The Value of Community

[Anton Gramscescu]

Interesting interview in the Grauniad about two weeks ago (should have linked to it at the time, but so it goes) with a youth crime expert. When asked about the value of having closer-knit communities as a way to prevent crime, he basically said: "I'm not a fan of community. Those communities where everybody knows who you are tend to have higher rates of crime. The safest communities are usually those where the neighbours have relatively weak ties to one another". (that's not an exact quote, but it's close).

It put me in mind of some of the research around Putam's "social capital", which basically said that as Putnam measured it, social capital was higher in monoethnic, economically declining communities, while it was lower in multiethnic, economically expanding communities.

"Community" has been touted at various times by both left and right as a panacea. Indeed, even if it is sometimes devoid of meaning, community as a term is almost a third rail - you would never see a politician get up and say that what we need is less community. But is it perhaps time to re-think the value of this concept?

Discuss.

[Reed John]

The Value of Community

Pitts argues that the least troublesome places to live - leafy, middle-class suburban enclaves - are good places not because of strong community ties but because they are populated by "lightly engaged strangers".

I don't see how that can possibly follow.

So there seems to be some kind of "critical mass" dynamic. If there isn't a problem in a neighborhood and the residents are committed to keeping it out, they'll probably succeed. But once it gets a hold, it's hard to drive it out.

I grew up in a leafy, middle-class enclave where everyone knew their neighbors and there was hardly any crime. Then a few us got our houses robbed and we started a neighborhood watch. I don't know if that repelled any further crime, but it may have.

But I don't know if it matters so much that neighbors have ties to each other, so much as it does that they're committed to upholding the quality of the neighborhood itself. Which is a big plus of being in a neighborhood where almost everyone owns their place. Even if they don't give a shit about their fellow human beings, they care about the property values so they have a stake in keeping things nice.

Unfortunately, often these sorts of places are also pretty xenophobic and racist - people worried about how allowing "that element" into their neighborhood will bring down their property value.

Leafy, middle-class suburbs are usually crime free because the sort of people that live there have relatively good jobs and have good reason to believe that if they stay in that good job that their children will also have the opportunity to have such a life too. Even if they could make more money selling drugs and didn't have an moral qualms about it (and certainly their are drug dealers in nice suburbs), they probably wouldn't want to because their lives are sufficintly nice that it wouldn't be worth going to jail or getting shot just to make a little more money.

Kids in gangs don't think much about the future or expect to have much of a future and they are surrounded by people telling them that this is a sensible attitude to have.

Nice neighborhoods don't have many (or any) vacant properties that can be taken over by drug dealers or the customers. The property values are simply too high. Even if somehow a house falls into disrepair or gets repossessed, somebody will come along to fix it up and flip it. People in nice neighborhoods have the political clout to ensure that any incursion of drug dealers into their neighborhood is quickly stamped out.

Unless, of course, lots of houses in the neighborhood are abandoned. We're seeing that sort of slumification in cities across America right now. It tends to happen in "solid working class" neighborhoods.

I think what he's driving at is that in neighborhoods where gangs rule, everyone talking to everyone else makes it very dangerous to "snitch." But in neighborhoods where people aren't so afraid of the gangs, community can help the cops at least catch criminals because they know about who knows who and notice who they saw where and when.

[Anton Gramscescu]

The Value of Community

To play devil's advocate: I think you're partially right, but surely a place "where everybody knows your name" is also a place "where at least a couple of people think you're an asshole". And occasionally, someone acts impulsively in that knowledge.

(there's an OTF metaphor here, but I shan't touch it)

In lightly engaged neighbourhoods, no one knows you well enough to think you're an asshole, so you're safe.

[Reed John]

The Value of Community

I think it depends a lot on the density. If you live in close physical proximity to your neighbors and share a lot of common space - which could also include the "sound space" if the walls are thin - then if you are an asshole, then your neighbors will find out sooner or later even if they aren't trying.

More importantly, if there's a lot of common space the assholeness of one's neighbors matters a lot more.

Like I suggested, I think the most important variable is how much people care about their neighborhood and it's future as opposed to their neighbors per se. Obviously, one is more likely to like one's neighborhood and care about it if one like's one's neighbors, but for a lot of people, good neighbors are just one more thing that people look for in a real estate investment. Like fucking granite countertops. They don't really care about the people all that much or get terribly interested in what they're up to.

[WOM]

The Value of Community

What the fuck is it with granite countertops? And marble? And anything else that had to be cut from a quarry and polished and shipped at great effort. It's goddamn expensive. It's tough to keep clean. You can't cut on it. It's cold all the time. And if you drop anything on it, it shatters.

