Community Question: Classical Debates

The chapter provides an overview of the classical debates on community question. It discusses various approaches to community, comprehended as a neighbourhood, a network or a sense of belonging. In the introduction to the chapter, an overview of the concept of community as opposed to city is presented and the nature of the community question is explained. The introduction is followed by the presentation of the concepts supporting the “community saved” hypothesis and provides the details on the classical approach to the urban community as a neighbourhood as well as discusses contemporary approaches to community comprehended as a place-based social ties. Next, the chapter provides details on the “community liberated” hypothesis and discusses a variety of concepts of community comprehended as a network and a sense of belonging. The chapter concludes with the statement that there is a conceptual gap in the community studies that reflects the “agency vs structure” division. It presents some attempts to overcome them, paying particular attention to Talia Blokland’s concept of community as urban practice, and points to the need for the development of a new approach that would overcome the shortcomings of the current approaches to community and would allow for exploration of the phenomena that have remained so far out of view of community studies.