Community

Question 1

Definition of Community

Answer 1

‘A specific population living within a specific geographical area with shared institutions and significant social interaction’ (Warren, 1963)

Question 2

Community Association

Answer 2

A ‘sense’ of community or an ‘absence of community’

Question 3

CSHE

Answer 3

Came up with a theory of how ‘natural communities’ emerge within cities, arguing that community was the product of biotic activity and could be understood through ecology

Question 4

Three key concepts underpinning CSHE theory

Answer 4

Competition, ecological dominance and Invasion and Successtion

Question 5

Competition

Answer 5

Park believed humans have an urge to survive so they must compete for the best places to live and set up businesses. This competition takes place in the form of pricing mechanisms which determine land values. People are segregated in the city according to where they can afford to live.

Question 6

Ecological Dominance

Answer 6

One species will have a dominant influence. Park argued that within the city the CBD is dominant because there is competition between humans who wish to locate there.

Question 7

Invasion + Succession

Answer 7

Plants can change the micro environment in which they live + so can generate conditions in which other plants can grow. Park pointed out this occurs in human communities e.g. residential areas might be invaded by businesses and people living their move out making the area commercial.

Question 8

Criticisms of CSHE

Answer 8

Does not apply well to other places other than Chicago. Theoretical analogy with plant communities is criticised and included inappropriate moral judgements about group concentration

Question 9

Fully realised community should include

Answer 9

Hierarchy, identity, plurality, autonomy, participation and integration (Selznick, 1992)

Question 10

Neighbourhood community Dictionary of Human Geo Def

Answer 10

Johnston et al, 2000 - ‘A social network of interacting individuals, usually concentrated in a defined territory’

Question 11

Neighbourhood community another def

Answer 11

Cater + Jones (1989) define it as a socially interactive space inhabited by a close-knit network of households, most of whom are known to one another and who, to a high degree, participate in common social activities, exchange info, engage in mutual aid and support etc’

Question 12

The Working Class Community

Answer 12

Young + Willmott (1957) ‘In Bethnal Green people commonly belong to a close network of personal relationships. They know immediately dozens of other local people living near at hand, their school friends, their work mates, their pub friends and above all their relatives. They know them well because they have the security of belonging to a sense of small and overlapping groups’

Question 13

Debates about community existence

Answer 13

Wellman (1979) characterised the debates as ‘lost’, ‘saved’ or ‘liberated’.

Question 14

Gemeinschaft

Answer 14

Lasting and genuine form of living together - togetherness and mutual bonds. Where community relationships are tied to social status, public arena and binded local territory (Tonnies, 1967)

Question 15

Gelleschaft

Answer 15

Involves a more calculated action on behalf of individuals to engage in ‘artifical’ relations for what they can get from one another. Tonnies, 67

Question 16

community ‘lost’

Answer 16

Debate between Gemeinschaft and and Gelleschaft. Tonnies (1967) argued social relations were moving from Gemeinschaft to Gelleschaft as a result of industrialisation, urbanization and mass communication.

Question 17

Community saved

Answer 17

Argues that communities have survived and prospered. Suttles (1972) found evidence of strong networks mainly among poor and ethnic minority groups

Question 18

Community Liberated

Answer 18

Wellman (1979) argues that this starts from the basis that seperation of home, work and wider kinship networks mean who dwells multiple social networks with weak solidarity; high rates of residential mobility, weaker community ties making it easier for individuals to develop multiple loosely based netowks meaning its less likely individuals with whom a resident is linked will be part of a close knit community

Question 19

Communities without propinquity

Answer 19

Communities which are not predicated a space have been termed this by Webber (1963).

Question 20

Davis and Herbert, 1993

Answer 20

Personal mobility and the development of modern forms of communication mean that people can develop social networks beyond their immediate locality and are more easily able than in the past to maintain these relationships over greater distances.

Question 21

Virtual communities

Answer 21

One example of new forms of social relations being created by new technologies that are free of the limitations of place.

Question 22

Benedikt, 1991

Answer 22

Virtual communities are predicated to be antidote to liveliness and offer ‘new living and multiple associations between people’

Question 23

ICT’s role

Answer 23

Claimed to be turning community from local to a global concept (Kitchin, 1998)

Question 24

Rheingold (1993)

Answer 24

On line social relationships offer the opportunity to enjoy many facets of ‘real’ social relations which are disappearing from off line public spaces.

Question 25

Problems with on line

Answer 25

Very transitory and because communication is disembodied, participants know ‘who’ they are talking to. Users may ‘cycle’ through different identities. Only face to face meetings are regarded as being able to provide truly intimate relationships.