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Community: The Structure of Belonging Paperback – July 17, 2018
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With the increasing violence in our culture, the widening ideological divides, and the growing gap in economic well-being, a deeper sense of community is desperately needed. But even as we acknowledge the need to build community, the typical ways we engage people, civically and organizationally, remain essentially unchanged. In Community, Peter Block explores how authentic community can emerge from fragmentation and offers practical steps and strategies we can use to foster this transformation.
This updated and revised edition draws on a decade of putting Block’s ideas into practice. New examples show that community building can be a more powerful way to address social problems than more traditional policies and programs. And encouragingly, Block demonstrates how simple positive transformation can be, once we decide it is essential.
- Print length256 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherBerrett-Koehler Publishers
- Publication dateJuly 17, 2018
- Dimensions5.5 x 0.64 x 8.56 inches
- ISBN-101523095563
- ISBN-13978-1523095568
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Books by Peter Block | A powerful, inspiring, and achievable vision of a society based on cooperation and community instead of competition and commodification. | This book shows how to reweave our social fabric, especially in our neighborhoods to create a future that works for all. | One of the most provocative and revolutionary books written on leadership, business, and organizational design, Stewardship remains as relevant, even twenty years later, to transforming our organizations for the common good of the wider community. | Peter Block puts the “how-to” craze in perspective and presents a guide to the difficult and life-granting journey of bringing what we know is of personal value into an indifferent or even hostile corporate and cultural landscape. | We have become consumers and clients, not citizens and neighbors. John McKnight and Peter Block show that we have the capacity to find real and sustainable satisfaction right in our neighborhood and community. |
Editorial Reviews
Review
—David Mathews, President, Kettering Foundation
“This book is the basis for health and happiness in any society. A must-read.”
—Quentin Young, Chairman, Health and Medicine Policy Research Group, and former President, American Public Health Association
“‘What we need is here.’ That line from a Wendell Berry poem sums up the theme that runs through this vital and timely book. This book is a treasure. And it can help us recover the treasures hidden in plain sight within and among us, renewing ourselves and our democracy as we go.”
—Parker J. Palmer, founder of the Center for Courage and Renewal and author of A Hidden Wholeness, Let Your Life Speak, and The Courage to Teach
“Don’t wait for a politician, scientist, infomercial, or lottery ticket to come to the rescue. Read this powerful book and help yourself, your neighbors, and your planet to satisfying and sustainable solutions found only in community.”
—Jim Diers, former Director, Seattle Department of Neighborhoods, and author of Neighbor Power
About the Author
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
The essential challenge is to transform the isolation and self-interest within our communities into connectedness and caring for the whole. The key is to identify how this transformation occurs. We begin by shifting our attention from the problems of community to the possibility of community. We also need to acknowledge that our wisdom about individual transformation is not enough when it comes to community transformation. So, one purpose here is to bring together our knowledge about the nature of collective transformation. A key insight in this pursuit is to accept the importance of social capital to the life of the community. This begins the effort to create a future distinct from the past.
• • •
The need to create a structure of belonging grows out of the isolated nature of our lives, our institutions, and our communities. The absence of belonging is so widespread that we might say we are living in an age of isolation, imitating the lament from early in the last century, when life was referred to as the age of anxiety. Ironically, we talk today of how small our world has become, with the shrinking effect of globalization, instant sharing of information, quick technology, workplaces that operate around the globe. Yet these do not necessarily create a sense of belonging. They provide connection, diverse information, an infinite range of opinion. But all this does not create the connection from which we can become grounded and experience the sense of safety that arises from a place where we are emotionally, spiritually, and psychologically a member.
Our isolation occurs because western culture, our individualistic narrative, the inward attention of our institutions and our professions, and the messages from our media all fragment us. We are broken into pieces.
One aspect of our fragmentation is the gaps between sectors of our cities and neighborhoods; businesses, schools, social service organizations, churches, government operate mostly in their own worlds. Each piece is working hard on its own purpose, but parallel effort added together does not make a community. Our communities are separated into silos; they are a collection of institutions and programs operating near one another but not overlapping or touching. This is important to understand because it is this dividedness that makes it so difficult to create a more positive or alternative future—especially in a culture that is much more interested in individuality and independence than in interdependence. The work is to overcome this fragmentation.
