The Problem with Community in Planning

As an element of planning practice, the notion of “ community” is not well thought out. The quest for community in the realm of planning praxis provokes an age-old debate, which, given the current surge of interest in community, needs to be revisited and reassessed. In this article, the author argues that planners need to detach themselves from the idea that physical planning can create a “sense of community.” The integration of the notion of community and planning is analyzed in three parts. The author first assesses how planning practice currently incorporates the notion of community. Included is an empirical analysis of neighborhood planning documents from sixteen U.S. cities. Second, she discusses why the notion of attempting to build community in planning is problematic, and she presents four fundamental reasons why this is the case. Finally, she outlines how the notion of community in planning could be used more appropriately.

[1]  P. Katz.  The New Urbanism: Toward an Architecture of Community , 1993 .

[2]  T. Glynn,et al.  Psychological Sense of Community: Measurement and Application , 1981 .

[3]  Terence Lee.  Urban Neighbourhood as a Socio-Spatial Schema , 1968 .

[4]  James H. Hogge,et al.  Sense of community through Brunswik's lens: A first look. , 1986 .

[5]  J. Jacobs.  The Death and Life of Great American Cities , 1962 .

[6]  Sally Engle Merry,et al.  Crowding, Conflict, and Neighborhood Regulation , 1987 .

[7]  H. Gans.  Urbanism and Suburbanism as Ways of Life: A Reevaluation of Definitions , 1995 .

[8]  M. Janowitz,et al.  Community Attachment in Mass Society , 1974 .

[9]  Jonathan L. Freedman.  Crowding and behavior , 1975 .

[10]  Susan Greenbaum,et al.  BRIDGING TIES AT THE NEIGHBORHOOD LEVEL , 1982 .

[11]  D. Chavis,et al.  Sense of community in the urban environment: A catalyst for participation and community development , 1990 .

[12]  M. Khanye,et al.  An urban experience. , 1989, Nursing RSA = Verpleging RSA.

[13]  D. Chavis,et al.  Sense of community: A definition and theory , 1986 .

[14]  M. Levine.  Working it out: A community re‐creation approach to crime prevention , 1986 .

[15]  Christopher Silver,et al.  Neighborhood Planning in Historical Perspective , 1985 .

[16]  Marc T. Smith,et al.  Is the Development Debate of the 1990s to Resonate as a Fanfare for Community , 1992 .

[17]  Anselm L. Strauss,et al.  Images of the American city , 1968 .

[18]  A. Panzetta.  The concept of community. The short-circuit of the mental health movement. , 1971, Archives of general psychiatry.

[19]  Katherine Duffy,et al.  Urban policy and the turn to community , 1997 .

[20]  J. Cunningham,et al.  A New Public Policy for Neighborhood Preservation , 1979 .

[21]  P. Mattessich,et al.  Community Building: What Makes It Work: A Review of Factors Influencing Successful Community Building , 1997 .

[22]  Amitai Etzioni,et al.  The spirit of community : the reinvention of American society , 1994 .

[23]  B. Wellman.  The Community Question: The Intimate Networks of East Yorkers , 1979, American Journal of Sociology.

[24]  E. Gambrill,et al.  The problem with neighbors , 1994 .

[25]  I. Doig.  This House of Sky: Landscapes of a Western Mind , 1977 .

[26]  C. Fischer.  "Urbanism as a Way of Life" , 1972 .

[27]  B R Hasselkus,et al.  Habits of the Heart , 2021, Door of the Wilderness: The Greek, Coptic, and Copto-Arabic Sayings of St. Antony of Egypt.

[28]  R. Gutman,et al.  People and Buildings , 1974 .

[29]  Carol M. Werner,et al.  Social Cohesiveness, Territoriality, and Holiday Decorations , 1985 .

[30]  T Porter-O'Grady,et al.  Building a community , 2002, IEEE Des. Test Comput..

[31]  R. Feldman.  Constancy and Change in Attachments to Types of Settlements , 1996 .

[32]  E. Blakely,et al.  Fortress America: Gated Communities in the United States , 1997 .

[33]  H. C. Miller,et al.  Cities Back from the Edge: New Life for Downtown , 1998 .

[34]  W. Whyte.  City: Rediscovering the Center , 1988 .

[35]  M. Neuman.  Utopia, Dystopia, Diaspora , 1991 .

[36]  M. Mcclendon,et al.  Neighborhood community and quality of life , 1989 .

[37]  John King,et al.  The City of , 2000 .

[38]  W. Yancey.  Architecture, Interaction, and Social Control , 1971 .

[39]  Douglas D. Perkins,et al.  Participation and the social and physical environment of residential blocks: Crime and community context , 1990 .

[40]  K. Franck,et al.  Women and Urban Public Space , 1989 .

[41]  B. Wellman,et al.  Networks, Neighborhoods, and Communities , 1979 .

[42]  Paul A. Sundet,et al.  A Community Concerns Report Method for Local Agenda Setting , 1988 .

[43]  P. Hall.  Cities of Tomorrow , 1988 .

[44]  Ivonne Audirac,et al.  An Evaluation of Neotraditional Design's Social Prescription: Postmodern Placebo or Remedy for Suburban Malaise? , 1994 .

