The Community Issue

“The Community” might be the most frequently used term over the last 50 years of Architectural and Urban discourse. For decades, rhetoric invoking “the community” has endowed even the most mediocre designs with an aura of good intentions (and thus implicitly condemned designers who decline use of the word). The community has served as a legitimization for anything from Team X to New Urbanism, from Pendrecht to Celebration, from Aldo and Eyck to Larry Beasley…