Real communities

Attachment

Real_communities_Mackay_Ed24.pdf

12/9l/ym/fc/b-/9k/n/b0bsl79jx59rwtw7lr978psshbdk7tsxlb1w4wlpmfhprmt/Real_communities_Mackay_Ed24.pdf

Description

For a start, we need to create more urban and suburban spaces conducive to the kind of spontaneous social interaction that facilitates friendly neighbourhoods – places where people can eat together, walk together, sit and talk together, or play together.

We need less emphasis on private space and more on public space, bearing in mind that two-income households have less time to maintain a traditional house and garden. We need to explore the concept of co-housing, where small living units are clustered around communal dining and recreation areas. We need to place more emphasis on shared transport, and less on the isolating cocoon of the private car. A great example is the ‘walking bus’ concept for kids, organising them into supervised groups for the walk to school. We need to accelerate the trend towards establishing commercial centres on the perimeters of our large cities, so more of us can work where we live and, in turn, have more time and energy to become engaged with our local communities. We need to encourage greater participation in community activities – everything from clean-up campaigns and bushcare groups to team sports, drama classes and poetry clubs – which reassure people that ‘the village’ exists and that they can belong to it.

In fact, the more you look at the ills of contemporary society – alienation, fragmentation, isolation, depression – the more compelling the need for communal participation in the arts seems. Surely, encouraging co-operative, collaborative creativity must be one of the better ways to foster a sense of community, promote mental health and well-being, and reduce the pressures of a competitive, materialistic society. Learning to paint or write (in a class that creates its own sense of belonging), putting on plays and musicals, organising festivals, making movies, taking up photography, puppetry or tapestry, singing in choirs, dancing, playing in bands … these are all effective pathways to mental health for people whose daily lives are mostly spent in non-creative pursuits.

Author

Hugh Mackay. April 2009. Australia.