To create the sense that we are safe and among friends, especially those we have not yet met, is a particular challenge for our cities and rural towns. The dominant narrative about our cities is that they are unsafe and troubled. Those we label “homeless,” or “ex-offenders,” or “disabled,” or “at risk” are the most visible people who struggle with belonging, but isolation and apartness is also a wider condition of modern life. This is as true in our gated communities and suburbs as in our urban centers.
There is a particular isolation in the spaciousness and comfort of our suburbs. In these neighborhoods we needed to invent the “play date” for our children. Interaction among kids must be scheduled, much like a business meeting. On Tuesday, a mom must call another mom and ask, “Can Alex play with Phil on Thursday, at our house, say about 4? I will call if we are running late. The play date should last until roughly 5:45, to give both children time to freshen up for the family get-together at dinner.” A far cry from the day of kids walking home after school and casually seeing who they ran into.
The cost of our detachment and disconnection is not only our isolation, our loneliness, but also the fact that there are too many people in our communities whose gifts remain on the margin. Filling the need for belonging is not just a personal struggle for connection, but also a community problem, which is our primary concern in this book. The effects of the fragmentation of our communities show up in low voter turnout, the struggle to sustain volunteerism, and the large portion of the population who remain disengaged. The struggle is also the reality for the millions of people around the world who are part of today’s diaspora—the growing number of displaced people unable to return to their homeland, living and raising their children in a permanent state of transition.
Communities That Work for All
Community offers the promise of belonging and calls for us to acknowledge our interdependence. To belong is to act as an investor, owner, and creator of this place. To be welcome, even if we are strangers. As if we came to the right place and are affirmed for that choice.
To feel a sense of belonging is important because it will lead us from conversations about safety and comfort to other conversations, such as our relatedness and willingness to provide hospitality and generosity. Hospitality is the welcoming of strangers, and generosity is an offer with no expectation of return. These are two elements that we want to nurture as we work to create, strengthen, and restore our communities. This will not occur in a culture dominated by isolation, and its correlate, fear.
• • •
It is not my intent here to journalistically describe what healthy communities look like and where they exist. This is well documented. We have the success stories from Savannah, Boston, Chicago, Portland—all those places where community well-being has been on the rise over time. We have the pockets of authentic community in showcase organizational cultures such as Harley-Davidson and AES.
There is no need for more benchmarking of where the world is working. The reason is partly that we have already heard all the stories, and partly—and more important—that narratives of success give us hope and places to visit, but do not build our community. Social fabric and successful communities elsewhere cannot be imported. What works somewhere else ends up as simply another program here, which might be useful but does not shift the fundamentals that we are after.
What is needed is an exploration of the exact way authentic community occurs. How is it transformed? What fundamental shifts are involved? Too little is understood about the creation and transformation of a collective. I want to explore a way of thinking that creates an opening for authentic communities to exist and details what each of us can do to make that happen. The essence is to take a step forward in our thinking and design about the ways that people in communities come together to produce something new for themselves. By thinking in terms of a structure of belonging, we begin to build the capacity to transform our communities into ones that work for all.
The challenge is to think broadly enough to have a theory and methodology that have the power to make a difference, and yet be simple and clear enough to be accessible to anyone who wants to make that difference. We need ideas from a variety of places and disciplines to deal with the complexity of community. Then, acting as if these ideas are true, we must translate them into embarrassingly simple and concrete acts.
This means a shift in thinking that gives us clues about collective possibility. The shift in thinking is the focus of Chapters 1 through 7. Following that, we come to methodology, which many of you may consider the heart of the book. But without the shift in thinking, methodology becomes technique and practice becomes imitation.
• • •
One key perspective is that to create a more positive and connected future for our communities, we must be willing to trade their problems for their possibilities. This trade is what is necessary to create a future for our cities and neighborhoods, organizations and institutions—a future that is distinct from the past. Which is the point.
