A Pattern Language
Building Community in the Digital Age

This "pattern language" based on the concepts of Christopher Alexander is a DRAFT. It was assembled in a half-day workshop by students and faculty at The Evergreen State College in the Digital City program, March 9, 2002.

Main Sections of Language

In a rapidly evolving world, ever more affected by the digital communications revolution, we sometimes forget the fundamental importance of the underlying value sets or paradigms that dominate even a period of such revolutionary change. The first patterns call upon us to examine these paradigms more consciously:

1 Underlying (Overarching) Paradigms

2 Tapping Our Imagination

3 Understanding our common values

There is a broad set of issues that arise forcibly in a world of increasing population, greater consumption of finite resources and depletion of renewable resources. These issues can be loosely grouped under the heading of problems of the commons, and without solution, can seriously threaten all levels of human communities:

4 Solving the "Tragedy of the Commons"

5 Understanding and Managing the (information) Commons

6 Environmental Balance

7 Resource Consumption

Solving a human community's problems has always involved the systems by which individuals within those communities communicate with each other. In seeking ways to encourage the questioning of fundamental paradigms, and in exploring the particular set of issues called problems of the commons, it becomes especially critical that the new digital media revolution is made accountable to individual and small groups of citizens. Without access to media in the digital age, the hope for such broad-based and fundamental inquiry and problem-solving is limited indeed:

8 Corporate Responsibility and the Digital Divide

9 Media for Citizens (not consumers, subjects, etc.)

10 Consume small media

11 (Fix) the problems with corporate media

12 Roll your own media

13 Don't Accept Misinformation

14 Decreasing the isolation of individuals

After local, regional and global efforts to assure the communications media are being utilized to communicate about paradigm and commons issues, we must pay attention to the close-in physical spaces we occupy:

15 Reusing building and land resources

16 A community of strangers.

17 Building Community in the New City

18 Building Cyber Community

19 How to create third places in the neighborhood.

20 Public art forum/gallery

While physical great good places are a necessary ingredient to building community in any age, digital or non-digital, creating online great good places is an equally crucial effort in the digital age:

21 Keeping Community in a Digital Age

22 Third Places in the digital context

23 Attractive Third Places Online

Utilizing the technologies of the digital age, with a new human face, will be a fundamental building block for all the above efforts:

24 Learning Communities in the Digital Age

25 Diversify your Education

26 Improve community education on use of services

27 Geographic Information Systems (GIS)

28 Different Operation Systems Everywhere

29 Communication Technology

30 Technology for the elderly

31 Free computers and Internet access for everyone

32 Ending Scarcity in the digital age

1 Underlying (Overarching) Paradigms

Problem: Philosophical doctrines developed centuries ago still have major influences over our lives and yet may have outlived their usefulness. Worse, they may be compounding our problems.

Solution: Take a hard look at underlying (overarching) paradigms and examine their implications. Look for those small examples of different paradigms that may be working in small ways in small communities. It may be necessary to develop alternative paradigms.

2 Tapping Our Imagination

Problem: We are typically led in a fashion to a desired outcome in life. Be it educationally, professionally, culturally, or spiritually. This is due to pressures of the social contract.

In order for civilizations to function and survive, frameworks have been erected to ensure that people will behave in a way that benefits societies as a whole. In erecting this framework, little thought is given to the future state of human evolution, but rather the immediate cycles of its efforts.

We literally live hand to mouth as a civilization, and because of this, there is very little time for each of us to reach into the regions of ourselves that nourish us from a standpoint of expressive fulfillment. Actions taken that exhibit individualism are in most cases frowned upon, at best a neutral stance is taken, because if everyone behaved as individuals our fabric would tear and authority would break down. This unfortunately creates an imbalance where we as individuals suffer and become spiritually broken.

Solution: Take the time to challenge your imagination by attempting to cross barriers you fee cannot be approached. Start by taking a class in something you've always dreamed of: like painting, writing, acting, dancing or music. Continue to nurture your expressionism and as you do so you will find that your spirit is renewed and that you have become a master at that which you did not believe possible.

