tural lag », both useful terms. Any substitute term for community might far the same.

The objective here is not so much to define community as to take ac­ count of some of its changing characteristics, likewise its complexities. Its complexity increases when we associate community with urbanism, industrialism, technology, ecological factors and so on. W e will find it a flexible term and that adds to its utility.

T he P ersp ectiv e o f Tim e

Much study has been done of primitive communities, often with the thought light will be thrown on the modern community; as if the com- plexitv of the one can be better understood by examining the apparent non-complexity of the other. The effort has been helpful, but less help­ ful than hoped. The same may be said for the historical approach from ancient to modern times; it is helpful up to a point. The anthropologist studies primitive communities and finds there all the elements and institutions of the most complex society. Always he comes to a gap between what is and what has been. He is in the position of the man who would unterstand modern machines by making a careful study of primitive tools; he can learn something up to a point.

Primitive man had his community and he understood living in it, but if asked to point it out, he would begin by telling where the borders lay. The borders separated him from all who were not of his commun­ ity, often people he had no liking for and little intercourse with. The

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16 N E L S AN DERSO N

modern community is more easily identified by its c e n te r. than its periphery.

Looking back at origins, an intriguing type of study indeed, we can learn much. W e find, for example, that mobility of all types diminishes with each stage from here to the period of stone tools, and the com­ munity was always there, serving all the functions communities still serve. But there have been differences, and finally the great differences that defy comparison. The modem community, we see, must be studied in its own terms.

Primitive man had his religion, but he did not have the organized church with all its institutional secondary formality. He had educa­ tion, but not the school system. He had memory to rely on, but no written records. He had justice, but no system of courts and coded laws. Primitive man had his family and kinship primary groups; he had no need to be an individual. Modern man in his secondary mass society must be an individual. Primitive man had tools for his work, but no machines and no systems of machines called factories.

These are only some of the differences we face when we look at the community in the time perspective. The modern community is not un­ related to the original ones, as man is not unrelated to the ape, but its orbit or its sphere is something else. When we say modem, we must think of a community oriented to urbanism and equally oriented to industrialism.

W e Return now to D efinitions

Frequent mention is made of the « Atlantic Community of Nations », which implies a group of nations within proximity, organized in common interest relationships. The European Coal and Steel Community is such a special interest relationship between six countries to control coal and steel. Two other European « communities » are Euratom and the Common Market. The Danish town of Tonder, being studied by Svalastoga, is very properly identified as a community. But this town is near the German border and the population is divided into two segments, a German-speaking minority and a Danish-speaking majority. Each group thinks of itself as a community. There is a Negro community in New York city clustered together in a single area called Harlem, but they are part of the New York community. The Jews in New York also speak of themselves as a community, although their members are widely scattered to all parts of the city. They have their institutions and or­ ganizations. Some of their life interests are satisfied in their Jewish commun­ ity but other interests must be satisfied by the larger community. If we look closer at New lorks Jewish community we find it is divided into sub com­ munities along religious lines or national origin lines, much as the Algerian community in Paris is divided along political lines.

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Community may be used with a special meaning or a global meaning, includ­ ing a local society as a whole, or a section of it. It may include groups in terms of specific interests or groups in terms of general interests.

Koenig made a study of definitions of community found among the writings of scholars in different countries, and he arrived at a definition of his own which is worth our examination for its flexibility. « A community is above all a global society of a kind that has a local unity, with an indefinite number of institutions, social groups and other phenom ena within it, and besides a great variety o f association forms which operate within the mentioned group­ ings, and also there are the obviously essential outside contacts, social, eco­ nomic, legal, administrative, etc. » 1.

In the German language community is translated into the term, Gemeinde, but this term normally has reference to a political area. It is seldom used to indicate a wider agglomeration with obvious social and economic unity which may extend across Gemeinde lines. The organized life within the Gemeinde is usually identified as Gemeinschaft. For German language uses, these terms offer little difficulty, but one may become involved when he tried to translate the different applications of community into German, or the German limited term into English. Yet the Germans now are speaking of the European Coal and Steel Community as a Gemeinde.

