Note: John O'Brien and Connie Lyle O'Brien have written a number of articles and papers under a subcontract from the Center on Human Policy for the Research and Training Center on Community Living, under a cooperative agreement (Number H133B80048) between the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research and the University of Minnesota Institute on Community Integration. These are available through the Center on Human Policy (see end of article). This is the first of several that will appear in the TASH Newsletter.

Signs of Community Building

by John O'Brien

Beyond intellectual concern for the possibility of community, some people work to enact it through their choice of living and working arrangements. Compared to the forces driving people toward individualism, their efforts seem small, partial, risky, and hopeful.

These notes summarize impressions from a visit with people involved in community building activities in the Phoenixville -Kimberton area of Chester County, Pennsylvania. My visit, on 1-3 March 1989, was organized by the Lifesharing Safeguards Project, a project funded by the Pennsylvania Developmental Disabilities Council to discover effective ways to insure the well-being of people living in intentional communities which include people with disabilities. Helen Zipperlin, a member of one such community and director of the project, inventoried local community building efforts along with her friends, invited people from each effort to spend a day reflecting on their experiences and their sense of future direction, and arranged for me to visit and talk with the people involved before the conference. I facilitated the group's discussion and, at Helen's invitation, presented these reflections to a large group of people from the area.

The Efforts

Participants in the conference are active in an interpenetrating variety of local efforts including:

The Context

Like many other desirable places to live within commuting distance of major cities, rapid growth shapes the Phoenixville - Kimberton area and threatens some of the qualities that make it a good place to move. Conference participants listed some of the changes that influence their community building efforts:

The shifts expressed in these trends set the challenge for community builders: What can we contribute that will develop the positive possibilities in this rapidly changing environment?

Most of the people involved in these community building efforts immigrated to the area -- some from Europe, others from nearer by. They believe that community building proceeds from personal and organizational commitment to a particular place. Many have chosen -- often at some risk -- to be where they are, doing what they are doing. Many speak of the place and its people choosing them. Thus they stand between people native to the area and people moving into new housing developments.

Some signs of community building

As the form of the notes suggests, I was struck by the characteristics that these diverse efforts have in common despite their independent origin and their lack of coordination mechanism. Though most people recognized one another, the conference was the first time people had gathered to talk about their community building efforts and a number of people were introduced for the first time at the conference. The facts that all these efforts arise in the same locality, that many of the people involved know one another, and that a number share a commitment to Anthroposophy probably explain my impressions of unity within efforts with many distinguishing features.

Though these words are mine, and somewhat abstract, I have tried to express the common themes I detected in people's descriptions of their daily activities in terms that will somehow ring true to them. Because these signs arise from particular efforts, this is neither an exclusive nor an exhaustive description of the signs of community building. Reflection on the work of other community builders and by other observers would surely yield other perspectives.


*Through sustained work over years, efforts that build community touch fundamental, everyday concerns


* Community builders encourage the life and development of community by working to
* Community builders transform themselves as they

Of course, none of these are signs of realized perfection. People committed to community building appear to be as fallible as any other group of people -- though they seem to be less bothered about recognizing their fallibility than many other groups. These are the signs of people working hard to make their ideals real so that they may contribute to sustaining and building the earth and the intricate, fragile webs of relationships that all life on earth depends upon.

For a list of articles and papers by John O'Brien and Connie Lyle O'Brien, please write to Rachael Zubal, Center on Human Policy, 805 South Crouse Ave., Syracuse, NY 13244-2280 or call (315) 443-3851.

This article was prepared by the Research and Training Center on Community Integration, Center on Human Policy, Division of Special Education and Rehabilitation, School of Education, Syracuse University, with support from the U.S. Departnment of Education, Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services, National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research, through Cooperative Agreement H133B00003-90. No endorsement by the U.S. Department of Education of the opinions expressed herein should be inferred.