ABSTRACT
For Tonnies, the archetypal Gemeinschaft community was the rural village-' the Gemeinschaft is stronger there and more alive.' 1 It is this identification of a particular system of social relationships with a particular geographical locale that has been his most enduring, and some would say misleading, bequest to the sociology of the community. This is not to say, however, that Tonnies was making any radical departure from prevailing nineteenth century views on the nature of community. If community was the good life, then, in the reaction to industrialization, it was also closely identified with the rural village. To an increasingly urbanized population, the deprivations of the towns and cities were altogether more manifest than those of the rural areas and as romantic visions of the countryside flourished, the rural village was increasingly viewed as man's natural habitat. To an apparently endless array of nineteenth century intellectuals the spiritual needs of man could only be satisfied in a rural environment where contact could be made with realvalues.2 Meanwhile, those who actually lived in the countryside amply showed their preference by voting with their feet and moving to the towns. Nevertheless, as community became identified with the good life, community was also seen as essentially rural.