The definition just quoted from Koenig is flexible and the idea of local unity is indefinite 2. But flexibility and indefiniteness are qualities which the purist does not want in a definition. We find the same qualities in a definition offered by Mac Iver nearly four decades ago when sociological research in this field was in its energetic beginnings. He thought of community as an agglo­ meration of people who feel they belong together and who are held together by a variety of recognized interests, an agglomeration competing or cooperat­ ing, but most of their life interests are found therein, whatever the extent of the society or area3.

In a publication which appeared twenty years later Mac Iver carried his thought further in comparing community with the state and government. « Everywhere men w eave a w eb of relationships with their fellows, as they buy and sell, as they worship, as they rejoice and mourn. This greater w eb of relationships is society, and a community is a delim ited area of a society. Within this w eb of community are generated many controls that are not governmental controls, many associations that are not political associations, many usages and standards of behavior that are in no sense the creation of the state. In the community develops the law behind the law, the multi- sanctioned law that existed before governments began and that the law of government can never supercede. Without the prior laws of the community all the laws o f the state would b e empty formulas » 4.

1 Re n é Ko en ig, « Die Gemeinde im Blickfeld der Soziologie », H andbuch der kommunalen

Wissenschaften und Praxis, Berlin, Springer, 1956, p. 23.

2 Re n é Ko en ig. « Einige Bemerkungen zur Soziologie der Gemeinde », Kölner Zeitschrift

für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie, Sonderheft I (Soziologie der Gemeinde), November

1956, s. 2-11.

3 Ro b e r t M. Mac Iv e r, Community, London, 1927, Ch. II.

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18 N E L S AN DERSO N

In a primitive society all members of a group would have somewhat the same understanding about the nature and extent of their community. One member would be involved about the same as others in the web of relationships. But in the modern community different individuals in the community may be involved in different webs of relationships, so even different family members. The meaning of community differentiates as between individuals as they differ in their work, their mobility and the social groups to which they belong. If we think of community as an area in which people share common interests and find the major fulfillment of their lives, this does not exclude diversity. Community may have special meanings for the common worker, the clerical worker, the manager, the banker, the society matron or the housewife. All members in a village, town or city share same relationships, but there are special relationship networks for different groups, even individuals. From one to another, community may differ with age, cosmopolitanism or social class.

Urbanism an d C om m unity

There would probably be little interest in the study of community were it not for urbanism and urbanization through which community life acquires a different character. As usually understood, urbanization involves the moving of people from agricultural to non-agricultural work and from non-urban to urban places. This means country to city migration.

But urbanization also involves a transition from a rural (or primitive) to an urban way of life. It can only be measured in part by population counts and employment statistics. It means transition from a less complex to a more complex way of living and thinking. Urbanization is also the process of extending urbanism as a way of life to non-urban places. Beals identifies the process as « acculturation », or cultural change 5.

One may become urbanized and yet not be an urban dweller, nor does he need to change from agricultural to non-agricultural work. He can acquire the artifacts associated with urban living. He can learn to dress and behave, talk and think as an urbanite. Urbanism has been brought to him by urbanites in search of markets for their wares and services. Urbanism could hardly survive if it did not extend itself outward. This process can be seen and measured but not by population and employment statistics alone.

This spread of urbanism is most visable in terms of technological change. In the urbanized life communication is highly developed; telephone, telegraph, radio networks. In urban industrial countries these reach every village, if not the farms. Urbanism means the most advanced transportation, the net­ works reaching the most remote places, making the wares and services of urbanism increasingly available in non-urban places.

Urbanism not only extends itself; it refashions non-urban ways of life. It modifies social values and revises social relations. Ways of economic inter­ course change, forcing the basic nature of community to change. No com­ munity escapes urbanization in this sense. *

* RalphL. Bea l s, « Urbanism, Urbanization and Acculturation », American Anthropologist,

