Reading these chapters, I wondered how so many people could live so close to each other and have community, yet when problems arise, the sense of community disappears. Arleen Ollie’s experience interested me in that she moved away from her neighborhood because of financial reasons and when she returned to Roanoke, the sense of community was lost. She emphasized how in the past if people were sick it, it was natural for help to come quickly and people did not have to be asked for help. David’s journey was also interesting in that he was able to see the changes of Elmwood and eventually its loses. There was different emphasize on kindness and how there were kindness in situations such as in gardening, dancing, selling goods, and other professions. However, this kindness did not stop the violence that was happening in child molestation and unemployment.
My question is similar to Jessina’s in that does a community need to be poor in order for kindness to occur and also, besides for the fact that people in a community lived near each other, what other things tied them together?
Of course a community usually correlates to the proximity between the people there but as we have discussed in class about what we would consider a community, there were so many other factors that led us all to believe we are in some kind of community. The connection we feel with others in our community are not limited to how physically close we are to each other, but also that intellectual and emotional closeness is very important. We could all be living in the same house for example, but if we don’t like each other at all or have no other way to relate to each other than the fact that we both live in the same location, I would say there’s no community there.