''Communitas: Means of Livelihood and Ways of Life'' is a 1947 book on community and
city planning
Urban planning (also called city planning in some contexts) is the process of developing and designing land use and the built environment, including air, water, and the infrastructure passing into and out of urban areas, such as transportatio ...
by
Percival
Perceval (, also written Percival, Parzival, Parsifal), alternatively called Peredur (), is a figure in the legend of King Arthur, often appearing as one of the Knights of the Round Table. First mentioned by the French author Chrétien de Tr ...
and
Paul Goodman
Paul Goodman (September 9, 1911 – August 2, 1972) was an American writer and public intellectual best known for his 1960s works of social criticism. Goodman was prolific across numerous literary genres and non-fiction topics, including the ...
. Presented as an illustrated primer on how city planning affects socioeconomic order and citizens' empowerment to better their communities, the book reviews historical and modern approaches to urban planning before proposing three of the Goodmans' own provocative community paradigms.
The brothers worked on ''Communitas'' through the early 1940s based on an unsuccessful
1939 World's Fair proposal. The
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, or UChi) is a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Its main campus is in the Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, Chic ...
-published book was not well known until it was revised and re-released alongside Paul Goodman's ''
Growing Up Absurd'' in a 1960 edition by
Vintage Books
Vintage Books is a trade paperback publishing imprint of Penguin Random House originally established by Alfred A. Knopf in 1954. The company was acquired by Random House in April 1960, and a British division was set up in 1990. After Random Ho ...
. ''Communitas'' became known as a major work of urban planning and influenced historical, anthropological, and educational activists.
Contents
''Communitas: Means of Livelihood and Ways of Life'' argues for "human scale"
urban planning
Urban planning (also called city planning in some contexts) is the process of developing and designing land use and the built environment, including air, water, and the infrastructure passing into and out of urban areas, such as transportatio ...
, in which buildings, cities, economics, and society are made to suit immediate community needs. It is presented as an illustrated primer on how city planning effects socioeconomic order and citizen empowerment to better their communities. The book's first half addresses historical and modern approaches to urban planning, while the second half introduces the authors' own urban proposals.
The authors begin by evaluating three existing approaches to modern urbanism, each in brief: self-contained
garden cities, production-focused industrialized plans, and rural–urban integrated plans. Their introduction to garden cities covers the works of
Patrick Geddes
Sir Patrick Geddes (2 October 1854 – 17 April 1932) was a Scottish biologist, sociologist, Comtean positivist, geographer, philanthropist and pioneering town planner. He is known for his innovative thinking in the fields of urban plannin ...
,
Ebenezer Howard, and
Raymond Unwin
Sir Raymond Unwin (2 November 1863 – 29 June 1940) was a prominent and influential English engineer, architect and town planner, with an emphasis on improvements in working class housing.
Early years
Raymond Unwin was born in Rotherham, Yor ...
. Their survey of urban production includes the
American mill town, Chinese and Soviet industrial plans, and
Buckminster Fuller
Richard Buckminster Fuller (; July 12, 1895 – July 1, 1983) was an American architect, systems theorist, writer, designer, inventor, philosopher, and futurist. He styled his name as R. Buckminster Fuller in his writings, publishing more t ...
's utopian project. While lukewarm on industrial projects of both American private capitalist and Soviet state capitalist societies, they criticize Fuller's focus on technology. Lastly, the authors overview humane combinations of rural and urban life (i.e., integrated plans) such as
Borsodian homesteads,
kibbutzim
A kibbutz ( / , ; : kibbutzim / ) is an intentional community in Israel that was traditionally based on agriculture. The first kibbutz, established in 1910, was Degania. Today, farming has been partly supplanted by other economic branches, i ...
,
progressive schools, the
Tennessee Valley Authority
The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) is a federally owned electric utility corporation in the United States. TVA's service area covers all of Tennessee, portions of Alabama, Mississippi, and Kentucky, and small areas of Georgia, North Carolin ...
, and works of
Frank Lloyd Wright
Frank Lloyd Wright Sr. (June 8, 1867 – April 9, 1959) was an American architect, designer, writer, and educator. He designed List of Frank Lloyd Wright works, more than 1,000 structures over a creative period of 70 years. Wright played a key ...