3 Understanding our common values

Problem: Individuals are selfish to the needs of the community as a whole. There is no "I" in "us" Solution: We need to be able to step back and see the big picture, help the community survive.

4 Solving the "Tragedy of the Commons"

Problem: Individually rational actions in a commons can be destructive of the interests of the community. Increasingly, as populations, resource consumption and material production all grow exponentially, communities face these situations where there can be an inherent momentum towards collapse if individuals are left to determine their behavior purely based on self-interest. Examples of potential or actual tragedy of the commons abound: depletion of the world's fisheries, pollution of the world's oceans and atmosphere, consumption of finite resources like fossil fuels, over harvesting of renewable resources like forests, etc.

Solution: Determine the interest of the community as a whole, and JUST DO IT! Utilize online communities, email, and all forms of accessible digital media to spread the specific problem, community interest, and action as widely as possible. 5 Understanding and Managing the (information) Commons

Problem: There are many challenges facing "information commons," including the so called (but over hyped) "tragedy of the commons."

Solution: People need to understand the problems and threats to our commons in order to manage them. Determining the best way to do this will take time and incremental change (and be most effective if community controlled digital media are effectively utilized).

6 Environmental Balance

Problem: There is less fuel, no individualism and no community understanding

Solution: Email more to save trees, walk rather than drive more, walk to a Good Place in your community. If there is none, create one.

7 Resource Consumption

Problem: Resource scarcities are imposing qualitative and quantitative limits on communities.

Solution: Downscale each material purchase decision a notch. When you buy or build a house, make it one room smaller than you think you need. When you buy a car, buy a car that's a little smaller and gets a little better gas mileage than you first thought.

8 Corporate Responsibility and the Digital Divide Problem: People with low socio-economic status from around the world are exploited by multinational corporations that rely on cheap unorganized, uneducated labor. These corporations have a stake in keeping low socio-economic employees unskilled, uneducated and unaware of the rest of the world because if the employees knew what they could do or improve their abilities they will want more and not be compliant. For this reason it is in the interest of multinational corporations to keep workers away from technology that could improve workers' knowledge of the world and quality of life. Solution: Create international work standards that elevate the status of the poorest workers, in accord with the ideas of [Rawlsian?} justice. This may look like minimum work condition standards and an international minimum wage. In addition, corporations should be required to help care for communities from which they pool their labor and the future of the people in these communities. This would look like employee training, helping schools and providing community computer kiosks. The kiosks will allow community members to obtain online education, information about other life styles and communities.

9 Media for Citizens (not consumers, subjects, etc.)

Problem: Corporate media is often commercialized garbage, or a conduit for government propaganda. It's basically unanswerable to the public. It's often mind-numbing, violent and insulting.

Solution: Media for citizens will take different forms than media for consumers, subjects, etc. Use this slogan as the foundation for a media that is more educational, deliberative, equitable, challenging, civil.

10 Consume small media

Problem: Concentration of media into a smaller number of hands weakens individual control and communities.

Solution: Citizens need to make a concerted effort to consume media from non-Fortune 500 sources. People should look for .org sources, small company sources, and government sources at national, state and local levels to balance the onslaught of big media that can force its way into our consciousness.

11 (Fix) the problems with corporate media

Problem: Enormous corporations own multiple forms of media sources. Huge conglomerates own satellite systems and the bandwidth that supports it. These companies create huge multi-billion dollar marketing ventures that overrun our culture with homogenized "cookie cutter" like people places and things.

Solution: Immerse oneself with independent media sources online and in print. By doing this, people can inform themselves of the important issues that will not be told on massive media sources. By doing this one can have freedom from the matrix of information that imprisons us. 12 Roll your own media

Problem: Corporate media is often commercialized garbage, or a conduit for government propaganda. It's basically unanswerable to the public. It's often mind-numbing, violent and insulting.

