A New Spirit in the Village

Montgomery Village. It’s where we live, make our homes, but what kind of community is it? And more importantly, what kind of community do we want it to be? The writer H.G. Wells once tried to distinguish two types of communities: 

• Communities of Obedience, which were organic, comprehensive, and balanced. These communities rose out of a shared surrender of individual authority to a greater discipline. Wells argued that they produced ordered, stable states, and could readily offer the benefits of what he viewed as civilization to their participants. But there is a downside: the grant of authority, once made, was hard to reclaim, and many common problems went unaddressed because so many parties had to agree before action was taken.

• Communities of Will, which were focused, fluid, directive, and above all, restless. The powers of the individual were jealously guarded here. The community bent quickly to the direction of the strongest leader or strongest party. Here, might made right without the need for apology. Common
  rules were to be enforced without mercy or limit—simply for the sake of consistency. The primary difficulties in communities of will were the creation of factions and the inability to compromise.

Of course, that’s oversimplifying things. These two opposites serve to remind us of the boundary lines in making our choices. Personally, I find that for a community to rely solely on one or the other approach produces difficulties. 

Communities of Obedience tend to stagnate, becoming more and more resistant to change, and indeed history shows many Empires[1] that fell in part because they could not see the alternative coming at them. Communities of Will have an opposite problem, in that they often suffer from a kind of attention deficit disorder—too many factions driving too many agendas pushing too hard for the extremes.

So where do we begin? I would assert that we need to consider a middle ground—balancing the ability to change (new construction, revitalization of key civic architecture and facilities) against the need to retain the best of what makes our community both beautiful and livable. Whether or not we want to recognize it, Metropolitan Washington has come to our doorstep—Montgomery County has grown into our secluded suburban enclave of 1975.  With that growth comes demand for more infrastructure (transportation, energy, water and sanitation, schools and public services), more housing, and more requirements to manage conflict. The economy isn’t going to rebound in a hurry, and a guaranteed upward spiral in housing prices is a thing of the past. Add the fact that we are coming to the end of the service life of many of the assets Kettler Brothers installed a generation ago, and one comes to a conclusion that whatever life in the Village will be in the 2020s and beyond, it won’t be a copy of a past “Golden Age.” 

Yet for all that, we recently were ranked as the 40th best place to live in a recent national survey of small towns across the country. We are beginning to face our issues as a community—the Long Range Facility plan may not suit everyone to the last item, but it’s a great work and the start of real progress. The Vision 2030 committee is likewise struggling to develop a new plan to carry us forward into the next generation. We are learning to do that which conventional governments have not—build a capital budget that allows us to manage long-term vs. short-term expenditure. Argue with the line items as you will, these efforts allow us to develop at least some consensus and to engage with planners and government in a positive way—and that is the basis for both conservation of our best assets and sane, productive redevelopment where required.

In the classic Marx brothers movie, "Horse Feathers"  Groucho sang a tune called: "Whatever it is, I’m Against It!" What was farce in 1934 threatens to be tragedy today. We can no longer afford to be so jealous of our grant of authority that we refuse to come together, and we can no longer afford to gather complete unanimity before proceeding with any action. 

We must learn to support each other, to risk trust where possible. Each section, each neighborhood, each interest group must learn to overcome its natural limitations to empower a larger, more effective and ultimately more desirable vision of community. Change is, at its core, painful and risky. But we can either attempt to direct it or become its victim. I recommend we try to direct it. We won’t succeed everywhere, but the alternative is to withdraw into an increasingly unreal and unsustainable fantasy, which will be treated ever more harshly by the changing world around us. We need to find ways to address our faults without “bad-mouthing” our neighborhoods. 

We need to be honest about our shortcomings without giving into to despair because the problems are large and integrated into the fabric of our area and the times. We weren't ranked in the top communities in the nation because we are failures, but in spite of our issues. I'd rather spend our time and money and effort improving our community and its ranking, rather than running us down because aren't yet "perfect," trying to find solutions rather than simply "stirring the pot" without apparent effect.

A little kindness goes a long way to building kinship. The words come from a common root, and that’s not an accident. In short, we must learn over and over again the arts of positive compromise, balance and tolerance. That, I feel, is the path to the most inclusive, most enduring and most desirable community we can become.

[1] Commercial empires are included in this: see the histories of any of the great railroads, American automobile companies, or steel manufacrers for examples.