 Yesterday
we hosted our annual neighbourhood adults-only barbecue, a delightful
but boisterous group of 80 people. We welcomed our two new
neighbourhood couples. One of the neighbours catered the event for
cost. Another neighbour laid out a 9-hole Goofy Golf
course (see map) that stretched across the hundred-acre neighbourhood
(we're virtually fence-free, and neighbours actually vie to 'host' one
of the holes, putting out coolers of beer and inviting players to stop
for a dip in their pools). Goofy golf is played with a sand wedge and a
tennis ball and the 'holes' are a foot in diameter. We play it before
the barbecue and it's open to kids as well. Another neighbour hosted an
afternoon children's picnic and amusement fair. We also held a raffle
for donated prizes, and raised $750 for a local children's charity, and
then played Euchre and 8-ball into the wee hours. The last straggler
left at 3 am, and of course no one had to drive home, which was just as
well.
This is what every neighbourhood should and could be like. It works because:
- Since we're relatively isolated here out in the exurbs,
sharing our community with wolves, coyotes and other wildlife, events
like blizzards and power failures (two in the past two weeks, including
the Big One) force you to get along with, and stay in touch with, your neighbours. In the city, it's just too easy to be anonymous.
- Despite the young average age (forty) of the residents, and
the long (45-minute) commute to Toronto, the neighbourhood is so
physically attractive that no one ever wants to leave, so turnover is
almost zero.
- We've all escaped from other residential models (urban,
rural, suburban) that we didn't like, so we're determined to make our
community work.
- We're spread out enough and separated by protected
conservation corridors (not shown on map above) that we're not visible
or audible to our neighbours, so disputes are very rare.
My purpose for describing this is to make a couple of points about
neighborhoods and to describe a few concepts about community that I
think are very important. My points are these:
- I believe overpopulation and overcrowding underlie many of
the problems of our world. Our neighbourhood shows that when people
have room to be themselves, they tend to be peaceful, cooperative, and
environmentally sensitive. They can afford to be. We need to make this luxury available to everyone. To do so we need way fewer people on the planet.
- I believe political, legal and business problems grow and proliferate exponentially when the size of the physical area, the number of people affected, and the degree of concentration of power
increases. Functional communities, like our neighbourhood, where
everyone participates and everyone knows everyone else, have almost no
problems. But once you get up to national, state and local governments
and large, centralized corporations, there are too many players, too
many people uninformed, uninvolved, unaffected, and this is where all
the problems start. Small is beautiful, and the smaller the more
beautiful, and the more effective and self-managing.
We each live and work in three distinctive types of communities, each of which has a different makeup and function:
- Neighbourhoods - those people with whom we physically share space,
where we live, at various levels of aggregation from our immediate
neighbours to whole nations and even the planet we share with others.
- Collaborators - those people with whom we make a living.
As I've pointed out in my essays on New Collaborative Enterprises, I
believe a new model is needed to replace the bankrupt and dysfunctional
corporate model we developed a few centuries ago.
- Networks - those people with whom we share a common interest. We all belong to many networks.
Only since the advent of modern transportation and communication
technologies have these three types of communities become distinct.
Until a century or two ago, most people married and worked with their
neighbours, and played and prayed with them. But for most of us we
still have no real choices about the communities we live, work and play
in. Most of us still live in unsafe, crowded neighbourhoods, surrounded
by strangers. These neighbourhoods in turn comprise cities, states and
nations run by despots and criminals, by the self-serving and
power-hungry, unaffected by the consequences of their actions and
indifferent to the suffering of those they supposedly represent.
Most of us still work in jobs where we have unequal say, or no say at
all, where name and wealth always trump talent, and where those at the
top neither know or care about the plight of those 'under' them. And
most of us cannot afford, access or understand the technologies that
allow people to find like minds in communities of interest: potential
soulmates, playmates and workmates.
At one time, before the three types of communities became distinct, people used terms like nation (literally, those of common birth, referring to a cooperative group of tribes), and company
(literally, friends and intimates together for common cause). These
words have now been debased beyond recognition, but their original
meanings tell us what we must strive again to build -- communities of
small numbers of people who for whatever reason (desire to make a
living together, desire to live in the same physical setting, or desire
to share a common interest) want to commune -- to do things in common. Communities, in other words, that work.
(The author is writing a
book about a peaceful, utopian world, with a prescription for making it
a reality. This is the second of a series of articles designed to
develop the precepts for the book).
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MADE IN CANADA
trust your
instincts 
