A long time ago in a state far, far away I helped develop neighborhoods into communities. Our goal was not to only build affordable housing, but to create communities of people.
Whether we were revitalizing, creating mixed developments, or creating new developments, my goal was to try to make the new residents new community members. We held neighborhood meetings, started neighborhood watches, sponsored block parties and helped to enforce codes. We educated people on saving money on energy, maintaining your home, lawn care, and foreclosure prevention.
We were attempting to instill a sense of community. A sense of community consists of four primary parts:
1. Membership – The first part is believing that you belong where you are. You need to feel that you are accepted as a member and are personally as well as financially invested in your membership.
2. Influence – This does not mean that you have the largest home on the block, it means that your voice and opinion is heard. You do not need to be the leader to have influence, you only need to know that you aren’t ignored.
3. Integration and Fulfillment of Goals – Your participation in the community needs to serve your goals as well as the community goals. Building equity, maintaining stability for your family, and sharing a network of neighbors and friends that can help in a pinch are all examples of ways that your participation and involvement serve you as well as the greater good.
4. Shared Emotional Connection – When you sit on a bench next to your neighbor and watch your children play in the park, you can share a moment with a neighbor who may have never otherwise been a friend. Shared emotional connections creates a sense of security and belonging that creates a deeper commitment to the community or neighborhood.
My focus in creating these neighborhoods also centered around bike paths, shared green spaces and parks, front porches and clear bylaws. I participated in all the community building meetings, but the truth is that the residents had to find their own sense of community, our organization could only do so much.
Though our projects were successful at creating permanent, low crime and low foreclosure rated neighborhoods, sometimes I wonder how many people really want a close community like this. Statistics and grant funding show a push for more close knit mixed use neighborhoods, but yet they are often viewed as low class and created for low income people despite the mix in housing. Municipalities never want to gentrify low income neighborhoods, which is why they mix the housing when revitalizing, but more often than not there are financial losses taken on the higher end housing in a mixed use neighborhood.
Maybe I am one of the few who chooses to live in a neighborhood like this? My parents built in the country to avoid neighbors, sprawling suburbs and strip malls don’t offer much community spirit either. Young people are leaving small towns in droves, are they looking for opportunities or anonymity? Service Clubs are dying for lack of new members and fewer community gathering places are being utilized.
Community is important to me, I need to feel a sense of it to really feel at home. But maybe it means more to me than other people, most people I know don’t know who their neighbors are – or care. Survey question now – how important is a sense of community to you?
) and using a bookmark with a nice saying on it to remind me to think happy thoughts. 
) while I hobbled along with him. He never once complained about the easy walk or the many things I had to say.
