The YMCA does good things. And this video by the Y makes a good point: Community is important and to build communities requires places and processes for community life to thrive.
But it also misses the mark, given that it ignores the reasons why people are spending less time eating together, more time indoors, less time walking to school and less time as a community. The Y may ignore these reasons in part because it is part of the problem. As a charity organization, funded by both private and public funding, the Y treats community as important but not as an entitlement.
Community spaces – like community centres, libraries, parks, preschools, daycares and schools – should be publicly funded and publicly run, as they are core to a functioning and just democracy. Our tax dollars, which unlike user fees and charity donations, may be collected on an equitable basis, should fund community spaces and community building programs and services. Publicly run institutions, accountable to the public and with the sole mandate of advancing the public interest, should use these funds to build and sustain vibrant communities. A robust public system, instead of a private or charity system, is required if we are to prioritize community as a shared value. Even though everyone should be free to decide how to be involved in community, opportunities and invitations for inclusion should be extended to everyone. Democracy, by its nature and core values, is alone suited to ensuring that such a community be sustained.
The Y’s video also misses the point about why people are struggling to be involved in community life, aside from the lack of adequate public resources for supporting communities. Many people who work and struggle to make it simply don’t have the time to be involved in community. Economic policies that don’t support families and others in having more time for community get in the way of communities coming together.
Our time is being organized by economic interests that want more time to them, and less time to community. These interests build and design cities based on long commutes, build and design workplaces built around low wages and limited vacations, and create unhealthy work arounds and poor substitutes to the lack of time for people to relax, study, care and simply be part of community. Fast food and frozen dinners and television reality shows are a poor substitute to healthy communities. For people to eat better food and be part of a richer cultural life will require a re-prioritizing of our time – less time at work and in commute and more time at home and with community.
