Community Vitality

Within a community, most people take comfort in knowing that the community is surviving, trucking along in a business-as-usual manner. However, community vitality is a communities’ ability to THRIVE and ADAPT to changing conditions. What is interesting is how closely this ties to the definition of sustainability – something I defined in a previous blog as:

“development that does not diminish the quality or biodiversity of the natural ecosystems on which we rely to sustain ourselves in a manner that considers implications from a local to a global scale, while maintaining rich cultural diversity and ensuring greater social equity”.

It leads me to wonder if in fact a community can achieve great vitality without a strong commitment to sustainability. How can a community thrive and adapt to changing conditions if there is no social or cultural diversity? This diverse, interconnected group of individuals within a community are the ones who will help to enable the community to adapt.

So what factors indicate the overall vitality of a community? One website created by Community Research Connections (CRCResearch), has selected six key factors based on thorough research, to try to assess community vitality, which can be found at:

http://crcresearch.org/vitality

Using these six proxy indicators, they have developed a tool where you answer a series of questions about your community. The resulting analysis reveals how your community measures up in relation to each of the six key factors. This in turn indicates your community’s relative vitality.

The six key factors listed are:

·         Diversity – this refers not only to a diversity of people and cultures, but also a diversity of different spaces to interact in, foods to buy, etc.

·         Dead Space – this refers to old/aging infrastructure, unused or devoid areas such as parking lots, condemned buildings, neglected civic infrastructure, etc. The less dead space in your community the better.

·         Accessibility – to several things such as food, events, nature and companionship.

·         Vital Space – for things such as inspiration, debate, or even artistic expression.

·         Community Capitals – such as shared space for engagement, exercise, art, play or even food production.

·         Connectivity – to your community, to nature, to food, to heritage and even to exploration.

Through the use of these six factors, overall community vitality can be assessed and any weaknesses could potentially be identified. This could be a very useful tool in helping communities to not only survive, but to thrive as complex and vital spaces with strong interpersonal connections.