. They also write on the integration of work and life, agriculture and manufacturing, and communal and regional development. While the authors lament a perceived loss of collective American spirit, they compare communal experiments to the artistic vanguards in that many are unsuccessful but influential in pollinating subsequent efforts. The Goodmans advocate for
city square
A town square (or public square, urban square, city square or simply square), also called a plaza or piazza, is an open public space commonly found in the heart of a traditional town or city, and which is used for community gatherings. Rel ...
s designed to support rich human interactions. They criticize American obsession with large, industrial buildings and, in the
International Style
The International Style is a major architectural style and movement that began in western Europe in the 1920s and dominated modern architecture until the 1970s. It is defined by strict adherence to Functionalism (architecture), functional and Fo ...
of
Le Corbusier
Charles-Édouard Jeanneret (6 October 188727 August 1965), known as Le Corbusier ( , ; ), was a Swiss-French architectural designer, painter, urban planner and writer, who was one of the pioneers of what is now regarded as modern architecture ...
, a lack of humane aesthetic.
The second half of ''Communitas'' presents three of the Goodmans' own community paradigms. Each represents a specific set of socioeconomic values expressed through its community's design. None are meant to be complete, mutually exclusive plans, but rather experimental alternatives upon which a community could deliberate. The Goodmans follow a planning philosophy they call "neofunctionalism". Whereas
functionalism provides the appropriate architecture to achieve a specific purpose, the Goodmans' neofunctionalism critically assesses what way of life the plan supports; for example, the extent to which the plan's resulting standard of living contributes to its inhabitants' life satisfaction. Their three plans suggest potential for societal reorganization rather than just amelioration of social conditions.
"The City of Efficient Consumption", their first program, imagines the city as a
department store
A department store is a retail establishment offering a wide range of consumer goods in different areas of the store under one roof, each area ("department") specializing in a product category. In modern major cities, the department store mad ...
as a satire for the contemporary American
consumer society
Consumerism is a socio-cultural and economic phenomenon that is typical of industrialized societies. It is characterized by the continuous acquisition of goods and services in ever-increasing quantities. In contemporary consumer society, the ...
. Made to minimize barriers to buying and selling, the program's society and politics are made to mimic the frenetic culture of
advertising
Advertising is the practice and techniques employed to bring attention to a Product (business), product or Service (economics), service. Advertising aims to present a product or service in terms of utility, advantages, and qualities of int ...
. The compulsive consumption program ends with a ritual potlatch festival to clear out old goods and begin another consumption cycle.
The second program, "The New Commune", is an integrated community with
libertarian (anarchist) values of liberating work, industrial democracy, and aesthetics. In these self-sufficient integrated communities, expert workers
collectively drive industry and redesign both work and domestic life with psychological, moral, and technical considerations. The communities co-exist in a decentralized federalism.
“The Standard of Minimum Subsistence”, the third program, is a
dual economy in which a
subsistence economy
A subsistence economy is an economy directed to basic subsistence (the provision of food, clothing and shelter) rather than to the market.
Definition
"Subsistence" is understood as supporting oneself and family at a minimum level. Basic subsiste ...
provides for a minimum standard of
basic needs
The basic needs approach is one of the major approaches to the measurement of absolute poverty in developing countries globally. It works to define the absolute minimum resources necessary for long-term physical well-being, usually in terms of Co ...
(food, housing, services, worthwhile work) for all, within a larger, affluent,
market economy
A market economy is an economic system in which the decisions regarding investment, production, and distribution to the consumers are guided by the price signals created by the forces of supply and demand. The major characteristic of a mark ...
in which private enterprise provides luxuries and productive/consumptive activity. Figuring that these basic needs could be freely provided for the nation with only a fraction of its total economic output, the Goodmans propose a tithe in which citizens each serve the subsistence economy for seven years in exchange for lifelong subsistence and economic freedom.
They also briefly mention a fourth approach to the surplus economy: endless war production—the likely scenario in which the economy continues to expand for its own sake. Appendices include four shorter works by the authors on New York urban planning, including a republication of “Master Plan for New York” (first published in ''
The New Republic
''The New Republic'' (often abbreviated as ''TNR'') is an American magazine focused on domestic politics, news, culture, and the arts from a left-wing perspective. It publishes ten print magazines a year and a daily online platform. ''The New Y ...
