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local community — English
A group of people who share some common factor that binds them together or gives them a sense of belonging to one another and/or to a certain place. In a geographical sense, a specific shared space or place is a prerequisite for identifying a local community. Groups of people who share a common cause, such as the right to possess a fire-arm or people living with HIV, form interest groups, not communities; there is no spatial bond that “binds” these people. However, a local community shares one very special attribute, namely a certain sense of belonging to a specific place, and – for them – that place has a specific sense of place. These people either live, or work, or come from one definable space that ties them together into a close or not so close community. The children of people living in a certain area often attend the same schools, the whole community buys at the same stores, visits one another at home, belongs to the same churches, knows a lot about one another, and supports one another through difficult times. People who grew up in such a local community, might leave the area to live somewhere else, but they retain a sense of belonging to the place where they grew up. This applies to the rich as well as the poor, to the affluent as well as the needy. The people and the places form an intricate whole that cannot be broken, even when the people move away and the places are destroyed. In South Africa there are poignant examples of local communities that were torn apart by Apartheid politics, and the places where they lived were bulldozed. District Six in Cape Town, Sophia Town and Triomf in Johannesburg, and Lady Selbourne in Pretoria are examples from the past. Currently examples of typical local communities are found in Diepsloot north of Johannesburg, Cross Roads and Guguletho near Cape Town, Mandela City near Pretoria, Gugulethu near Cape Town, and many more. Local communities need not be urbanised and there are innumerable rural communities that display the same sense of belonging to place and people. The communities of Kwadlangezwa, Nkandla, Mier, Elim and Pniel serve as examples. The phenomenon of close, stable, local community bonds to place and people, occurs everywhere in the world. In the USA “the hoods” and “the Projects” are typical examples of sub-economical local communities, while Staten Island and Long Island represent affluent local communities. The people in the slums and shanty towns of Kolkota (formerly Culcutta) and Mumbai (formerly Bombay) form very strong, exclusive local communities and those in the favelas (shanty towns) of Rio de Janeiro often do not even tolerate the presence of strangers.
