What do you think?
Rate this book
Communitas: Means of Livelihood & Ways of Life
Communitas is a guide to the planning of cities that begins with first principles. If our cities were to help us live the various kinds of life we might find desirable, what would they be like? The authors, one a novelist, playwright and critic, the other a professor and architect, analyze in word and picture the plans of the past and what alternatives are available for the future. When the first edition of this book appeared in 1947, it was greeted as one of the most fruitful and imaginative books on the building of cities that has ever been written. It has long been unavailable; the authors have completely rewritten it for this new edition, adding new text and new pictures.
248 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1947
11 people are currently reading
425 people want to read
About the author
Paul Goodman
206 books114 followersPaul Goodman was an American writer and public intellectual best known for his 1960s works of social criticism. Goodman was prolific across numerous literary genres and non-fiction topics, including the arts, civil rights, decentralization, democracy, education, media, politics, psychology, technology, urban planning, and war. As a humanist and self-styled man of letters, his works often addressed a common theme of the individual citizen's duties in the larger society, and the responsibility to exercise autonomy, act creatively, and realize one's own human nature.
Born to a Jewish family in New York City, Goodman was raised by his aunts and sister and attended City College of New York. As an aspiring writer, he wrote and published poems and fiction before receiving his doctorate from the University of Chicago. He returned to writing in New York City and took sporadic magazine writing and teaching jobs, several of which he lost for his overt bisexuality and World War II draft resistance. Goodman discovered anarchism and wrote for libertarian journals. His radicalism was rooted in psychological theory. He co-wrote the theory behind Gestalt therapy based on Wilhelm Reich's radical Freudianism and held psychoanalytic sessions through the 1950s while continuing to write prolifically.
His 1960 book of social criticism, Growing Up Absurd, established his importance as a mainstream, antiestablishment cultural theorist. Goodman became known as "the philosopher of the New Left" and his anarchistic disposition was influential in 1960s counterculture and the free school movement. Despite being the foremost American intellectual of non-Marxist radicalism in his time, his celebrity did not endure far beyond his life. Goodman is remembered for his utopian proposals and principled belief in human potential.
Born to a Jewish family in New York City, Goodman was raised by his aunts and sister and attended City College of New York. As an aspiring writer, he wrote and published poems and fiction before receiving his doctorate from the University of Chicago. He returned to writing in New York City and took sporadic magazine writing and teaching jobs, several of which he lost for his overt bisexuality and World War II draft resistance. Goodman discovered anarchism and wrote for libertarian journals. His radicalism was rooted in psychological theory. He co-wrote the theory behind Gestalt therapy based on Wilhelm Reich's radical Freudianism and held psychoanalytic sessions through the 1950s while continuing to write prolifically.
His 1960 book of social criticism, Growing Up Absurd, established his importance as a mainstream, antiestablishment cultural theorist. Goodman became known as "the philosopher of the New Left" and his anarchistic disposition was influential in 1960s counterculture and the free school movement. Despite being the foremost American intellectual of non-Marxist radicalism in his time, his celebrity did not endure far beyond his life. Goodman is remembered for his utopian proposals and principled belief in human potential.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
January 7, 2017
This is a book from the mid-twentieth century which advocated a kind of urban planning that was decidedly not adopted, so it will seem irrelevant to most readers today, however, it can be seen as a measure of the “possibilities” that the past offered, which could still be adapted to fix the problems which remain unsolved from that time. On the other hand, this could also be a warning against being overly utopian in one’s ideas – because that’s likely why the plans here were never implemented.