Y° ' No' January 1951, p. 6. See Ne l s Anderson, « Urbanism and Urbanization »,

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Some who view the urbanization process offer the opinion that urbanization stimulates a counter process, the ruralization of urban places. Urbanization, as described here, is a two-way process. The road over which people move to the city is the same over which goods and services move from city to country. Ruralization would be a one-way process only. The rural migrant takes his ruralism with him, clinging to it as he can, as the immigrant from another country may cling to his language. How much of his ruralism he can retain and how long he can hold it depends on whether he finds in the city many people or few who are like himself. « He goes out of the country, but the country does not go out of him ». Urban life may be somewhat influenced. Ruralization would be great in regions where industrialization is rapid and urban growth considerable. This is seen in African countries where great numbers move from tribalism to industrial urbanism and retain their « ru­ ralism » to such a degree that they are handicapped for urban living. Urban­ ism imposes other disciplines to manipulate urban institutions and to function in its man-made environment. One is not urbanized by merely moving to a city and entering industrial employment, much more needs to be learned. Ruralization of towns is being studied in Poland, but rural Poles are far better prepared for urbanism than tribal Africans. They have had long experience with the institutions of church, school, trade and government. But they do take with them to the city a variety of folkways and values, their songs, dances and festive practices, their manner of conversation and their folk beliefs. If a third, more or less, of the inhabitants of an emerging industrial city were born in the rural hinterland, they would certainly have some influence in ruralizing the way of life in their town. But these influences diminish with time, because they are not dynamic as urbanism is. They find expression often in resisting urbanization and may result in conflict between parents who are less urbanized and their more urbanized children.

Urbanism, on the other hand, does not diminish; it increases. If cities will live, and live better, they must extend their influence still more. Even when the time comes when city growth diminishes, urbanization would continue. It could hardly be otherwise. All communities come under its dynamics.

Industry to o is D ynam ic

In its elementary terms, industry is the application of work to produce what people need, or want: foods, drinks, raiment, dwellings, transport, etc. While industry is very old, we think today of powered industry, using machines and making things with a differentiated division of labor and a complex organ­ ization of production. Industry in this sense is so unlike earlier systems of work that historical comparison has little meaning. Largely through or because of organized industry, and its proclivity for expansion, urbanism as we know it emerged.

Industry is about the chief dynamic of this civilization. Through it, as never before, man can productively utilize work. Through this instrumentality the work, not of hundreds or thousands alone, but millions is coordinated into an integrated division of labor and system of exchange. Industry emerged as man became inventive and it expanded as he became increasingly creative. By its very evolution he has been stimulated to be continuously creative.

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20

N E L S AN DERSO N Competition had much to do with the relatively rapid evolution of industry a competition that is normally native to work itself. However, the competi­ tiveness of industry at the outset of the Industrial Revolution was harsh and destructive. Man, as many thought, had created a monster that would destroy him. Through the centuries man had retained the competitive character of work, but the extreme consequences were under control. Modern man is only now learning to protect himself against the excesses of industrial work, to make full use of industry without being destroyed by it. This is another subject, and highly important, but our interest concerns such relationships as may exist between industry and community.

The dynamics of industry affect community in diverse areas; economic, technological, ecological. It affects our ways of work and our use of non-work as well as work time. In different respects it determines where and how we live and especially it influences group relationships within the community, the ecological pattern of a community as well as its size are determined in large measure by the kind and amount of industry located within its limits. Used m this sense, industry includes, not factory work alone, but all types essential to the living of the inhabitants, except agricultural work.

When industry changes, increasing or diminishing, or expanding in new areas, the work of the community changes. More work may be provided for women More skilled work may be required. More and more industry tends to avoid the use of unskilled labor. Thus the level of living in the community may change. As industrial work becomes more dominant and more people epend on it, the economy and welfare of the community become more involved in it.

Moreover, in one respect community life is influenced, and that concerns the productivity of industry. Increasing productivity has affected community life, tor Western countries especially, in three respects; the income of workers has increased, more goods and services have been made available to increas­ ing number of people, and the work hours per week have decreased, giving people more free time than ever was known before, the gift of leisure The indirect benefits are equally notable; the general appearance of communities as improved, public services have increased, communities are safer, more healthful and sanitary, and living is more convenient. We seem to be learning to use industry as an instrumentality for community well-being.

L o c a l an d G loba l P erspectives

As mentioned above, primitive man thought of his community mainly in terms of the border. Everything important to him lay within that enclosure. He had no wish to cross the border and seldom any need to. Modern communities are better known for their centers. Borders con­ cern mainly the outlines of political subdivisions. « Out of town » seldom refers to such a border. In their cultural, economic and social areas, communities freely overstep political administration lines. They aie peitinent to community life only in cases where they interfere with it.

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Nodal centers where the roads meet and where lines of intercourse cross have always been dominant in community life. Nodality sharpens as communities become centers for trade, industry, administration and leisure activity. This is the area of greatest sensitivity, increasingly so as technology improves transportation and communication. It is the point most accessible to the largest number of people over ever extend­ ing areas.

