ABSTRACT
The seedbed of social virtue is childhood. Social virtue is in decline in the United States for two main reasons—a decline in family functioning and a decline in community functioning. A natural communities policy would foster a certain kind of "multiculturalism" in American life. This chapter reviews the conditions of successful childrearing, looking at parent-child interaction, family structure, and the characteristics of family-supportive communities. For a fuller understanding of the importance of the community for family functioning, it is useful to provide a brief excursus into human evolution. The important role of nonresidential communities in contemporary American life has been raised forcefully by the work of James S. Coleman and Thomas Hoffer in their comparison of public and private high schools. Going beyond the immediate needs of children and other local residents, the weakening of residential communities exacerbates in some ways the problems of diversity in American life.
