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Quotes

Industrial societies have proven themselves to be remarkably efficient destroyers of traditional communities, without, however, being able to offer viable alternatives to replace them. The automobile especially has led to the shattering of human-scale, face-to-face communities. Where people once lived within walking distance of their workplaces, their churches, and the local markets, they now tend to be dispersed and anonymous. The erosion of community has also eroded much of the basis for potential movements of opposition and change. Successful movements for change require that people know and trust each other, through working together, living in the same neighbourhood, or through voluntary association. Without the existence of natural communities, this becomes much more difficult. Indeed, those in positions of power have often consciously pursued a strategy of encouraging divisions along the lines of race, gender, language, ethnicity, and religion, precisely in order to prevent people from coming together in unions or in community groups to challenge their dominance. It is no surprise, then, that we are seeing everywhere the signs of a social breakdown which can be linked to the breakdown of community and shared values. The dominant value system can increasingly be reduced to the idea that the only thing that matters is to get as much for yourself as possible. The real estate speculators and the street criminals both live by this motto, and both contribute their share to making cities less liveable.
- Connexions Annual

Connexions Resource Centre:
Focus on Community & Urban Issues

Recent & Selected Articles

This is a small sampling of articles related to community and urban issues in the Connexions Online Library. For more articles, books, films, and other resources, check the Connexions Library Subject Index, especially under topics such as automobiles, cities, citizenship, community, diversity, housing, identity politics, multiculturalism, municipal government, neighbourhoods, race relations/racism, suburbs, transportation, and urban.

  1. Connexions Archive seeks a new home (November 18, 2009)
    The Connexions Archive, a Toronto-based library dedicated to preserving the history of grassroots movements for social change, needs a new home.
  2. Food Among the Ruins (August 1, 2009)
    Detroit, the country’s most depressed metropolis, has zero produce-carrying grocery chains. It also has open land, fertile soil, ample water, and the ingredients to reinvent itself from Motor City to urban farm.
  3. Take Back the Land (May 1, 2009)
    It is immoral for human beings to be forced to live on the streets while perfectly good structures stand vacant, sometimes just blocks away.
  4. Urban Honey (2009)
    In the winter of 2003, three Chicago beekeepers joined forces to create a bee farm on the former Sears-Roebuck property right in the heart of our city. We abut an old railroad embankment wall with both prairie remnant and concrete in equal amounts.
  5. Inclusion or exclusion (August 10, 2008)
    People who advocate a vision of distinct communities that speak different languages, keep apart from each other, and communicate with the structures of the larger society only through interpreters, are doing more harm than good. What they are advocating is not diversity but entrenched division.
  6. Mistaken Identity (July 1, 2008)
    Historically, antiracists challenged both the practice of racism and the process of racialisation; that is, both the practice of discriminating against people by virtue of their race and the insistence that an individual can be defined by the group to which he or she belongs. Today's multiculturalists argue that to fight racism one must celebrate group identity. The consequence has been the resurrection of racial ideas and the imprisonment of people within their cultural identities. Racial theorists and multiculturalists, the French philosopher Alain Finkielkraut observes, have 'conflicting credos but the same vision of the world'. Both fetishise difference. Both seek to 'confine individuals to their group of origin'. Both undermine 'any possibility of natural or cultural community among peoples'. Challenging such a politics of difference has become as important today as challenging racism.
