Creating Community Anywhere: Finding Support and Connection in a Fragmented World - Softcover

Carolyn R. Shaffer; Kristin Anundsen

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0874777461 ISBN 13: 9780874777468

Publisher: Tarcher, 1993

Describes the community movement, discusses new ways of living together, and offers practical advice on improving one's own comunity

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:

The emerging affiliations that we call conscious community incorporate many social and survival aspects of functional community, but also emphasize members' needs for personal expression, growth, and transformation. Conscious community nurtures in each of its members the unfolding from within that allows them to become more fully who they are-and it nurtures its own unfolding as well.

Gently, Kathleen slips out of bed and pads into the next room, where she switches on her computer and logs onto SeniorNet, an electronic network for people fifty-five and over which spans the U.S. and Canada....These people, most of whom she has never seen or even talked to on the phone, will respond with empathy and concern when they log onto SeniorNet and see her message.

Review:

In our relentless pursuit of independence, many of us have lost our connections to something larger than ourselves. Creating Communities Anywhere looks at the current structures that connect people (or don't) and proposes ones better adapted to the framework of contemporary society. These chapters are the tools for creating community within the many spaces we occupy. An insightful how-to manual, this book is as much about communication and interpersonal dynamics as it is about community building, be it with family and friends, neighborhoods, workplaces or even electronic communities. I found myself rethinking my own definition of community and past periods of self-imposed isolation. The alternatives here describe a brighter and much broader way to experience life. -- From The WomanSource Catalog & Review: Tools for Connecting the Community for Women; review by Ilene Rosoff