'') and a plan for a blighted New York area (from ''
Architectural Forum
''Architectural Forum'' was an American magazine that covered the homebuilding industry and architecture. Started in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1892 as ''The Brickbuilder'', it absorbed the magazine ''Architect's World'' in October 1938. Ownershi ...
'').
Publication
The brothers
Percival
Perceval (, also written Percival, Parzival, Parsifal), alternatively called Peredur (), is a figure in the legend of King Arthur, often appearing as one of the Knights of the Round Table. First mentioned by the French author Chrétien de Tr ...
(Percy) and
Paul Goodman
Paul Goodman (September 9, 1911 – August 2, 1972) was an American writer and public intellectual best known for his 1960s works of social criticism. Goodman was prolific across numerous literary genres and non-fiction topics, including the ...
, an architect and a humanist, respectively, co-authored ''Communitas''. The idea developed from Percy's exhibition concept for a "city of tomorrow", which he had unsuccessfully proposed for
Otis Elevator at the
1939 World's Fair. As was customary for Paul's collaboration style, he rewrote the concept as a satirical pastiche of
consumerism
Consumerism is a socio-cultural and economic phenomenon that is typical of industrialized societies. It is characterized by the continuous acquisition of goods and services in ever-increasing quantities. In contemporary consumer society, the ...
. Secure in his own career and proud of his brother's analytic imagination, Percy did not take offense and the pair worked together without rivalry. Paul wrote the book in his theoretical style, suggestive and practical in tone rather than definitive or normative. Percy provided the book's illustrations.
''Communitas'' was first written in the early 1940s, and edited in 1946 for publication the next year. The
University of Chicago Press
The University of Chicago Press is the university press of the University of Chicago, a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois. It is the largest and one of the oldest university presses in the United States. It pu ...
published 2,000 cloth cover copies on April 21, 1947.
Vintage Books
Vintage Books is a trade paperback publishing imprint of Penguin Random House originally established by Alfred A. Knopf in 1954. The company was acquired by Random House in April 1960, and a British division was set up in 1990. After Random Ho ...
(a
Random House
Random House is an imprint and publishing group of Penguin Random House. Founded in 1927 by businessmen Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer as an imprint of Modern Library, it quickly overtook Modern Library as the parent imprint. Over the foll ...
imprint) released a revised second edition in August 1960 alongside Paul Goodman's landmark ''
Growing Up Absurd''. The revised ''Communitas'' rearranges the book's contents and tightens some passages, including the conclusion. The Goodmans added some examples (such as a Chinese commune and
Black Mountain College
Black Mountain College was a Private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Black Mountain, North Carolina. It was founded in 1933 by John Andrew Rice, Theodore Dreier, and several others. The coll ...
) and updated others (e.g., highway materials). Though the revised edition puts more emphasis on the role of "affluence", the book remained mostly the same. Altogether, Vintage printed 117,000 paperback copies between 1960 and 1974. ''Communitas'' received translations into Spanish (1964), Japanese (late 1960s), and Italian (1970).
Reception
For a book that would become well-known, ''Communitas'' generally did not generate much published commentary. Among the main critiques was sociologist
David Riesman
David Riesman (September 22, 1909 – May 10, 2002) was an American sociologist, educator, and best-selling commentator on American society.
Career
Born to a wealthy German Jewish family, Riesman attended Harvard College, where he graduated in ...
, who later wrote ''
The Lonely Crowd''. The sociologist notes issues with the Goodmans' sparse treatment of history and comments on the book's intellectual forebears, with a particular focus on its dependence on scholar of cities
Lewis Mumford
Lewis Mumford (October 19, 1895 – January 26, 1990) was an American historian, sociologist, philosopher of technology, and literary critic. Particularly noted for his study of cities and urban architecture, he had a broad career as a ...
and perceived unfairness towards
garden city movement
The garden city movement was a 20th century urban planning movement promoting satellite communities surrounding the central city and separated with Green belt, greenbelts. These Garden Cities would contain proportionate areas of residences, i ...
founder
Ebenezer Howard.