Whether a great city, small city or small town, most inhabitants fre­ quently visit the center, but very few know the border points of their community, unless they live in outer neighborhoods. One who lives in a neighborhood near the center is apt to know the community center much better than his own neighborhood. The central area is a collecti­ ve interest of all. The monuments will be placed there and there will be the public and private buildings of which the community is proud. At the center the stranger makes his first stop and from there the traveler usually begins his journey 6.

The center takes its character from all the community, as it gives a character to all the community. If the community is old and staid, young and surging, backward or progressive, these qualities will be reflected by the center. The visitor is likely to see no other part of the community, and the sophisticated visitor, from what he sees and hears there, will know the sort of community it is. The visitor is much like the resident; he makes use of the community as his needs require and where he can be served, in his neighborhood or at the center. This is the community in local perspective.

Even if one fives in a part of it, he usually knows his whole community in a general way. He knows in general how it extends in different direc­ tions and what lies beyond. Usually he has contacts beyond what might be called the limits of his community. Because of these outside con­ tacts he may occasionally visit neighboring places. His knowledge of places outside his own community may be quite extensive, which may include cities and towns. His neighbor may be equally well acquainted with other places but his reasons for acquaintance may be different. It would be hard in his community to find many residents who were lacking in outside acquaintance. Their outside contacts would cover a wide range of different interests. In these terms every village will have its multiple contacts with a nearby town or towns.

Small towns in turn have their networks of contact with one big city

6 Nel s An d er so n, The Urban Community. London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1960, pp.

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22 N E L S ANDERSON

or another. As the town does in its sphere of influence, so the city lives within a wider sphere of influence, having many towns in its hinterland. The village may be a small satellite within the orbit of a town, while the town is a satellite within the orbit of a small city which in turn may be a satellite in the orbit of a large city. Whatever its size, every com­ munity is in a network of communities. Thus it is able to live in the exchange of goods and services and in the industrial division of labor. On the basis of some special work done there, a fairly small community may be the center of a special network that extends to other countries. Any community may acquire some degree of network identity, which may be called globality. Actually any community may be linked in a variety of different networks. Each linkage involves extensions across invisible lines between itself and other communities. Knowing where ones community is and where it is not becomes more difficult as more people own their own motor vehicles and as the residence area of any community for that reason may be extended. One may find himself at the same time a member of two communities, one in which he works and one in which he lives.

C om m unity Mass O rganization

Alieady some of the differences between secondary modern society and piimary tribal society were mentioned. The differences are due in part to the mass character of modern society made possible by techno­ logy, science and the industrial way of work. But for millions to live in single agglomerates they had to find ways to work en masse, ways to use crowded areas without excessive friction and ways to form the kind of government needed for mass administration. They had to find ways of organizing themselves into mass associations. The agglomerates were not merely society; they had to become secondary society. The evolution was natural, not guided.

In secondary mass society the little community can function and five only in a network of communities, great and small in its region. It is linked with them in production and consumption. It must become ur­ ban oriented and industry oriented, even if it is not urban and not industrial. Even if it functions as a recreation center in the mountains or by the sea, it lives (and can live better) because it is so oriented. This is secondary society. It is often anonymous and impersonal in its relationships, and must be so, as it must also be highly mobile. In such a society man must function in many of his associations as an individual. He is not under the primary controls that regulated primi­ tive man in which he as an individual counted for little. In secondary

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society the individual is under other controls that are equally effective. For example, his whole life from birth certificate to death certificate is a matter of record; school, work, contacts with government, with pri­ vate organizations and other actions are written on paper. This is but one form of control over the individual in secondary society. He is caught up in a time control system regulated by the clock both at work and away from work. He is dominated by the mechanisms of mass leisure and communication.

Perhaps the individual in secondary society is no less family man, effective worker, friend, member of associations, member of community than in early times, but the membership relationships are different. He may live in a neighborhood at the periphery of the community where he knows most of the nearby residents, but if he lives in a neighborhood near the center of the community he may not know the family in the apartment over his nor the family living immediately below. Each area may be a neighborhood as far as physical equipment is concerned, but the arrangements of the physical properties are such that « neighbor­ hood as a relationship » hardly exists. Town planners may try to revive neighborhood-as-relationship through various model arrangements. So­ metimes they succeed.