To create an alternative future, we need to advance our understanding of the nature of communal or collective transformation. We know a good deal about individual transformation, but our understanding about the transformation of human systems, such as our workplaces, neighborhoods, and towns, is primitive at best, and too often naive in the belief that if enough individuals awaken, and become intentional and compassionate beings, the shift in community will follow.
A Future Distinct from the Past
The core question, then, is this: What is the means through which those of us who care about the whole community can create a future for ourselves that is not just an improvement, but one of a different nature from what we now have?
The kind of future we are primarily interested in is the way in which communities—whether in the workplace or neighborhood, rural town or urban center—create a wider sense of belonging among their citizens.
This is why we are not focused on individual transformation in this book. Individual transformation is the more popular conversation, and the choice not to focus on it is because we have already learned that the transformation of large numbers of individuals does not result in the transformation of communities. If we continue to invest in individuals as the primary target of change, we will spend our primary energy on this and never fully invest in communities. In this way, individual transformation comes at the cost of community.
• • •
The fact that a sense of community has practical importance is probably best established in the work of Robert Putnam in his book Bowling Alone. He found that community health, educational achievement, local economic strength, and other measures of community well-being were dependent on the level of social capital that exists in a community.
Geography, history, great leadership, fine programs, economic advantage, or any other factors that we traditionally use to explain success made a marginal difference in the health of a community. A community’s well-being simply had to do with the quality of the relationships, the cohesion that exists among its citizens. He calls this social capital.
Social capital is about acting on and valuing our interdependence and sense of belonging. It is the extent to which we extend hospitality and affection to one another. If Putnam is right, to improve the common measures of community health—economy, education, health, safety, the environ-ment—we need to create a community where each citizen has the experience of being connected to those around them and knows that their safety and success are dependent on the success of all others.
This is an important insight for our cities. If you look beneath the surface of even our finest cities and neighborhoods, there is too much suffering. It took the broken levees of Hurricane Katrina to expose to the world the poverty and fragile lives in New Orleans.
A Brief Statement of the Need
I live in Cincinnati, Ohio, which like most of our urban centers can be seen as New Orleans without the flood. While it has abundant assets and irreplaceable qualities, it also has challenges that are impossible to ignore, try as we might. Wherever we live, we are never more than a short ride from neighborhoods that are wounded with disinvested buildings and populated by those who live on the margin. To not see the struggle of those on the margin, to think this is the best of all possible worlds or that we are doing fine, especially if our particular street or neighborhood is safe and prosperous, is to live with blinders on.
We choose to live with blinders for good reason. There is great attraction to the suburban, upscale rural life or to residing in “hot” places. We are constantly reminded of the allure of gated communities, quaint and prosperous small towns, nationally acclaimed golden cities. The streets we most frequently hear about in these areas are clean and busy with pedestrians, their housing a string of jewels, center city vital and alive, and neighborhoods the source of great pride.
These prosperous places, though, are only the partial story. Take it from Jim Keene, a very wise and successful public servant. He has brought his humanity and vision into the cauldron of building community as city manager for Berkeley and Tucson, and now works for an association to build the capacity of other city managers. Jim once said that for every city that prospers, there is another city nearby that is paying the price for that prosperity.
We know we have a shrinking middle class, a growing separation between the well off and the underclass. You cannot look closely at even the great cities in the world without seeing serious underemployment, poverty, homelessness, neighborhoods with empty buildings, deteriorating environment, youth hanging out on street corners day and night, and concerns about public safety.
We know about the dropout rates and deplorable conditions of our urban schools and the difficulty of achieving affordable health care for all. The list goes on. But this is not the point. The question here is not about the nature of the struggles; it is about the nature of the cure.
So the focus in this book is about community transformation; it is about both those communities and places that are paying the price and their more prosperous neighbors. For even in prosperous places, the idea and experience of community are elusive. If you look closely, you realize that the social fabric of our culture is more fragile than we imagine.