Solution: Roll your own media! People need to become intimately acquainted with media issues and developing your own is an excellent way. Experiment with new technology (wireless networks, etc.) as well as old (libraries, e.g.) 13 Don't Accept Misinformation

Problem: In the age of consolidated corporate media with its own set of interests, it becomes increasingly obvious to the discerning individual that our newscasts carry misinformation from time to time. For such news casting operations to provide more accurate information would require substantial feedback from the public. Normally a very few provide such feedback, which is in turn forced to be very abrasive.

Solution: When you read, see, or hear misinformation, give the establishment a quick call, briefly expressing your dissatisfaction. Don't expend time and energy on their established "complaint" or "feedback" forums. Rather, lightly express your opinion to whoever answers and ask them to express your comment to their management. In this fashion on a mass casual level, public sentiment will be forcibly disseminated. 14 Decreasing the isolation of individuals

Problem: Capitalist society encourages consumer/product driven recreation, increasing isolation.

Solution: Decrease advertising's hold on people. Place restrictions on advertising types/amounts allowed.

15 Reusing building and land resources

Problem: More restrictions should be in place regarding buying and developing on land and more emphasis should be on reusing buildings and land that is already in place. Just driving through town you can see many abandoned buildings and vacant lots where businesses used to occupy. Instead of people buying these vacant buildings and renovating them, they are bulldozing land and rebuilding from scratch.

Solution: More laws and more costs regarding building on undeveloped land and possible tax breaks/ benefits when renovating/reusing established buildings.

16 A community of strangers.

Problem: In a digital age we interrelated with a lot of strangers. How do you create a sense of community with so many strangers in your peripheral social vision?

Solution: By changing the paradigm of our thought about community, we can let go of strong ties and build on weak ties to make them more valuable. Our weak ties with strangers can create a cumulative wealth of social capital.

17 Building Community in the New City

Problem: The city of Lakewood is just 7 years old. The demographics of the city are extremely diverse-from high incidents of meth production, sale and use to multi-million dollar mansions and celebrities. Each pocket of the city seems to live in its own world without regard to the other aspects of the city. The city has few "third place" candidates, yet there is a major re-development effort to create a "downtown" complete with Ross, Old Navy, Linens & Things, and other large chain, large store operations.

Solution: Create the new "downtown" to reflect the traditional downtowns of older cities. Have small blocks of diverse businesses - from diner bar, and the Bon to second hand boutiques. Have a central parking lot to the downtown where shoppers are encouraged to walk through and interact with their community. Create a central location where all the city's citizens can co-exist on equal ground.

18 Building Cyber Community

Problem: Modern cities have destroyed Great Good Places.

Solution: People should find those surviving great good places (physical and online examples) and go there regularly. 19 How to create third places in the neighborhood.

Problem: A third place is needed within a typical suburban neighborhood in anytown, USA. Pedestrian access is also an issue, there needs to be sidewalks.

Solution: Mass renovation of the neighborhood; a beer hall will be built within the neighborhood and within walking distance; a pool hall can also be built to facilitate or provide a common gathering place for neighborhood residents; the neighborhood community will help to provide funds for the renovation through donation, charity fund-raisers, and grants requested from the state.

20 Public art forum/gallery

Problem: Artists who have yet to establisher themselves in their field often have difficult in finding a way to present their work to an audience. Artists in this position often feel that they are practicing an exercise in futility (i.e., creating beauty that no one will ever see). This can cause them to loose their personal motivation and accept failure in the face of adversity.

Solution: Build a gallery large enough to exhibit all forms of art. Viewing areas for paintings and sculptures. Auditoriums for films, plays, and concerts. However, this gallery will not exclude anyone from displaying his or her art, no matter how controversial the content or how devoid of talent the work is. Artists will simply notify the gallery that they want their work shown and the gallery will schedule their work into the regular rotation. Corporate media is often commercialized garbage, or a conduit for government propaganda. It's basically unanswerable to the public. It's often mind numbing, violent and insulting.