When the community becomes sufficiently urban, people cease to be concerned about the proximity type of neighborhood-as-relationship and thev turn to another system of relationships. Bott, in her study of London families, concluded that in the urban community people have their social networks, and one s network of contacts may include no individual living proximate to him. The network is an individual ac­ quaintance circle. Certain persons may be in the network of each family member. If persons in the individual’s network of contacts are known to one another, the network is « close-knit » and more of a control mechanism. If the contacts in one s network do not have con­ tact with one another, the network is « loose-knit» 7. For most peo­ ple, living in the modern community normally calls for adjustment to some degree of neighborhood-as-relationship and also the maintenance of a social network.

These and other characteristics of modern community life are in large part a consequence of living in a secondary society. But as ways or living in conformity with secondary society, they also sustain and in­ tensify the secondary character of urban-oriented and industry-oriented community life. It is a way of life in which secondary organization

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24 N E L S ANDERSON

functions in small communities as well as large ones, as they must for survival. This makes for a complexity of life in small places as well as large ones, but the complexity is comprehensible. It is this very com­ plexity that makes the study of community life an intriguing pursuit, whether we can define community or not.

Com m unity O rder an d Control

W e deal with a commonplace when we say that modern community life is vastly differently from that of two, four or eight centuries ago. Yet certain institutionalized phases of modern community life function, or try to function according to rules established centuries ago. Everyone is quite willing to operate highway and street traffic according to 1961 regulations and there would be storms of protests if builders tried to erect modern houses according to the building standards of the 15th century. Nonetheless, there is a continuing insistence that family life be regulated according to 15th century standards. There are well-inten­ tioned experts who worry that the traditional forms of neighborhood life are being set aside. They invent schemes for restoring the neigh­ borhood, without knowing (perhaps not caring) about the realities that make neighborhood and community life what they are.

How people five, how they usually must live for convenience, and how generally they wish to live, are matters that often are influenced by the circumstances under which inhabitants of a community earn their livelihood. They are matters which may also be influenced by what people do or wish to do in making use of their non-work time. The behavior and interests of people in a smaller community may be influenced by their proximity to a larger community. Moreover, the way of life in a particular community as of present time may be influenced by the trends and prospects of their work. Most decisions are individual but it is the composite of individual actions and deci­ sions that gives community life its character; as some say, it’s order. The social order of a community has its collective phase as well as its private phase. The collective phase is in part private, in part public, and the two are variously interdependent. The private side of collective community fife includes the array of organizations to which people belong and through which they make their views and wants known, or through which they take collective action, as when a trade union strikes or as when medical and neighborhood groups demand the eli­ mination of some hazard to community health. The public side of the collective phase of community life is government with all its bureaus

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and departments, an instrumentality of the community for getting things done, which cannot be done so well by private effort .

Control of community life or, as some prefer, community planning is usually a matter of collective action. In different ways it may be joint action bv private groups and public departments; private groups making the demands and public department doing the work and rendering service. The public departments may in turn utilize the private groups in rendering its services more effective. Private groups in two neighboring communities may pave the way for a water supply system serving both communities, a task that neither commum y, or different practical reasons, could not do alone. The performing o the task becomes a joint work of public departments m the two com­ munities. Thus communities may join in projects for sanitary con ro , in road building, in sewage projects, street lighting, and so on. Community appearances (especially at the center) and conveniences for living are achieved in part by individual action, m part by collec­ tive private and in part by public action.

Modern communities are probably no more complex than primitive communities were. They are complex in a different sense. The elemen s in the man-made physical environment change and human behavior must change. The course of . change is not always clear to those who plan or guide. Rules or plans of yesterday may not fit today, and decisions made today may have to be modified tomorrow. Change is both continuous and many-sided. It goes on within the commum y even while the community as a whole changes. Hence, as noted earlier, the risk in trying to make on all-purpose enduring definition of community.

This does not mean there cannot be community planmng or commun- itv control. It only means that planning and control must be a con­ tinuous effort. It calls for continuous pressure of interest groups and continuous compromise. When these dynamic aspects of community are understood by those who study communities, then effort to plan and control becomes an absorbing interest, one in which all com­ munity groups and elements can participate.

N ets A nderson Unesco Institute for Social Science - Cologne

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