Communitas (book)

Communitas: Means of Livelihood and Ways of Life is a 1947 book on community and

Communitas: Means of Livelihood and Ways of Life argues for "human scale" urban planning, in which buildings, cities, economics, and society are made to suit immediate community needs.^[1] 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,^[2] while the second half introduces the authors' own urban proposals.^[3]

The authors begin by evaluating three existing approaches to modern urbanism, each in brief: self-contained

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.[3] None are meant to be complete, mutually exclusive plans, but rather experimental alternatives upon which a community could deliberate.^[4] 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.^[4][5] Their three plans suggest potential for societal reorganization rather than just amelioration of social conditions.^[4]

"The City of Efficient Consumption", their first program,

“The Standard of Minimum Subsistence”,[5] the third program, is a dual economy in which a subsistence economy provides for a minimum standard of basic needs (food, housing, services, worthwhile work) for all, within a larger, affluent, market economy in which private enterprise provides luxuries and productive/consumptive activity.^[9][4] 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.^[9]

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.^[10] 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) and a plan for a blighted New York area (from Architectural Forum).^[5]

Publication

The brothers

Communitas was first written in the early 1940s, and edited in 1946 for publication the next year.[14] The University of Chicago Press published 2,000 cloth cover copies on April 21, 1947.^[15] Vintage Books (a Random House imprint^[16]) released a revised second edition in August 1960^[15] alongside Paul Goodman's landmark Growing Up Absurd.^[16] 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) 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.^[14] Altogether, Vintage printed 117,000 paperback copies between 1960 and 1974.^[15] Communitas received translations into Spanish (1964), Japanese (late 1960s), and Italian (1970).^[15]

Reception

For a book that would become well-known, Communitas generally did not generate much published commentary.^[14] Among the main critiques was sociologist David Riesman, who later wrote The Lonely Crowd.^[14][17] 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 and perceived unfairness towards garden city movement founder Ebenezer Howard.^[14]

Communitas was markedly unlike most other books on physical city planning.^[18][19] Reviewers described its style and unorthodox proposals as brave,^[20] daring,^[20] startling,^[5][21] and provocative.^[22] Mumford described the brothers as bringing a "fresh method ... which has as yet few exponents",^[23] 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.^[18] 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,^[24][25] as city planning from the perspective of a novelist.^[26] From page to page, housing expert Charles Abrams found himself manically oscillating between agreement and disgust.^[19] The oblong book itself^[5] is also unordinary in presentation.^[19][27] Reviewers variously found Percival's illustrations to be an attractive supplement,^[5][28][25] part blueprint, comic strip, and William Blake,^[29] or as one reviewer put it, "bizarrely illustrated".^[27] "Frankly", wrote The Nation's reviewer, "the book is a circus."^[29]

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.^[19][21] Reviewers mentioned jargon-laden,^[22][27][25] rambling,^[30] unclear writing^[20] with heavy, "closed-packed" sentences.^[25] Though writer and intellectual Dwight Macdonald admired Communitas, he criticized Goodman's prose for being “fuzzy” in a manner unlike the author's thoughts.^[31] To Abrams, the authors wrote with high disdain for their readers.^[32]

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.^[2]

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.^[16] After becoming an influential essay in the 1960s,^[33] it remained regarded as a classic text of city planning into the 21st century.^[34][35]

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.^[1] Widmer likened Communitas to "libertarian footnotes on Plato's Republic"^[2] and considered it Paul Goodman's best book,^[10] worthy of inclusion in a compilation of Goodman's best works.^[36]

The book was among the foremost influences of American historian

Percival Goodman, who became an architect of some renown,[34] later released The Double E (1977) as a sequel to Communitas, following his brother's death.^[15]

Notes