The authors were brothers. Paul Goodman is somewhat known today as a radical philosopher and sociologist, no doubt best known for the book Growing Up Absurd, which established him as an early representative of the New Left of the 1960s. Percival Goodman was an architect, and is perhaps also well known in architectural circles, though not in my humanitarian world. The essential premise of the book is that centralized planning is necessary to reform communities and make life more livable. They argue that refusing such planning on the ground that it is “too ideological,” is itself an embrace of the unexamined ideology of conservative capitalism, which is a pretty typical New Left position. Although they examine certain Soviet models of planning with some approval, they generally do not advocate such approaches for the United States, and are very conscious of the limitations of the Communist emphasis on large-scale industry as the measure of progress. This is also fairly typical of the New Left. They also examine Buckminster Fuller’s technocratic solutions and find him wanting, which was something of a relief to me, because Fuller was something of a darling of utopians of the time, inexplicably to me, because his ideas frequently ignore simple human realities.
The solutions they do like involve “garden cities,” work and residence being close together, minimizing traffic within cities, and situations in which youth are sent to outskirts to work on nearby farms which supply regional food to the cities they support. There is also an interesting scheme for guaranteeing subsistence by “drafting” the population to work one year in every seven or so producing necessities. How all of this works is somewhat theoretical until you get to the “appendices,” in which their proposals for reconstructing New York City. Here, they propose destroying Central Park and building a “downtown strip” through the middle of Manhattan, where most of the industry, financial and cultural centers, and in general employment would be relocated, surrounded by “residential parks” with nice waterfront recreational areas. In short, in order to stem the tide of the population to the suburbs that was underway at the time of writing, they propose moving the suburbs to the city. Rather than traffic-filled streets, the buildings in the central strip are envisioned as connected by walkways, with an underground highway allowing transportation of needed materials and products of the labor to the rest of the world. Most workers, they imagine, will be able to walk to work, since this reorganization places all residences within a few miles of the edge of the central strip.
What this seems to ignore, to my mind, is that people living in a city will take advantage of the opportunities and choices in employment that situation offers, and therefore will often want to travel to the other side of the island from their residence. They might movie closer, of course, but this assumes a single-income family and a lack of job mobility that probably seemed more typical in the 1940s and 1960s (this is a book from 1947 that was revised in 1960) than it has since. There’s also the question of going to other parts of the city for purposes of entertainment, cultural and political activities, etc. What they seem to be proposing, to my mind, is atomizing New York City into a series of localized “villages” or neighborhoods that have all the disadvantages of small town life, simply crowded into a smaller area.
Still, people interested in housing and livability solutions may find this an interesting speculative work, and even if the specific solutions offered are not ultimately practical, there may be some ideas which can be pulled from it and adapted to the twenty first century.
The authors were brothers. Paul Goodman is somewhat known today as a radical philosopher and sociologist, no doubt best known for the book Growing Up Absurd, which established him as an early representative of the New Left of the 1960s. Percival Goodman was an architect, and is perhaps also well known in architectural circles, though not in my humanitarian world. The essential premise of the book is that centralized planning is necessary to reform communities and make life more livable. They argue that refusing such planning on the ground that it is “too ideological,” is itself an embrace of the unexamined ideology of conservative capitalism, which is a pretty typical New Left position. Although they examine certain Soviet models of planning with some approval, they generally do not advocate such approaches for the United States, and are very conscious of the limitations of the Communist emphasis on large-scale industry as the measure of progress. This is also fairly typical of the New Left. They also examine Buckminster Fuller’s technocratic solutions and find him wanting, which was something of a relief to me, because Fuller was something of a darling of utopians of the time, inexplicably to me, because his ideas frequently ignore simple human realities.
The solutions they do like involve “garden cities,” work and residence being close together, minimizing traffic within cities, and situations in which youth are sent to outskirts to work on nearby farms which supply regional food to the cities they support. There is also an interesting scheme for guaranteeing subsistence by “drafting” the population to work one year in every seven or so producing necessities. How all of this works is somewhat theoretical until you get to the “appendices,” in which their proposals for reconstructing New York City. Here, they propose destroying Central Park and building a “downtown strip” through the middle of Manhattan, where most of the industry, financial and cultural centers, and in general employment would be relocated, surrounded by “residential parks” with nice waterfront recreational areas. In short, in order to stem the tide of the population to the suburbs that was underway at the time of writing, they propose moving the suburbs to the city. Rather than traffic-filled streets, the buildings in the central strip are envisioned as connected by walkways, with an underground highway allowing transportation of needed materials and products of the labor to the rest of the world. Most workers, they imagine, will be able to walk to work, since this reorganization places all residences within a few miles of the edge of the central strip.
