ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on community balance. Daily life combines giving, getting and being: productive, consuming and domestic activities – though these are rarely symmetrically balanced. Additionally, as retail, workplace and residential needs differ, some activity combinations are incompatible, physically and/or in mood. Mono-use zoning prevents this, but obliterates interactive vitality. Worse, by separating naturally adjacent activities, it fosters car use. Mixed-use and multi-use restore community balance and aid their compaction, but in different ways, and with contrasting consequences. Being in-building, multi-use withdraws life from public spaces, while mixed-use diversifies visible activities and their associated moods in public space. Another important balance is that between different ages, hence markedly different needs, abilities and disabilities. Reconciling such conflicting demands, both material and mood-atmospheric, might seem daunting. But polarity resolution enlivens life. And anyway, for human wholeness, design must seamlessly combine soul- and spirit-nourishment with practicality. Only multi-reason integrity makes place aesthetic feel genuine.