  7. Why both sides are wrong in the race debate (July 1, 2008)
    For all the talk about culture as fluid and changing, multiculturalism, no less than old-fashioned racism, invariably leads people to think of human groups in fixed terms.
  8. Law and the wives of others (June 28, 2008)
    How does a modern, plural democratic society deal with the desire of some minority groups to observe cultural norms at odds with the law of the land?
  9. Identity is that which is given (2008)
    In this age of globalisation many people fret about Western culture taking over the world. But the greatest Western export is not Disney or McDonalds or Tom Cruise. It is the very idea of culture.
  10. Thinking Outside the Box (January 1, 2007)
    Ignoring racism on the grounds that all citizens are equal and hence that racial or cultural differences are immaterial is clearly unacceptable. But so is labelling individuals by race, culture or faith and creating conflicts by institutionalising such differences in public policy.
  11. The Capitalist City or the Self-Managed City? (July 20, 2004)
    The opposite of gentrification should not be decay and abandonment but the democratization of housing. Community land trusts may be a way of working towards this goal.
  12. Against multiculturalism (2002)
    Multiculturalism is an authoritarian, anti-human outlook. True political progress requires not recognition but action, not respect but questioning, not the invocation of the Thought Police but the forging of common bonds and collective struggles.
  13. The Real Value of Diversity (2002)
    The real failure of multiculturalism is its failure to understand what is valuable about cultural diversity. There is nothing good in itself about diversity. It is important because it allows us to compare and contrast different values, beliefs and lifestyles, make judgements upon them, and decide which are better and which worse. It is important, in other words, because it allows us to engage in political dialogue and debate that can help create more universal values and beliefs. But it is precisely such dialogue and debate, and the making of such judgements, that multiculturalism attempts to suppress in the name of 'tolerance' and 'respect'.
  14. Reclaiming the Commons (2002)
    Why we need to protect our public resources from private encroachment.
  15. Abandoning the Public Interest (October 7, 2000)
    The neo-liberal drive to cut red tape is costing lives. Exposing the hidden costs of deregulation and privatization.
  16. Privatizing the Public Realm (1998)
    Public spaces are the arenas where the collective, common life which defines us as a society is acted out, and where we come into contact with those who are like and those who are different from ourselves. They are the places where we are all equal and where we are all "home." They are the places where our freedoms of speech and assembly are protected, where we can exercise the precious right of criticizing the government. In public spaces we are reminded of the most important civics lesson: We are all in this together. When private agendas of stratification and control are imposed on those places, the very heart of democratic principle is threatened.
  17. Principles governing municipal/provincial financial relationships (March 20, 1997)
    In past decades, provincial governments have generally recognized the separate nature of local government and have not acted unilaterally in the field of financial relationships, but have attempted to reach amicable agreement.
  18. Snake Oil in a Computer: The Pseudo-science of Transportation Modeling (August 16, 1991)
    Planners, politicians, and other decision-makers want to know what effect their projects will have on the environment. In many cases they don't really want to know, but want to convince their constituents that the results will be beneficial, or at least neutral. In both cases, computer modeling is being used to "answer" the questions.
  19. Connexions Annual Overview: Community, Urban, Housing (October 1, 1989)
  20. Grassroots Cells, Devil’s Architects Defend Communities (February 2, 1973)
    Organizational principles and campaign tactics communities can use to fight projects or developments being foisted on them.