What this seems to ignore, to my mind, is that people living in a city will take advantage of the opportunities and choices in employment that situation offers, and therefore will often want to travel to the other side of the island from their residence. They might movie closer, of course, but this assumes a single-income family and a lack of job mobility that probably seemed more typical in the 1940s and 1960s (this is a book from 1947 that was revised in 1960) than it has since. There’s also the question of going to other parts of the city for purposes of entertainment, cultural and political activities, etc. What they seem to be proposing, to my mind, is atomizing New York City into a series of localized “villages” or neighborhoods that have all the disadvantages of small town life, simply crowded into a smaller area.
Still, people interested in housing and livability solutions may find this an interesting speculative work, and even if the specific solutions offered are not ultimately practical, there may be some ideas which can be pulled from it and adapted to the twenty first century.
November 13, 2016
I had never really thought about the built environment as a standalone intellectual concept before until this book. It was a worthwhile exercise to do so and has made me realize that lots of things about the built environment that I took for granted were in fact the result of conscious design decisions. Interesting to think about this stuff as new technology (autonomous cars etc) may give us a new opportunity to rethink how our cities and communities are designed.
December 29, 2023
Seems like a significant work in the field of urban planning studies; investigates the sociological and structural underpinnings of the decisions behind why we plan cities the way we do. Looks at a few historical examples (suburbs, Soviet planned communities, etc.). Offers up some insights and recommendations into future city planning, including better integration of industrial, agricultural, leisure, and living spaces. I think this volume has undergone republication and reissues, and is a worthy document of its time for future study.
The illustrations are really helpful; sometimes they indicate a more futuristic vision of a city, and one realizes that it only would have been thought up in the middle of the American (20th) century.
The illustrations are really helpful; sometimes they indicate a more futuristic vision of a city, and one realizes that it only would have been thought up in the middle of the American (20th) century.
July 27, 2007
Another good and interesting book on city planning and green spaces and such. Novel in its genre and has an intriguing title.
April 13, 2009
Philosophical examination of community planning and how we live in cities. A great introduction to this topic. Even though it's an old book, I don't know that the issues have changed much.
September 4, 2017
A somewhat dated satirical observation/reflection/conjecture, still (1960!) relevant, personably and astutely presented. Lol moments
“In planning, as elsewhere in our society, we can observe the paradox that the wildest anarchists are generally affirming the most ancient values, of space, sun and trees, and beauty, human dignity and forthright means, as if they lived in neolithic times or the Middle Ages, whereas the so-called conservatives are generally arguing for policies and prejudices that date back only four administrations.(from introduction)
“…these three models are not plans, they are analyses; they refer to no site; they have no style, which comes only in building something concrete; and most important, there is no population that purely makes these alternative choices as we present them. (second introduction)
“Regulation of time, separation from the personal environment: these are signs that work is not a way of life; they are the method by which, for better or worse, work that cannot be energized directly by personal concern can get done unconfused by personal concern.
“These packages are the career of physical goods as a commodity, and once the last wrapper is broken, the commodity is destroyed, it is unsaleable. It has been corrupted by the moisture and air and germs of life, by the passionate fact that someone wants the thing enough to touch it rather than sell it. Economically, then, this is the sacremental moment, when a man or woman brutally breaks the wrapper and takes the bread out of circulation.
“…if you give people the sense that they can make and change things, there might be a little constructive demolition to remedy the what the architect did wrong. These are the risks one takes.