21 Keeping Community in a Digital Age

Problem: Community has lost its value in the digital age

Solution: Re-evaluate the use of community and apply technology as a helping agent. Use SCN.ORG as a model.

22 Third Places in the digital context

Problem: No face-to-face interaction, no physical contact, few regulars to discussions that would give you a feel of a community.

Solution: Real-time video conferencing, good topics to make and keep regulars. Though you can't replace physical contact, seeing the people you talk to could help with the community feeling.

23 Attractive Third Places Online

Problem: An important aspect of a community is how well-spent it's leisure time is, and whether it's spent together or individually. There aren't enough obvious nice, open places with nice, open regulars that encourage others to participate, become respected, and eventually become regulars as well. At the same time as being expandable, possibility of social control by community members during growth periods would be ideal.

Solution: Organic social control in social cyberspaces. Less flashy ads and dumb crap. New members in older viable communities.

24 Learning Communities in the Digital Age Problem: Not all individuals learn the same. Classes, presentations, workshops and information on the Web are programmed for a small (segment) of the population.

Solution: Having learning communities on the Web that are designed for a wider population. Inter-connecting with tutors, resources, different reading abilities (lattices). Programmers need to be introduced to the human process of learning and thinking. (Manuel Castells). Watching Others (Learning by Observation.

25 Diversify your Education

Problem: Liberal arts colleges and educations are not being pursued by the general public like they should be.

Solution: Realization that a liberal arts education is more stimulating than many standardized educations is necessary for liberal arts education to take off and become widespread. Diversify! See the interconnections.

26 Improve community education on use of services

Problem: Technological advancement for state services is so slow in gaining a foothold in our communities that services are unused because of lack of knowledge of their existence.

Solution: Wider media marketing of state and federal services through local markets.

27 Geographic Information Systems (GIS)

Problem: GIS is a powerful tool for understanding land use. Unfortunately, it is often difficult to use, expensive and data is hard to find.

Solution: Democratize GIS! Make systems easy to use and accessible. Make open-source systems.

28 Different Operation Systems Everywhere

Problem: Continuing dependence by the consumer market on "one company" for all computing in Internet solutions limits choice, creativity, flexibility and ultimately progress, while maximizing cost and minimizing understanding of the technology.

Solution: All institutional purchases of technology, schools, hospitals, government, etc. should ensure that a variety of operating systems and technology solutions are purchased, deployed and maintained in the user environment.

29 Communication Technology

Problem: Modern, advanced communications technologies are sometimes so complex that they neuter individuals and their communities. Until recent generations, most people understood most technologies they used in their daily lives. Even in the early 20th century, many individuals in each community could control most of the transportation, communication, and production technologies that were encountered in the average community.

Today, we live in an era of ever-increasing specialization where an ever-shrinking number of ever more insulated technogically savvy elites are necessary to build, repair and maintain the technologies we each use in our daily lives. This trend destroys an individual's sense of power over her own life, and a small community's as well. Isolated specialists are depended upon to keep an individual's and a community's "house" in order.

Solution: Fight the urge to adopt all the latest communications and other technologies with the balancing urge to keep life simple. Try to acquire and use technologies in your daily lives that you have some basic understanding. Avoid being completely dominated by "black boxes" in your daily lives. 30 Technology for the elderly

Problem: The elderly continue to suffer isolation. The problem only being compounded as technology becomes faster and more complicated.

Solution: Campaign for free or discounted computers and education to increase a sense of community. 31 Free computers and Internet access for everyone Problem: Technology expenses limit civic participation and perpetuates the existing socio-economic divides.

Solution: Non-profit organizations should be established to be distributors of "old" resources to organizations with need. Government and public sector funding should be established to fund access. These same organizations should be charged with developing wireless network technologies to provide low cost infrastructure to help support the free access.

32 Ending Scarcity in the digital age

Problem: There is increasing scarcity of physical resources.

Solution: Get on computers.