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Objective: To discuss utopian a design of local organization based on small communities made possible by the advances in information technology and automation. The index for this section is:
Consider the evolution of local community organization. In the early industrial town the workers commuted to work on foot. Consequently workers tended to live in close proximity of their workplace. With improving transportation and communication the organization of cities has tended to become much more spread out. First, the trolley and then, the commuter train allowed the more affluent to move out along the tracks. The spread of the automobile and telephone created the vast suburban sprawl of post WW II society.
Positive aspects: The current suburban sprawl has many desirable features.
Negative aspects: Nevertheless, this transportation-oriented form of local organization has many undesirable features. First, the transportation system must be built to handle the morning and evening rush hour traffic. As soon as the transportation system is improved developers rush to build to take advantage of the improvement. Soon congestion returns. Second, social organization based on travel for each household activity is extremely energy inefficient and leads to massive pollution. Finally, massive traffic flows in urban neighborhoods divides urban neighborhoods and leads to increased crime.
Currently, most metropolitan regions are composed of governments of various sizes. The fact of this variation and the fact that public goods can in varying degree be provided by private companies. For example, private garbage collection is recognized as being more efficient than public garbage collection provided the private collection is not a mob business. It is important to note that small government units provide most local public services through contracts with private firms and larger governmental units. For example, a small village might purchase police services from the county sheriffs department. The political economy of local public services is very complicated and in many respects resembles a market because dissatisfied customers ``vote with their feet'' if they move to a different governmental unit. Thus competition is a very important aspect of local public services because local governments are constantly trying to acquire business relocations based on good services and amenities and low cost(taxes).
Almost all of these governments are much larger than the neighborhood where people live. This raises a fundamental conflict between economic values and the values of local communities. Just because a business is legal, does not mean it is desired. An example is a massage parlor in a neighborhood with families with small children. Current organization places the economic freedom of the individual in direct conflict with communities values. Currently most neighborhood associations are in constant conflict with city hall over economic freedom versus the community issues. As long as transportation is very important for economic freedom, the promotion of the community is in conflict with economic freedom, especially if the community wants to restrict transportation.
Advances in Current Communities
This section was created by the bake-off pool from ECO 361N Spring
semester 1998:
Aaron Hanson, Ryan Lawrence, Federico Robelo, Jonathan Rosenberg and
Michael Tucker.
Due to the undesirable feature brought on by transportation-oriented local organization, many new ideas have come about to promote a greater sense of community. These ideas involve redesigning areas to make them more pedestrian-friendly by providing shopping, entertainment, etc. in close proximity and by reducing automobile traffic.
In certain regions of the United States, we are beginning to see communities sprout up that are moving back to traditional values. One such community is Seaside Florida. Seaside was designed to achieve a compatibility between urbanization and preservation of nature. To accomplish these goals, it was decided that people must be able to have the variety of big-city life and also the comforts of suburban life. Seaside is a small town that provides shopping, entertainment, and a neighborly atmosphere. Best of all is the fact that everything is in such close proximity that the use of an automobile is a hindrance, not an advantage. By making Seaside conducive to walking, two key problems in today's society were drastically reduced. Traffic and pollution produced by automobiles is something that won't be found in Seaside. People enjoy themselves by sitting on their porch or engaging in many of the other resort-like amenities that Seaside has to offer. In the future, as people become more tired of the daily grind, it is likely that we will see more communities try to provide the same features as Seaside Florida. Click here for more information about Seaside.
Another innovation in community design is traffic calming. Traffic calming involves reducing the dependence on automobiles, which will in turn decrease the amount of traffic in a city or town. This can be accomplished by instituting slower speed limits, especially in residential neighborhoods, that will lead to an overall safer environment for the community. A related goal of traffic calming is to improve conditions for pedestrians, bicyclists, and anyone else who is using a mode of transportation other than a car. If people feel safer, they will be more likely to use these other forms of transportation. This can not only help the environment by reducing pollution, but it can also encourage more interactions between the members of the community. Another group of people who would benefit from this change would be senior citizens. As a whole, they are more dependent on walking for their transportation needs, especially since some of them are not fit to drive.
