what is a community?

Answer 1

A community is an amalgamation of living things that share an environment. The individual living beings can be plant or animal; any species; any size. What characterizes a community is sharing interaction in many ways. In human communities, intent, belief, resources, preferences, needs, risks and a multitude of other conditions may be present and common, affecting the degree of adhesion within the mixture, but the definitive driver of community is that all individual subjects in the mix have something in common. This is even true in biological communities.

Contents [hide]
1 The context of community
2 The processes of community
3 Problems of community
4 The sense of community
5 The spirit of community
5.1 For more information
6 References
7 See also
8 External links



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The context of community
From the days of the hunter-gatherer, individual humans have formed communities. A sense of community is the aspect of giving of one's self to others. Related etymology for munere expands the meaning to included something prized, precious and worth defending. It is the same root as used for the word munitions (defences). Sharing in this "common defence" incorporates a balance between self-interest and shared-interests within and among members of a group and is a crucial factor in community formation. When enough participants in a group develop an attitude of caring for the well-being of the whole, or the common good, the prospect of community is present.

Whatever drives people to cooperate and collaborate in the first place, is not quite as important in the context of community as what makes them continue to associate. Resilient connections between and among people are what is important in the formation of viable communities. Successful efforts by a mix of participants tend to attract the attention of other less connected individuals who may seek to join the group that is succeeding. This tendency, akin to herd behavior in animals, is called Self-organization.

Over time, some parts of humanity have progressed steadily toward more complex forms of organization and control. Hunter/gatherer tribes settled around seasonal foodstocks to become agrarian villages. Villages grew to become towns and cities. Cities turned into city-states and nation-states. The fact that commerce, industry, government and human institutions become ever larger and more complex suggests that humans, particularly those who are conversant with the rules that drive these complexes are themselves driven toward aggregation, amalgamation, and consolidation. When this increase in social capital reaches critical mass, innovations in social networks can begin to work toward a higher context through an inescapable cultural awareness of others. This phenomenon is generally called the emergence of collective consciousness.

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The processes of community
It can be intuitively reasoned through subjective experience that we've all shared, regardless of culture, class, religion or any other determinant, that we learn who we are chiefly through contact with others. This is a progressive development which is as universal in human experience as any single sociological component can be - the process of identification. A human being is born with a mind and a set of inherited traits. Without going into the argument of heredity with environment, it is reasonable to accept that the habits and behaviors that a person grows into are largely a function of the community group behaviors that prevailed through that process. That is the first process of community.

As an individual grows into an adult another process occurs. That being a progressive accumulation of facts, truths, and hopefully insights which all move together through the process of realization. It is during plateaus reached along this progression that cognitive structures are formed, attitudes toward the local world, the society viewable from within personal scope, and an understanding of how people relate one to the other and within the context of community. This process is called socialization.

So, identification, realization and socialization brings an individual into a position of making choices about who he or she will socialize with and under what conditions and circumstances. From the perspective of the individual, selecting or deselecting groups to join is yet another process - the process of association. When associated individuals develop the intent to give of themselves to the group and maintain all of the processes from identification to association they begin to bring into practice the first process of true community - the process of communication.

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Problems of community
As communities form, so usually develops a collective consciousness and a set of mores. These serve to add cohesion, harmony and continuity to a group, allowing it to grow, sometimes to a gargantuan size. Once a critical mass of people adopts a set of mores and develops a collective consciousness it becomes a society. Participation is no longer optional for the individual. Behavior is now a function of being required or compelled to conform to the norm rather than choosing to give of one's self. This condition is sometimes thought of as the status quo.

A natural outgrowth of stagnant societies and large organizations is an increased propensity in individuals and factions to deviate from the norm. When enough individuals and factions decide that deviation can be a good thing, a new community can form as a subculture within the society. This can be good for the society by creating dynamics that enhance the social experiences and improve the well-being of the whole. A moderate form of this occurrence is called a social movement, while a radical form is called a revolution.

Individuals and factions can decide to form alliances intent on repressing deviation, eliminating or containing subcultures, enforcing the status quo or even oppressing or destroying the parts of the society that do not suit them or fit into their idea of what the society as a whole is to represent.

In both tiny communities and massive societies, problematic conditions arise involving the emergence of leaders. Leadership is a civic phenomenon that may introduce a high level of hierarchy. The structure of this hierarchy plays a key role in determining the characteristics of the whole. The community will effectively present to the larger world this collective personality.

Sometimes these factors lead to exclusivism, and, ultimately, totalitarianism. Recently, a similar tendency to them has been seen in America under the name of protection of the community from terrorists.

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The sense of community
For more details on this topic, see sense of community.
Continuity of the connections between leaders and leaders, leaders and followers, followers and followers is vital to the strength of a community. Members, both leaders and followers, individually hold the collective personality of the whole. With sustained connections and continued conversations, participants in communities, regardless of degrees of inclusion, develop emotional bonds, intellectual pathways, enhanced linguistic abilities, and even a higher capacity for critical thinking and problem-solving. It could be argued that successive and sustained contact with other humans might help to remove some of the tensions of isolation, due to disenfranchisement, thus opening creative avenues that would have otherwise remained impassable.

Conversely, sustained involvement in tight communities might tend to aggravate tensions in some individuals. But, in many cases, it is easy enough to distance one's self from the "hive" temporarily to ease this stress. In fact, psychological maturity and effective communication skills may well be a function of this ability. In nearly every context, individual and collective behaviours are required to find a balance between inclusion and exclusion; for the individual - a matter of choice; for the group - a matter of charter. The sum of the creative energy and the strength of the mechanisms that maintain this balance is manifest as an observable and resilient sense of community.

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The spirit of community
If the sense of community exists, both freedom and security exist as well. The Community then takes on a life of its own, as people become free enough to share and secure enough to get along. This is the "spirit of community."

Western cultures are losing this spirit of community that once were found in institutions such as churches, community halls and rural/urban centres. Sociologist Ray Oldenburg stated in his book A Great Good Place that we need three places: 1) The home, 2) the workplace, and, 3) the community hangout. With this philosophy in mind, many grassroots initiatives are being started to create this "Third Place" in our communities. They are taking form in our independent bookstores, corner cafes and local pubs.[citation needed]

Answer 2

community is an amalgamation of living things that share an environment. The individual living beings can be plant or animal; any species; any size. What characterizes a community is sharing interaction in many ways. In human communities, intent, belief, resources, preferences, needs, risks and a multitude of other conditions may be present and common, affecting the degree of adhesion within the mixture, but the definitive driver of community is that all individual subjects in the mix have something in common. This is even true in biological communities.

Answer 3

here is what a community is i hope you like this one:

com·mu·ni·ty ( P ) Pronunciation Key (k-myn-t)
n. pl. com·mu·ni·ties

A group of people living in the same locality and under the same government.
The district or locality in which such a group lives.

A group of people having common interests: the scientific community; the international business community.
A group viewed as forming a distinct segment of society: the gay community; the community of color.

Similarity or identity: a community of interests.
Sharing, participation, and fellowship.
Society as a whole; the public.
Ecology.
A group of plants and animals living and interacting with one another in a specific region under relatively similar environmental conditions.
The region occupied by a group of interacting organisms.

Answer 4

Community spirit is a phrase used to denote the act of people working together in a harmonious relationship. This term is commonly used at fairs, school functions and community projects.

Answer 5

It's a place in which you may be able to live after you serve a few more years. Until then, don't the bar of soap in the shower.

Answer 6

It's an "ity" where people "commun."

Answer 7

Sharing, participation, and fellowship.

Answer 8

a group of people who supprt each other

Answer 9

dictionary.com