Product details
- Publisher : Berrett-Koehler Publishers; Updated edition (July 17, 2018)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 256 pages
- ISBN-10 : 1523095563
- ISBN-13 : 978-1523095568
- Item Weight : 10.4 ounces
- Dimensions : 5.5 x 0.64 x 8.56 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #99,987 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #50 in Customs & Traditions Social Sciences
- #714 in Business Processes & Infrastructure
- #736 in Sociology Reference
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
Peter Block is a citizen of Cincinnati, Ohio. He is a partner in Designed Learning, a training company that offers workshops designed by Block to build the skills outlined in his books. He is the author of Flawless Consulting, Stewardship, The Empowered Manager, and The Answer to How Is Yes. He is the recipient of the American Society for Training and Development Award for Distinguished Contribution to Workplace Learning and Performance and the Association for Quality and Participation President's Award. He is also a member of Training magazine's HRD Hall of Fame.
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Learn more how customers reviews work on AmazonCustomers say
Customers find the book has good content and is worth reading. They find it useful for community building, empowering individuals and creating inclusion and empowerment amongst people. The book starts off engaging and interactive, with practical applications that help members meet their goals and fulfill their purpose. Overall, customers describe it as an excellent resource about the value and support of community.
AI-generated from the text of customer reviews
Customers find the book's content good and worth reading. They say it provides practical advice and is a decent resource in an area lacking in content. The book is described as an easy read with good advice and a must-read for anyone working on change.
"...say without exaggeration that this has been one of the most influential books I have read and I get excited with the new insights I gain each time I..." Read more
"...This is a great read to combat that, bring about transformation to communities and spiritual, emotional, and physical care to individuals." Read more
"...better job “putting the cookies on the bottom shelf”, but it is well worth the read...." Read more
"...I had to push through to make it to the end. All in all the content was good but it dragged." Read more
Customers appreciate the book's focus on community building. They find it insightful and useful for personal growth and leadership development. The book provides a thorough overview of the concept and its impact on communities. It helps readers understand the value and support of engaged and active members that can enrich their lives.
"...regarding power, gifts, inclusion, belonging, and leadership from an individual perspective into what the application of that would look like when..." Read more
"...This is a great read to combat that, bring about transformation to communities and spiritual, emotional, and physical care to individuals." Read more
"...true of organizations that rely on engaged and active members to meet their goals, fulfill their purpose and grow their membership...." Read more
"This is a wonderful book. It is a very thourough handling of community (simply, people being together and interacting in a meaningful way), and not..." Read more
Customers find the book engaging and lively. They mention it starts off well, but loses its energy midway through. However, they find it an actionable and impactful short read.
"...Mainly because, it's an actionable book - so each time I come back, I've grown in my leadership and in shaping my community through the..." Read more
"...(simply, people being together and interacting in a meaningful way)..." Read more
"It started off really engaging but half way through it seemed like it lost its energy then kind of picked up again towards the end...." Read more
"The whole concept of community is a very living and lively social entity...." Read more
Customers find the book provides practical insights that help members meet their goals and fulfill their purpose.
"...that rely on engaged and active members to meet their goals, fulfill their purpose and grow their membership...." Read more
"I bought this for my course. Impactful easy read with practical, no big-ego concepts. Definitely a book that I will refer to a lot." Read more
"As usual, Peter Block provides exceptional insights and practical applications." Read more
Customers find the book an excellent value for money. It discusses the value and support of community.
"...This was a great value." Read more
"Overall, this book brings some value, especially in taking a look at community-building from a more values-oriented perspective that we usually see,..." Read more
"...Just an excellent book about the value and support of community...." Read more
Top reviews from the United States
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- Reviewed in the United States on September 21, 2020This book has become a staple in my life and in my work as a coach and community leader. What I love most about this book is that it translates and transcends personal transformation and gets into how to transform a community of people.
This is a book about powerfully creating ownership amongst a group of people. I keep revisiting the book because it a) translates the views I have accumulated regarding power, gifts, inclusion, belonging, and leadership from an individual perspective into what the application of that would look like when leading our communities.
Heads up: the book can be dense at times. I listed on audio and had to relisten to sections - not because of poor quality, but because I really wanted to capture and absorb what was said. As I'm writing this, I'm actually realizing that it isn't dense, it's full of radically different perspectives that cause my to pause to truly digest.