One community that has made an effort to use traffic calming is Wakefield; a volunteer community of 26,000 peoples about 12 miles north of Boston. They have added more sidewalks, bikeways, and bike racks to give people more options when determining their mode of transportation. There is also the belief that reducing the traffic will help to control the growing parking problem that Wakefield is facing. Members of Wakefield are concerned with ensuring child safety, especially when they are traveling to and from school. A more simplistic approach is to improve the quality of public transportation, such as buses, so that people are more willing to leave their cars at home.
Another attempt to control the traffic problem are the Neighborhood
Transportation Network (NTN) in Minneapolis and New York City that are
using the idea of reverse direction traffic calming. The NTN was
initially created in opposition of the expansion of the interstate by
educating the community and increasing community involvement in the
planning. This allowed neighborhood groups to work with the city
representatives to formulate plans for redesigning streets, housing,
and commercial development. New York reversed the traffic flow on
certain streets in Manhattan to decrease the amount of traffic in these
neighborhoods. This allowed the streets to still be used by
residents but not by cross-town traffic.
In addition to physically redesigning communities, another novel idea
suggests using telecommunication technology to promote a sense of
community.
More and more Americans feel that there has been a reduction in the
sense of community due to increased metropolitan congestion, traffic,
and pollution. Teleactivities
are helping people recover the sense of community. Teleactivities
can be described as social activities based on interactive
telecommunications to connect people together with peers, data or work.
Telecommuting is an example of these activities. This is allowing
people to work from home regardless of the distance to the office. More
and more people will move to rural communities with interests that are
shared by other people. By eliminating the time to travel to and from
work, telecommuters will have more free time available which can then
be used for social activities. Another new concept is telesocializing.
This is the use of telecommunications for social interaction. Two
people can now engage in real time video conferencing regardless of
distance and without having to worry about high phone bills. This
concept together with teleshopping (buying everything from clothing to
groceries from the internet) will give people more free time to
interact with neighbors and family. As more people become aware of
these innovations, their use will bring people together. This will
hopefully bring back the sense of community.
With the advent of telecommuting and as it becomes more prevalent with
the introduction of more broad band, high speed communication in the
home, a reduction in the number of people who have to travel to work
will decrease. The most common type of job which can be maintained in
the home is one of a management role or a technical job. This is not to
say that all telecommuters will be able to stay out of the office, but
the need for daily trips into the office and permanent office space
will not be necessary. Airline tickets and an office in the home will
replace the usual "office job". The town of Telluride,
Colorado has made itself known as a telecommuting community for
those who want to be released from the hustle and bustle of city life
and its annoyances.
With the advance of telecommuting and an increase in telecommuters other changes are sure to follow. These changes will affect the environment, automobile use, a reduction in office space, a changing transit structure and a transformation in the use of the home. With all of these changes from a continued increase in the number of telecommuters, other more broad changes in the social structure will arise.
Workers tend to live within 20 minutes travel time from where they work. Obviously, the faster you can travel the further you can live from work. In addition, if you can substitute communication for travel, there is no limit how far you can live from work. The forecasted freedom of location and the social nervous system will enable households to locate anywhere in 1000 sq miles as opposed to 100 sq miles of today. In a market society which tries to reduce discrimination, the buyer has the right to buy or rent and the seller can not refuse to make the transaction. This choice mechanism will make competition between local governments to attract residents and businesses much more intense than currently.
The community should become the local point of life. In order to promote community, the governance of large metropolitan regions would be partitioned into two levels. A metropolitan government would provide the basic services such as water for which there are economies of scale. The lower level of government would be the community government which is an expanded neighborhood association. On land under the direct control of the metro government are the major roads, large businesses, major shopping centers, the central business districts and major office parks. The land use under the metropolitan government is based on economic values with some zoning.