''Communitas'' was markedly unlike most other books on physical city planning. Reviewers described its style and unorthodox proposals as brave, daring, startling, and provocative. Mumford described the brothers as bringing a "fresh method ... which has as yet few exponents", existing in its own class as a wholly original approach to city planning between its wit, provocations, and emphasis on the moral underpinnings for planning. Throughout ''Communitas'', historians
Theodore Roszak and
Talbot Hamlin saw the spirit of artistry, from the wit and bite of the authors' words to its interwoven illustrations, as city planning from the perspective of a novelist. From page to page, housing expert
Charles Abrams found himself manically oscillating between agreement and disgust. The oblong book itself is also unordinary in presentation. Reviewers variously found Percival's illustrations to be an attractive supplement, part blueprint, comic strip, and William Blake, while another considered the illustrations bizarrely unrelated to their subject matter. "Frankly", wrote ''
The Nation
''The Nation'' is a progressive American monthly magazine that covers political and cultural news, opinion, and analysis. It was founded on July 6, 1865, as a successor to William Lloyd Garrison's '' The Liberator'', an abolitionist newspaper ...
'', "the book is a circus."
Others commented on the book's unclear language and jargon. Whereas ''Communitas'' sought to integrate social and planning perspectives, housing expert Charles Abrams and the American Society of Planning Officials newsletter instead saw the Goodmans as haphazardly mixing their disciplines. Reviewers mentioned jargon-laden, rambling, unclear writing with heavy, "closed-packed" sentences. Though writer and intellectual
Dwight Macdonald admired ''Communitas'', he criticized Goodman's prose for being “fuzzy” in a manner unlike the author's thoughts. To Abrams, the authors wrote with high disdain for their readers.
Throughout ''Communitas'', the authors, as New Yorkers, are dismissive of cultures unlike the megacity's, potentially conflating historical precedent with the natural effects of environmental design.
Legacy
Following the resurgence of interest in Paul Goodman's works late in his life, ''Communitas'' became known as a major work of urban planning, sometimes considered Goodman's masterpiece. After becoming an influential essay in the 1960s, it remained regarded as a classic text of city planning into the 21st century.
Three decades from its publication, despite some details growing outdated, literary critic
Kingsley Widmer considered the book's "imaginative sociology" approach to utopian social thinking and urban planning—combining real social problems with speculative moral philosophy—to have continued relevance. Widmer likened ''Communitas'' to "libertarian footnotes on
Plato
Plato ( ; Greek language, Greek: , ; born BC, died 348/347 BC) was an ancient Greek philosopher of the Classical Greece, Classical period who is considered a foundational thinker in Western philosophy and an innovator of the writte ...
's ''
Republic
A republic, based on the Latin phrase ''res publica'' ('public affair' or 'people's affair'), is a State (polity), state in which Power (social and political), political power rests with the public (people), typically through their Representat ...
''" and considered it Paul Goodman's best book, worthy of inclusion in a compilation of Goodman's best works.
The book was among the foremost influences of American historian
Gar Alperovitz and was British anarchist
Colin Ward
Colin Ward (14 August 1924 – 11 February 2010) 's favorite work from Goodman's oeuvre. The "communitas" concept in
Victor Turner
Victor Witter Turner (28 May 1920 – 18 December 1983) was a British cultural anthropologist best known for his work on symbols, rituals, and rite of passage, rites of passage. His work, along with that of Clifford Geertz and others, is often ...
's anthropology of ritual borrowed from the Goodmans, as did some communal experiments of the 1960s, including progressive schools,
free universities, and living–working communes.
Gate Hill Cooperative, an intentional community in
upstate New York
Upstate New York is a geographic region of New York (state), New York that lies north and northwest of the New York metropolitan area, New York City metropolitan area of downstate New York. Upstate includes the middle and upper Hudson Valley, ...
, was influenced by the Goodmans' ''Communitas''.
Percival Goodman, who became an architect of some renown, later released ''The Double E'' (1977) as a sequel to ''Communitas'', following his brother's death.
Notes
References
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External links
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