ABSTRACT
This chapter attempts to define community and restricted communities can express negative values such as bigotry, intolerance, aggression and violence. It explores how previous and contemporary uses of the term community, in literature, politics, social practice and social analysis, have constructed and re-constructed the term in pursuit of particular outcomes or interpretations of the social world. A study of Copenhagen has demonstrated that despite considerable change taking place under such pressures, a strong Jewish community still persists, albeit one that is not necessarily defined in traditional spatially bounded terms. Implicit in the message of the Countryside Alliance is that rural Britain does exist as a distinct geographical and social entity, which is seemingly founded on shared values and experience. Government policy remains keen on community as a form of social organization, yet many attempts to stimulate and develop community through interventionist strategies have failed to create the community ties that policy-makers and varied social commentators value.
