"Community and Communication"
by National Building Museum curator Susan Piedmont-Palladino
It’s not a coincidence that “community” and “communicate” share a common language ancestor in the Latin word for sharing. Everything that’s intelligent about cities lies right there in those two words. Communicate is how we share; community is where we share. This month’s infographic shows where our minds, bodies, and souls are sharing: in public libraries, farmers’ markets, places of worship, and…Facebook. Half a billion people are there on Facebook, but just exactly where is there?
From the telegraph to Twitter, communication technology is constantly challenging what “where” means. We no longer have to be there to be part of a community. We carry our communities around in our pockets. Yet we are still somewhere. And that “somewhere” is a designed place: a public park, a coffee shop, a plaza, a public library. Community is defined by those little words that tell us where we are. We can be at the library or with our book club; we can be in the park and on Facebook. We were on the phone before we were on Twitter. You might be on the phone, at your desk, but inevitably you’re in a room in a building in a city. Most of us have only one home in one neighborhood, but we are part of many communities, both serially and simultaneously. We each occupy the center of a giant three-dimensional Venn diagram, where our communities nest, overlap, and contain the others.
For years futurists have been predicting that the internet would kill public libraries and downtown office spaces, and that big box retail would kill small markets. New technologies rarely kill off the old completely. Instead, every technology adds to our community-building toolbox. Community construction is not a zero sum game. Every new way to communicate opens up new possible communities. That’s how we generate social capital, the intangible yet essential substance that binds us together. It is the ultimate renewable resource. It actually increases with use, but it can whither from lack of attention. What we fear about new communication technologies is that they will siphon off social capital. But video didn’t actually kill the radio star, nor did the telephone make face- to-face meetings obsolete. We’re perfectly capable of both socializing and, to use one of the New York Times’ top 2010 words—“sofalizing.” As our graphic shows, cities today are alive with farmers’ markets and brand new libraries are full of patrons, many of whom are updating their Facebook status at the library.
Now, stop reading for a minute and look up. Look around. Think about where you are, and why you chose to be there and not somewhere else. Sketch your own infographic connecting your many communities, starting with where you are right now. Include your neighborhood association, your Facebook friends, your volunteer organization, your kickball team, the bus stop regulars, the coffee shop crowd, your school district, your parish, the dog park, and co-op. Use different kinds of lines or strings to reveal the different types of connections you have. That’s your social capital bank statement. How will you share the wealth?