Residential areas are under the direct control of communities. The function of the community government is to support the lifestyle of the majority of the community with control over:
a. Internal zoning and transportation
b. All activities external to residences
These controls place the majority of the community in possible conflict with subgroups which disagree with the majorities' decisions. To resolve this conflict the community would have the following limits:
a. Buyer not seller decides who buys.
b. Unlimited access to social nervous system
c. Home is castle
Communities could zone land using market criteria or the community could zone land using a noneconomic system of values. The community provides local activities such as sports, crafts, and a local market. These local activities could be provided directly by the community government, private associations, or through service firms.
During the past two centuries, ambitious individuals have had to leave the farms and small towns to pursue their dreams in large cities. With teleconferencing and telecommuting this type of relocation will become increasingly less necessary. Consequently the most common type of community is likely to be an intergenerational community. Individuals will leave such towns to live in more specialized communities because they offer a desired lifestyle.
The choice mechanism would lead to increasing specialization of communities. Once a community starts to specialize it will attract people who like the specialty increasing the emphasis. With much greater freedom of location people can search over great distances to find a community which supports their lifestyle. Even if one works in a specific location as the workweek declines, one can commute much further especially if one works say five 10 hour days and then has three weeks off. Information workers working through the social nervous system could be hundreds of miles from the nominal office.
The internal transportation system in communities of workers who would telecommute to work would be quite different from those in communities of workers who had to drive to work. In telecommuters communities to eliminate strangers whose only purpose in the community would be to transverse it, the internal transportation system would make traversing the community much more time consuming than driving around it.
The current concept of US society is that immigrant groups slowly become integrated into mainstream society. However, for the purpose of world trade it is desirable to maintain the language skills and knowledge of foreign customs here in the US. Under the proposed community structure individuals of an ethnic group would have a choice. If they grew up in an ethic group maintaining a foreign language and Americanized foreign customs, they would have to choose as young adults to remain or move to more integrated communities. For the purpose of world trade it would be social policy to promote and preserve ethnic communities with foreign languages so that young Americans would be knowledgeable in as many languages as possible.
One aspect of the growth of the internet has been rapid growth of discussion groups on any topic such as DejaNews. Discussion groups have expanded into communities on the Internet such as The WELL. Howard Rheingold has written Virtual Community about the WELL and other virtual communities. Virtual communities offer individuals another choice in finding groups with similar interests especially where economic considerations limit the ability of the individual to physically relocate to a physical community supporting his or her lifestyle.
This approach to community development is very different from the idea of the melting pot. We assume that through marriage over the next several hundred years the US is likely to gradually evolve into a worldwide composite type individual. But what we are emphasizing here is the goal of allowing groups with different lifestyles to promote the majority lifestyle in there community. What we are assuming that for most individuals since they can obtain their economic opportunities through the Internet, they should be able to find a community that supports their desired lifestyle.
This goal might seem to promote racism and group discrimination. However, we must look at trends in the world economy. International corporations doing business in a particular country must hire local nationals for most of their managers. Over time to provide incentives to motivate managers international corporations will have to promote the best managers regardless of their nationality so that over time the top management will become international and such corporations will become world and not national corporations. Thus families that want their children to succeed in the world economy must condition them to be at least tolerant of different customs and lifestyles. Some communities today, such as Columbia, MD welcome promote all races and most beliefs. There will always be some communities that will want to promote diversity.
The same is true for blue collar work which requires teamwork and where one factor of employment is the ability of the individual to be able to work in a group. Thus groups that promote their own lifestyle, but promote tolerance of others are likely to produce more successful individuals.
If hate groups congregate in their own communities, it will be easier for the police and FBI to monitor their movements. While it would be nice to think that there will not be hate groups, it would be naive to assume that hate groups will not exist and that such groups will not grow in difficult economic times.
Some community sites are:
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System Up: Informational
Society Notes Previous: Employment
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norman@eco.utexas.edu