Selected Organizations, Websites and Online Resources

This is a small sampling of organizations and websites concerned with community and urban issues in the Connexions Directory. For more organizations and websites, check the Connexions Directory Subject Index, especially under topics such as automobiles, cities, citizenship, community, housing, neighbourhoods, transportation, and urban.

Other Links & Resources

Vietnam Moratorium.

Books, Films and Periodicals

This is a small sampling of books and films related to urban and community issues in the Connexions Online Library. For more books and other resources, check the Connexions Library Subject Index, especially under topics such as automobiles, cities, citizenship, community, diversity, housing, identity politics, multiculturalism, municipal government, neighbourhoods race relations/racism, suburbs, transportation, and urban.

  1. Building Bridges
    The Emerging Grassroots Coalition of Labor and Community
    Author: Brecher, Jeremy and Costello, Tim (ed.)
  2. Building Sustainable Communities
    Tools and Concepts for Self-Reliant Economic Change
    Author: Morehouse, Ward (ed.)
    The major sections of the book deal with community land trusts and other forms of community ownership of natural resources, worker-managed enterprises and other techniques of community self-management, and community currency and banking.
  3. Building Sustainable Communities:
    Tools and Concepts for Self-Reliant Economic Change
    Author: Benello, C. George; Swann, Robert; Turnbull, Shann; Morehouse, Ward (ed.)
    Presents the underlying ideas and essential institutions for building sustainable communities. The major sections of the book deal with community land trusts and other forms of community ownership of natural resources, worker-managed enterprises and other techniques of community self-management, and community currency and banking. Also included are a lexicon of social capitalism and a bibliography of key works on self-reliant economic change.
  4. The City and Radical Social Change
    Author: Roussopoulos, Dimitrios
    A collection of essays dealing with the dynamics of the new forces for social change in our urban milieu, discussing how new ideas are contributing to an urban insurgency which could lead to a new city and a new concept of citizenship.
  5. Communitas
    Means of Livelihood and Ways of Life
    Author: Goodman, Paul & Percival
    Visions of urban life.
  6. Community Dreams
    Ideas for Enriching Neighbourhood and Community Life
    Author: Berkowitz, Bill
    A compilation of vignettes, fragments and thought starters that provides stimulating ideas for practical community transformation.
  7. The Death and Life of Great American Cities
    Author: Jacobs, Jane
    Jacobs' iconoclastic and brilliant observations on why cities work, and why they don't.
  8. Dialectical Urbanism
    Social Struggles and the Capitalist City
    Author: Merrifield, Andy
    Life in the city can be both liberating and oppressive.This book explores both sides of the urban experience, developing a perspective from which the contradictory nature of the politics of the city comes more clearly into view.
  9. Down To Earth People
    Beyond Class Reductionism and Postmodernism
    Author: Secombe, Wallace; Livingstone, David W.
    Working class women and men offer their analysis of the world today and its multi-dimensional inequalities.
  10. The Economy of Cities
    Author: Jacobs, Jane
  11. Green Cities
    Ecologically Sound Approaches to Urban Space
    Author: Gordon, David (ed.)
    Visions from around the world for an ecological urban model. Argues that putting wilderness in cities is good for conservation of wildlife.
  12. GreenTOpia
    Towards A Sustainable Toronto, uTOpia Volume Three
    Author: Wilcox, Alana; Palassio, Christina; Dovercourt, Jonny
    The third volume of the uTOpia series features a collection of essays that look at innovative and imaginative ways to promote sustainability in Toronto. Also included is a directory of resources, organizations, incentives and programs in and around the GTA.
  13. The Hidden Injuries of Class
    Author: Sennett, Richard; Cobb, Jonathon
    Sennett and Cobb look at human relations between people of different classes and analyze everyday life and ordinary situations to identify class signals that make people feel inadequate.
  14. The Householder's Guide to Community Defence Against Bureaucratic Aggression - Review
    A report on Britain's Government Machine
    Author: Diemer, Ulli
    Organizational tactics communities can use to fight projects or developments being foisted on them.
  15. Houses And Homes
    Housing for Canadians
    Author: Sewell, John
    Canadians need access to sound housing in decent neighborhoods, writes author Sewell. And in order to achieve this, all ideoligical freight is to be jettisoned and deliver nothing but the straight goods. One solution is to build diverse neighborhoods and abolish the many building and planning codes that suppress the creation of affordable housing.
  16. Land and Community
    Crisis in Canada's Countryside
    Author: Sim, R. Alex
    Sim's thesis is that rural society is overlooked due to urban dependence upon "great associations," economies of scale, and other socio-cultural institutions of unmanageable size.
  17. Liberal Dreams and Nature's Limits
    Great Cities of North America Since 1600
    Author: Lemon, James T.
    An exploration of city life through time, focusing on the life [economically, socially, politically, etc.] of five large North American cities at various times in the past - Philadelphia during the time of Benjamin Franklin (1760), New York in the mid nineteenth-century (1860), Chicago at the beginning of the Progressivist Civic Movements (1910), Los Angeles during the immediate Post-war boom (1950) and Toronto at the beginning of its own ascendancy in the 1970's. (1975).
  18. Local Places In the Age of the Global City
    Author: Keil, Roger, Wekerle, Gerda R., Bell, David V.J.
  19. Reclaiming Our Cities & Towns
    Better Living with Less Traffic
    Author: Engwicht, David
    Cars destroy the environment; people should embrace alternative modes of transportation like bycycling and walking to make urban areas safer and enviromentally sound.
  20. Society of the Spectacle
    Author: Debord, Guy
    An analysis of modern society and how it can be changed written in the form of 221 theses. The first thesis reads: "In societies dominated by modern conditions of production, life is presented as an immense accumulation of spectacles. Everything that was directly lived has receded into a representation." Translator Ken Knabb describes the book as "an effort to clarify the nature of the society in which we find ourselves and the advantages and drawbacks of various methods for changing it. Every single thesis has a direct or indirect bearing on issues that are matters of life and death."
  21. Squatter Town: The South's urban explosion
    New Internationalist January/February 2006
    A look at squatter communities and the social injustices they face.
  22. Toward Sustainable Communities
    Resources for Citizens and their Governments
    Author: Roseland, Mark


Learning from our History

Coming soon





Resources for Activists

The Connexions Calendar - An event calendar for activists.

Media Names & Numbers - A comprehensive directory of Canada's print and broadcast media. (CX5857).

Sources - A directory that enables journalists to find spokespersons of organizations. Organizations that list themselves in Sources greatly increase their odds of getting called by reporters when they are doing a story of their issues..