Community in the new epoch: the social ergonomics of community design

Abstract

‘Community’ as both location and structure of relationships is undergoing change. In the Western world the rate of changes will inevitably accelerate in this new century. Our predictions include: the vast growth of cyber communities, and an increasing bandwidth, immersivity and interactivity in such communities; the expansion of the surveillance age in urban and rural communities, as rampant public crime works against community safety; an increased emphasis on social control in highly conservative communities that foster conformity; the development of Smart Towns with every service, facility and communication accessed by fibre-optic cable technology. Style will become a major priority in the 2025 community. The gurus of the age will be the Community Designers. At first these will be multi-disciplinary visionaries, who will be accorded the fame and celebrity of late-twentieth-century film stars. Their ideas for planned communities will take into account the above, but also offer grand schemes for the development of theme towns. Our scenarios indicate the continuing need by many citizens for ideals and ideology of traditional community life, but encased in new guises, with individual well-being and entertainment as priority. In general, current trends of disenfranchisement through globalization, multinationals and non-consultative government act to increase the chances of our scenarios coming about. A major social change through political awakening of the young, global neo-environmental movements and other massive global paradigm shifts would mitigate against our scenarios. We see the latter as unlikely.