Community

“[T]he community, not the individual, is the basic unit of human survival. History shows that local communities can flourish while empires fall around them.” – John Michael Greer *

Community.

Sometimes what we need is for a community to support us in kind of anonymous ways, maybe even just by giving us a cozy place to drink coffee. We may think that’s not a big deal, but it might just be a foundation of our very democracy. Read about it here.

Other times, we find community in surprising places: like on the city bus. Those same buses, by the way, are one of the ways that we can help our community thrive – by allowing good people to get to good jobs.

An orderly community is like an orderly home – things just work better when everything has a place. (Not that I know that from experience more than twelve minutes a year. I’m a notorious and chronic mess.) At home, life works more smoothly when everyone knows where the scissors are; in our cities, life works better when we slam the door shut on ambiguity and define clear spaces for everyone.

Of course, sometimes the people around us can be big jerks, too, like the time another mom almost hit me outside my daughter’s school – unpleasant experience, popular post. This might be because we kind of involuntarily turn into a bunch of Neanderthals when we drive, but you aren’t about to give that mom a pass. Spoiler alert: you expect better from your neighbors (I do, too).

*With thanks to PlaceMakers.