I revisit the practical approaches often to create spaces of transformation and change. Most communities, gatherings, and leaders in my world start from a different fundamental vision of who to affect change together - this book helps ground me in what creates true inclusion and empowerment amongst individuals.
I have gifted this this book over 10 times, and I'll continue to do so for any client and leader who willing to approach things differently to create a future distinct from the past.
I can honestly say without exaggeration that this has been one of the most influential books I have read and I get excited with the new insights I gain each time I read it. Mainly because, it's an actionable book - so each time I come back, I've grown in my leadership and in shaping my community through the conversations and approaches suggested here.
Buy it, Read it, share it, and then Read it again. It's worth it.
- Reviewed in the United States on July 19, 2022In the world today people speak of work, social media, gym, sporting, communities. All the while not realizing that they are missing the essence of community and are falling further into isolationism. This is a great read to combat that, bring about transformation to communities and spiritual, emotional, and physical care to individuals.
- Reviewed in the United States on February 8, 2018Community: the structure of belonging is a great resource for organizations interested in building community. A sense of community is the core of a strong organization. In a day and age where overload is the norm, time and commitment is rare and valuable. Individuals will not give of their time and commitment easily. The sense of belonging is key to engaging organizational members. This is particularly true of organizations that rely on engaged and active members to meet their goals, fulfill their purpose and grow their membership. This book is an essential resource for organizational survival and thriving. The book I ordered was a hard bound edition that was advertised as good. I just fact this edition was in near new condition. That is great because I plan on using this book as road map in building our organization. The hard bound edition will last longer and take more use/abuse. The price for this used edition was lower than a new paper bound version. This was a great value.
- Reviewed in the United States on March 6, 2019This is a wonderful book. It is a very thourough handling of community (simply, people being together and interacting in a meaningful way), and not only the need for it in society, but also how to get it and strengthen it. It can be a little technical at times- he could do a better job “putting the cookies on the bottom shelf”, but it is well worth the read. He also discusses a rich selection of resources that influenced him, for anyone who wants to go deeper. I may yet do that.
I would particularly recommend this book for pastors. I strongly feel every pastor should read this. Church should be a community, not an event, and to put it bluntly, the wonderful picture this author paints of what community should look like is only possible in the Church, and the Church has a responsibility to live into that.
- Reviewed in the United States on March 23, 2024It started off really engaging but half way through it seemed like it lost its energy then kind of picked up again towards the end. I had to push through to make it to the end. All in all the content was good but it dragged.
- Reviewed in the United States on January 5, 2020I got this book as a required text for a community leadership class I took last term. It's a truly remarkable book, updated to be even more relevant with recent political developments and the resulting impact on communities and the nature of belonging. My copy, purchased new, is now dog-eared, underlined, and highlighted. I reread and refer to it often, even though the class is over. Highly recommend.
- Reviewed in the United States on September 12, 2022This book outlines a fantastic and practical way to work with groups of people.
- Reviewed in the United States on May 29, 2019I'm a pastor who has been realizing that a big part of my role is fostering spaces where community can form. This book has framed that task for me. It has refreshed my understanding of the pastor's role in the community in a time when more and more people are disengaged with religion and the church. I appreciate the freedom and tools it has given me. I recommend it to anyone who is engaged in local government, education, health care, community/non-profit work, or the church.
Top reviews from other countries
- RHReviewed in Canada on September 21, 2023
5.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic Read
Amazingly insightful and so hard to put down! The delivery was fast! Highly recommend this book.
- Kristina VaznonyteReviewed in Germany on July 8, 2024
5.0 out of 5 stars I just love the author
Peter Block as always - insightful and different.
- TaddeiReviewed in Canada on August 15, 2019
5.0 out of 5 stars Good read.
Listened to audiobook first. But wanted to review key concepts and summary of research. Some underlying values are Christian based and are not well substantiated, however it offers a good synthesis of existing research and a valuable lens for collaboratuve change.
- Bob ClarkReviewed in Canada on June 21, 2019
4.0 out of 5 stars This book is applicable to many situations
This was a very well presented argument for building community in all sorts of situations.