ABSTRACT
The idea of community as emergent animates most theories of community organizing and community building. However, the two schools of thought differ in what it is that emerges. Within the community organizing tradition, communities are divided between the “haves” and the “have nots”. For the “have nots”, communities do not provide the collective goods identified by Sampson, or do so only at a minimal level, while the “haves” are positioned to achieve their collective and individual interests by virtue of their greater power. Community organizing seeks to mobilize the interests of the “have nots” and organize them into effective units of collective action so as to change the balance of power in the community. In contrast, community builders approach locales as potential communities that lack the social ties and identification of shared interests required for these locales to function as communities. Community builders start by building relationships among local residents and organizations and developing settings within which mutual interests and opportunities for cooperation in achieving them can emerge. Community builders assume that functioning communities do not have one single fault line of privilege versus disadvantage that divides them. Rather, people and organizations are presumed to have multiple and shifting interests and capacities. The task of community building is to provide opportunities to build relationships that can lead to effective collective actions and satisfying relationships. As the chapters in this section illustrate, the line between these two perspectives
increasingly blurs. However, the starting point for efforts in the two traditions almost always differs.