[45]  Peter H. Rossi,et al.  Why Families Move , 1956 .

[46]  Jeanne M. Plas,et al.  Environmental factors and sense of community in a planned town , 1996 .

[47]  P. Korsching,et al.  Community Image and Community Innovativeness , 1990 .

[48]  G. Galster,et al.  The Social Neighborhood , 1982 .

[49]  John R. Aiello,et al.  Residential Crowding and Design , 1979 .

[50]  Stephen A. Ayidiya,et al.  Neighborhood Community and Life Satisfaction , 1991 .

[51]  Philip Langdon,et al.  A Better Place to Live: Reshaping the American Suburb , 1994 .

[52]  P. Calthorpe.  The Next American Metropolis: Ecology, Community, and the American Dream , 1993 .

[53]  Karen A. Franck,et al.  Community by Design , 1983 .

[54]  Philip Olson,et al.  Urban Neighborhood Research , 1982 .

[55]  William M. Rohe,et al.  Planning with neighborhoods , 1985 .

[56]  Roberta M. Feldman,et al.  Settlement-Identity , 1990 .

[57]  Richard Sennett,et al.  The Fall of Public Man , 1977 .

[58]  Mahyar Arefi,et al.  Non‐place and placelessness as narratives of loss: Rethinking the notion of place , 1999 .

[59]  T. W. Freeman,et al.  Environmental Choice, Human Behavior, and Residential Satisfaction , 1978 .

[60]  E. Ebbesen,et al.  Spatial ecology: Its effects on the choice of friends and enemies , 1976 .

[61]  Karen A. Franck,et al.  Exorcising the Ghost of Physical Determinism , 1984 .

[62]  Roger S. Ahlbrandt.  Neighborhoods, People, and Community , 1984 .

[63]  Clare Cooper Marcus,et al.  Housing as if people mattered : site design guidelines for medium-density family housing , 1986 .

[64]  I. Audirac.  Stated Preference for Pedestrian Proximity: An Assessment of New Urbanist Sense of Community , 1999 .

[65]  The Neighborhood, Urban Ecology, and City Planners , 1950 .

[66]  Robert D. Putnam,et al.  Bowling alone: the collapse and revival of American community , 2000, CSCW '00.

[67]  William C. Sullivan,et al.  Fertile Ground for Community: Inner-City Neighborhood Common Spaces , 1998 .

[68]  W. Michelson.  Man and His Urban Environment: a sociological approach , 1970 .

[69]  Gila Menahem,et al.  Urban Neighborhoods and the Quest for Community: Implications for Policy and Practice , 1989 .

[70]  R. Dowling.  Neotraditionalism in the Suburban Landscape: Cultural Geographies of Exclusion in Vancouver, Canada. , 1998 .

[71]  A. Duany.  Towns and town-making principles , 1991 .

[72]  K. Campbell,et al.  Sources of Personal Neighbor Networks: Social Integration, Need, or Time? , 1992 .

[73]  C. Fischer,et al.  Networks and places: social relations in the urban setting , 1977 .

[74]  D. Appleyard,et al.  “Toward an Urban Design Manifesto” , 1987, The City Reader.

[75]  J. Buckner.  The development of an instrument to measure neighborhood cohesion , 1988 .

[76]  Richard Moe,et al.  Changing Places: Rebuilding Community in the Age of Sprawl , 1997 .

[77]  M. Brill,et al.  Transformation, Nostalgia, and Illusion in Public Life and Public Place , 1989 .

[78]  A. Wandersman,et al.  The importance of neighbors: The social, cognitive, and affective components of neighboring , 1985 .

[79]  J. Pearce.  Home from nowhere , 1997 .

[80]  Elizabeth W. Morris.  Community in Theory and Practice: A Framework for Intellectual Renewal , 1996 .

[81]  Besim S. Hakim,et al.  Redesigning the American Dream , 1995 .

[82]  S. Riger,et al.  Community ties and urbanites' fear of crime: An ecological investigation , 1981 .

[83]  Ralph B. Taylor,et al.  Consequences of Population Density and Size , 1980, Urban affairs quarterly.

[84]  Aimé Cousineau,et al.  Toward New Towns for America , 1952 .

[85]  L. Schorr.  Common Purpose: Strengthening Families and Neighborhoods to Rebuild America , 1997 .

[86]  K. Al-Hindi,et al.  The Hidden Histories and Geographies of Neotraditional Town Planning: The Case of Seaside, Florida , 1997 .

[87]  J. B. Harvey.  The Fall of Public Man , 1977 .

[88]  S. Sarason.  The Psychological Sense of Community: Prospects for a Community Psychology , 1974 .

[89]  Albert D Hunter,et al.  The Loss of Community: An Empirical Test Through Replication , 1975 .

[90]  T. Gärling,et al.  A multidimensional measure of neighboring , 1996 .

[91]  Yves Tugault,et al.  Cities and Space, the Future Use of Urban Land , 1965 .

[92]  Lee J. Haggerty.  Differential Social Contact in Urban Neighborhoods: Environmental vs. Sociodemographic Explanations , 1982 .

[93]  J. Wraith,et al.  Topophilia: a study of environmental perception, attitudes, and values , 1974 .