In Harold DeRienzo’s “Community Organizing for Power and Democracy: Lessons Learned from a Life in the Trenches,” we are given definitions of neighborhood and community, which at first glance appear to be synonyms. However, DeRienzo considers them to be two separate concepts, and he explains the little nuances that differentiate them. One such nuance is that neighborhoods are based on geography, so it can be said that the defining characteristics of neighborhoods are the households, whereas communities are based on relationships, so it can be said that the defining characteristics of communities are the people. Furthermore, communities are implied to have a sense of unity and solidarity that neighborhoods, with their separate household units, lack.

It seems like Jane Jacobs would have agreed with DeRienzo’s definition of a community, and the mutually beneficial relationships that DeRienzo describes in a community bring to mind Jacobs’s description of the merits of stoop sitting, where community members would sit on their front steps and become the “eyes of the street,” keeping the neighborhood (and community) safe and dynamic. Another point of agreement between the two writers is the stress that they place upon the importance of public space in communities.

Discussion question: In this modern day and age, is it possible for a neighborhood to develop without a community?