Communities are in motion. Every place has a history. Every place has a future. At any moment a community is moving from its past to what lies ahead.

Your community has a story. It had a beginning. It might even have an end. Likely, it has experienced many different chapters. To add value to a community, it is critical to know your community and where it came from. A community at the highest level involves individuals and other entities living and functioning within the same geographic area or along lines of similar interest. One example is the community I live in that involves the people, businesses, schools and various groups residing there. Walk the Block is also a community. It is made up of people with a common interest of adding value to where they live. The former community is what we’ll mostly discuss on Walk the Block, but I don’t want to omit the latter. It’s important to think about and be engaged in both.

It is important to know your community. Learning a community’s history takes time, intentionality, and effort. Listening is critical.

How to Learn a Community’s History

Talk with people who have lived in the community a long time. It is a great place to start. Get ideas about where to go, who to talk with, and how to best learn about the place you live.

Read about the history. An historical society newsletter and old newspapers can be great resources.

Many other resources often exist in your community: historical society meetings; community publications; community regulations; local business organizations; genealogical societies; landmarks; neighbors; schools and universities.

An Example – Learning My Community’s History

In my community I have tried to learn about the history and how it shapes today’s current community, and the direction it’s going by joining the historical society in my community. A lot of the land in my community, interestingly, came from land grants during our nation’s first 100 years. Also, there are multiple publications, a history room, and old publications from the community press available for use to learn more. Here are a few more things learned…

My community began with a large focus on agriculture. Farming was one of the major occupations among its residents, but now it boasts seemingly every fast-food restaurant imaginable and agriculture is virtually gone. I cannot even think of a current working farm in our community apart from a couple of horse farms. Clearly, something happened in the past to move the community from one focus to its current state.

Additionally, there are many preserved green spaces and community parks, which have been protected from residential and commercial developments. The community also highly values the schools and has supported the district for many decades to ensure its success.

Apart from Parks and Education, my community broadly and intentionally built infrastructure and other developments to achieve residential and commercial goals, such as tax abatements to bring in certain businesses, road developments, planned unit developments, and zoning requirements. These often bring much enablement and value to the community through more sidewalks, a vibrant business community, diverse jobs, and consistent signage and visual appeal of storefronts. These mechanisms have also created challenges that are not aligned with many community goals, such as fewer public transportation options, physical barriers to meeting neighbors, less focus on fine arts, and more traffic.

This is not to put blame on anyone or say these are terrible, but I want to clearly state that there is no perfect community, and it’s important to understand both benefits and challenges. These benefits and challenges are often there as a result of noble objectives, and understanding the history helps you better connect with and know the place you live. It also helps interpret the current state of your community.

Spend time talking with people, listening well, and looking around with critical eyes to see what helps and hinders your community growing and developing.

Share with the Walk the Block community what you hear, see and learn so that we can all grow together.

Diego

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