What is community?
I know that a lot of people have asked this question before but I find myself asking it again: what does the word community mean? I am currently writing a short piece in which I'm using this word liberally and confidently , and yet I'm uncomfortable with its implications. Do I really mean to imply what the word traditionally implies? Or am I using it because it is now the norm to use the word rather indiscriminately? The word community is now used as a substitute for 'demographic' or 'population'; it is a much more pleasing and much less clinical word. It evokes a sense of togetherness and commonality. But therein lies the rub. The word can be misleading. Often the sense of togetherness and commonality that the word suggests is insufficiently found in that which the word is seeking to describe. Community suggests (some degree of) coherence; a defined boundary that encompasses a range of people who really can be understood as 'belonging together'. In