“In planning, as elsewhere in our society, we can observe the paradox that the wildest anarchists are generally affirming the most ancient values, of space, sun and trees, and beauty, human dignity and forthright means, as if they lived in neolithic times or the Middle Ages, whereas the so-called conservatives are generally arguing for policies and prejudices that date back only four administrations.(from introduction)
“…these three models are not plans, they are analyses; they refer to no site; they have no style, which comes only in building something concrete; and most important, there is no population that purely makes these alternative choices as we present them. (second introduction)
“Regulation of time, separation from the personal environment: these are signs that work is not a way of life; they are the method by which, for better or worse, work that cannot be energized directly by personal concern can get done unconfused by personal concern.
“These packages are the career of physical goods as a commodity, and once the last wrapper is broken, the commodity is destroyed, it is unsaleable. It has been corrupted by the moisture and air and germs of life, by the passionate fact that someone wants the thing enough to touch it rather than sell it. Economically, then, this is the sacremental moment, when a man or woman brutally breaks the wrapper and takes the bread out of circulation.
“…if you give people the sense that they can make and change things, there might be a little constructive demolition to remedy the what the architect did wrong. These are the risks one takes.
August 7, 2023
This is one of those books that is so of a particular time and place that it appears provincial, even as it tackles national and even global social policy. In a way, it reminds me of a cookbook I bought for my wife from the late 19th century with earnest tips on how to prepare a raccoon for cooking (lots of vinegar, lots of time). The unfortunate effect is that is difficult to take their positions seriously. They are utopian, and believe too much in oversimplified models and outmoded notions of centralized control. But they do invite us to imagine a society where there may be other answers than those available within the cramped contemporary consensus.
This book is firmly planted in a world where Robert Moses' work is still fresh, where the TVA has not been doomed by capitalist propaganda, and where the housing of workers is a primary concern. It is modern the way the atomic bomb is modern. It is the future like the Jetsons. But it is not a simple relic.
It is a reminder that the narrow set of design constraints we call contemporary society are arbitrary, contingent, and most likely doomed. Our "inescapable realities" will be looked at in 80 years as foolish simplifications.
It is a three because it is not, in the end, a great book. But it is a worthy looking-glass into the zeitgeist of an era not long ago when the same problems evoked a different set of answers
This book is firmly planted in a world where Robert Moses' work is still fresh, where the TVA has not been doomed by capitalist propaganda, and where the housing of workers is a primary concern. It is modern the way the atomic bomb is modern. It is the future like the Jetsons. But it is not a simple relic.
It is a reminder that the narrow set of design constraints we call contemporary society are arbitrary, contingent, and most likely doomed. Our "inescapable realities" will be looked at in 80 years as foolish simplifications.
It is a three because it is not, in the end, a great book. But it is a worthy looking-glass into the zeitgeist of an era not long ago when the same problems evoked a different set of answers
September 14, 2017
Perhaps out-of-date but struck a clear note about mid century urban planning in America.
November 1, 2013
When production becomes an integral part of life, the workman becomes an artist. It is the definition of an artist that he follows the medium, and finds new possibilities of expression in it. He is not bound by the fact that things have always been made in a certain way, nor even by the fact that it is these things that have been made. Our industrialists -- even International Business Machines -- are very much concerned these days to get "creative" people, and they make psychological studies on how to foster an "atmosphere of creativity"; but they don't sufficiently conjure with the awful possibility that truly creative people might tell them to shut up shop. They wish to use creativity in just the way that it cannot be used, for it is a process that also generates its own ends.
November 27, 2017
Very dated book which gives some insight into post World War 2 city planning theories. Some of the most interesting passages were critiques of some of the planning theories, such as Garden Cities and Raymond Unwin, which floated around in the 20's and 30's. It finishes with some mildly interesting, but not very practical thoughts on economic restructuring to provide a minimal subsistence to all people. Not much useful to a practicing city planner.
May 23, 2008
A classic originally published in 1947. Explores different paradigms for structuring cities. They examined the political, economic and social issues.
In this day of high energy prices it is worth rereading.
In this day of high energy prices it is worth rereading.
July 27, 2012
A fun and thought-provoking little book, still relevant.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews