Communities Reflection of Individual Personality

I’m sure everybody reading this is part of a community, but how do you determine whether a community is successful or if it requires additional work to reach its potential? Should a community celebrate that fact that they are a community. For example community A celebrates with parades, organized group events, community BBQ’s and they are extremely open with each other which they believe creates a better, stronger more attractive community than community B, which consist of home dwellers or a community that’s makeup consists of a more relax and not so“in your face” mentality. The only time Community B talks to other members are when the rainy season is upon them and the grass grows as high as the wheat fields and they are forced to cart the rusty old manual mower to cut down the grassy deviation, bandaging the rocky agreement of reciprocity and comradery between neighbours. Community A and community B have the same rate of crime, same level of satisfaction, and same middle range housing. Which community would you want to live in?

This is interesting because the decision distinctly represents your personality, if you are an out-going, extroverted people person you will most likely pick community A but if you are more of an introverted person you will pick community B and if you fall in the middle chances are the community itself will almost mould your personality into that of the community you live in. Kind of a scary thought, but if you live in a community dominated by gang violence and crime you are more likely to commit a crime than somebody that lives in community A. If community reflects individual personality, and individual personality reflects community, one could almost treat a community as a individual living entity.

Technology and Community

Technology is rapidly expanding to every corner of the world and with this technology comes new innovations, advancements in the way we live and more importantly in the way we communicate.
The internet has only been since 1993, but its effects on today society are colossal and to say that internet does not play role our lives in North America and even the world could be nothing further from the truth. The internet brings many useful applications, for example we know longer need to look at or purchase road maps, instead we can just "google map" are destination and receive step by step accurate instructions from point A to point B (free of charge of course). The internet helps people stay in touch, hotmail, g-mail, facebook, instant messaging are the most popular of their kind and millions take in the resources offered by these applications. I do agree the internet is a highly advances and useful device but is it a threat to a traditional community (a community that operates on a physically social networking of communication and organization). One could argue that facebook is a "road block" to community development limiting the amount of social networking within a community, but one could also argue that facebook itself is a community.

just wondering what others think on this issue?

Community development and Zoning Restrictions

Should calgary stop focusing on building more suburbs and focus more on a mixed zoning system.

The reason a city makes suburbs is because it is cheaper and less risky for the builder. Builders do not want to take the risk of creating a mixed-used project that blends businesses and residential areas together because the government will not subsidize them if they fail at making a profit. This is an issue of government laws working against a city trying to develop an adequate Infrastructure.
It only takes a year to build a home and after that we have to live with that structure for years and years; so it only makes sense to think about an appropriate place to build. Strategically thinking about a communities zoning laws can allow us to design inspiring communities that we as citizen can get exciting about.
Mixed zoning laws will also encourage a more active community.

Does the government need to subsidize failed projects from building taking on the risk of mixed zoning?