ABSTRACT
With the recent viral spread of Internet-based virtual communities through social networks such as MySpace and Facebook, “community” has undergone a dramatic redefinition. As predicted by Martin Pawley 36 years ago in The Private Future (1974), individuals are staying home and building their communities from their armchairs, rather than at the country club. Under these circumstances, communitarianism takes on a different meaning. As an ethical posture, it remains a laudable goal – that of serving the entire community, rather than the wishes of individuals or organizations with power. The problem is one of dispersal. The online social-networking-based community is not place specific. It is deterritorialized. On the surface this seems to be a problem for the future of architecture, as issues that are architecturally related tend to be place bound, or at least within a limited geographical area. Has the importance of physical community faded away? Hardly. It turns out that the virtual community serves as a vehicle for increasing the incidence of physical gathering, as local events are efficiently cyber-broadcast to members of the local interest group. Due to the effectiveness of the tweeting, messaging, and posting associated with social networks, spontaneous community gatherings are well attended. Another benefit of “Facebooking” is the growth of a multitude of special interest communities that can exert influence over policies associated with architecture and the environment. We are living in an age of heightened communitarianism. It is a brave new virtual world. Computer City, the visionary proposal by Archigram’s Dennis Crompton (1964; in Cook, 1967), has come to pass.
