Communities are not fungible

I think the authors point about history is a key element of this. If I can track how the community has evolved and changed, I can still identify that community in its current form as the sum of all its changes.

I’m not sure that holds true if an outside entity tries to dismantle and rebuild the existing community without the context of the history.

Despite humans being a natural part of our planet, and thus an end to an ecosystem could be considered natural in some way, we are unique in our ability to challenge and question our natural ways. Maybe we should be exempting ourselves from the natural order of things and working to allow the natural course of an ecosystem to die out on its own. Then we have the ability to inhabit and change without having destroyed in the process.

Idk, additional things to muse on.

I kind of wonder if ecosystems might be a better analogy. although ecosystems can change and adapt, they can also die.

Yes, a community is always evolving, but there's a lower level culture, the textile as Westenberg puts it. Even though some people leave, their mark on the textile remains, and newcomers are got affected by that.

This is the same substance which makes "company culture", but applied in a different context. The people coming in are partly shaped by that while bringing in their own. This is what triggers that evolution. Same is true for leaving people. They'll mix what they bring to the new community they join. Oftentimes is has an effect, rarely it doesn't. As you said there are also other variables that the community can't control.

The beauty arises from that mix. The connections maybe temporary, but the effects are small, yet permanent and profound. That's the sediment which collects at the bottom, builds the history and shared values step by step.

It's not the change we shall be trying to snapshot and keep alive, but the meta-organism which happens to be and evolves over time. Nobody is trying to stop that change, but prevent the killing of these meta-organisms which forms the basic building block of a society. Because these structures becomes stronger and resilient as they evolve, regardless of who comes and goes.

Seeing the same people on your neighborhood even though you don't even talk to them creates an invisible mortar and layer of trust and safety. This is one of the most important things in a community.

You need to preserve that fabric. Not the people, connections and "state" of that community. As an extreme example, you can find this fabric between people even in the most "dangerous" neighborhoods. Because they are dangerous for outsiders. Not for the people who're living in that. There's always an equilibrium and a layer of authenticity even under all that violence and nastiness.

Then I saw the footer, with other blinking cursor and a scrolling line thrown in for good measure. Awful design.