Does this fad fall into the category of 'so stupid that everyone wants it'?

[Heliotrope]

The Value of Community

You can't cut on it, really? I thought that was one of the merits of it. Anyhow, quartz is the new granite.

But seriously, about Antonio's original point: I thought of the "stop snitchin'" problem right away. I thought the same thing was a point of Dogville, and if you boil it down to the smallest community, family, you can see that people turn a blind eye to the faults of those close to them. That can mean forgiveness or abetment.

[Reed John]

The Value of Community

I don't know what kind you're using, but my parents got granite counters and find it's very practical. Very easy to clean and very hard and good to cut on, but they recognize that it's a bit of a luxury and wouldn't make a fuss about it when buying a place. It's just that the old ones were a bit shot so they figured, since they were going to replace them anyway, they might as well.

I think stainless steel appliances are the really stupid real estate fad. Are your planning on repelling mortar fire with your refrigerator door? Are you going to cook on it?

[Amor de Cosmos]

The Value of Community

What the fuck is it with granite countertops? And marble?

Great for rolling out pastry.

'Course most of the dipshits that make a big deal out them have never baked so much as a mince pie in their life.

[E10 Rifle]

The Value of Community

I agree that "community" has become one of those waffly touchy-feely words that is now so overused and so stripped of specifics as to be almost meaningless. We're still talking, for the most part, about society(ies). And if you're looking for reasons why some areas are worse than others it's still mostly about the economics, stupid.

And the politics that informs town and neighbourhood planning/design etc

[San Bernardhinault]

The Value of Community

WornOldMotorbike wrote:

What the fuck is it with granite countertops? And marble? And anything else that had to be cut from a quarry and polished and shipped at great effort. It's goddamn expensive. It's tough to keep clean. You can't cut on it. It's cold all the time. And if you drop anything on it, it shatters.

Does this fad fall into the category of 'so stupid that everyone wants it'?

Granite countertops are great. You can cut onto them (althuogh they make your knives blunt). You can clean them easily. They don't stain (provided you don't use pale ones). And you can put your hot pans down without having to think twice. And they look pretty (as do stainless steel appliances).

[San Bernardhinault]

The Value of Community

Oh, and I hat ethe use of the language about "community" and "communities".The implication is that communities are homogeneous and segregated, and can function entirely internally. Even worse, as an example, in Britain the "muslim community" (what a ludicrous concept) as described by media and politicians, appears to have "spokesmen" and "leaders", despite their being no democratic process to choose these people (there can't be, because nobody can define the community in the first place). So those leaders are effectively self-appointed, but because they claim to represent their "community" they gain political influence and their opinions become reflected in the public consciousness as the opinions of larger groups.

The whole linguistic structures around "community" are nonsensical.

Neighbourhood is slightly different, of course, as you're merely at a further level of devolution.

[Anton Gramscescu]

The Value of Community

That's a different type of community thatn I was originally thinking of Chubby (I was more on the neighbourhood version of community than the identity version of community), but let's pick up that thought.

I mean, let's say the Government wants to engage in dialogue with British Muslims because it's worried about their allegiance to the state, or becuase it thinks Muslim youth are prone to homicidal violence or whatever. It clearly can't engage with every single Muslim. So to whom does it speak? It has to speak to "community leaders".

Sometimes community leaders are obvious (if any Government wanted to speak to OTF's community leaders, I suspect Ursus would be such a consensus choice that we wouldn't even bother voting). But sometimes they are not - hence the problems Chubby references.

The only way to get around Chubby's objections would be to actually set up a set of demorcratic way for Muslims to decide amongst themselves who speaks for them (as, for instance, trade unions do). But this adds all sorts of problems - who gets to decide on membership, for a start. Itès not obvious to me that the process of legitimating community leaders in this way wouldnèt cause more problems than it would solve.

So maybe "identity communities" are just shorthand for a corporatism that dare not speak its name. Or maybe they are just an imperfect shortcut that democracies have to use to deal with the fact that citizens have multiple identities and allegiances, not all of which are contiguous with the boundaries of the state.

[Reed John]

The Value of Community

I don't think it would be that difficult for Muslims in Britain to pick some leaders. By definition, practicing Muslims (and if you're not practicing, you're not much of a Muslim) would probably already have somebody in their Mosque designated as leader or spokesman for the Mosque. The Mosques could have a council of those people together and then pick a spokesman, the same way the Methodists, Presbyterians, Jews, etc. do in America.
They probably wouldn't all agree, so there might be a few different Muslim leadership councils. The Government could chose to talk to all of them or the one that represents the most people or the one that represents what it deems to be the most reasonable position.