COMPLEX[CITY]
Contemporary societies infrastructure is encoded in databases, measuring our collective behaviour.
Cities are the ultimate and most complex manifestation of human civilisation. For millennia, architects and builders have attempted to rationalise these multifarious organisms into well-functioning and liveable places for their inhabitants. During the place making processes and place-based management model of urban design and planning it has been overlooked that community is not automatically about place. The usage of place making as 'community making' is widespread in the planning profession and underpins most urban design principles.
In social science community is defined by a group of people unified by common interests or attitudes, a similarity or identity. But in the sciences, ecologically community is described as a group of interdependent organisms of different species growing or living together in a specific habitat. These definitions open up alternative dialogues to understanding community as non-place based networks.
It is difficult to summarise the dynamic complexity of any networked system. Since the World Wide Web was established some 15 years ago infinite networks of abstracted organisational communication and information have altered the way in which we relate to each other changing our perception of 'community'. These online community networks are more common than the physical space making model and have eclipsed the place 'making networks' that local councils continue to try to ignite.
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