Objective: To discuss a utopian 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 more 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. For most households, which own an automobile, such a lifestyle offers them a great many choices. They can live in the city, inner suburbs or far out and commute to work by car. Moreover, they can easily travel to shopping or social groups such as church or athletic clubs. Economic opportunity whether access to jobs or to alternative sellers of goods is dependent on having a high speed urban freeway system to allow members of household to forage over 100 square miles for jobs and consumer purchases.
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. 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 feetÕÕ 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.
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
Community could have market oriented land use or the community could have implement 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 started 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.
Some community sites are: