If you don't get communities, you're not paying attention

I was asked whether we expect people in deprived areas to collaborate in a way we would never expect people living in a more prosperous area to act. I, for example, know only two lots of neighbours on my street, and have never done anything more challenging with either of them than share a glass of Sancerre. This contrasts sharply with the view that people living in run-down areas all want to turn out on a wet evening in November to discuss the latest council wheeze for improving their estate.

The problem with the debate is that, in rightly ridiculing a viewpoint of community that seems fixed some time just after the Second World War, the Sancerre-quaffing commentators have a tendency to reject the importance of the geography of communities. They suppose the onset of a remote, digital age, of a transition to a world made up solely of communities of interest.

I reject this analysis. My reality, as lived by me, is that for as long as we gather together to live in shared settlements, the interaction of neighbourhood life with our human spirits will ensure that the idea and reality of the "community" will remain a cornerstone for our lives.

This has been brought back home to me recently in reading If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things, the breathtaking debut novel by Nottingham author Jon McGregor. Told with an unerring eye for detail, the story describes a day in the life of an ordinary street in an unnamed Northern town.

My reality, as lived by me, is that for as long as we gather together to live in shared settlements, the idea of ‘community’ will remain a cornerstone

McGregor reveals myriad connections between the residents, many of them unspoken, indirect and random, some of them minor in action but significant in their impact. Ordinary events provoke memories and emotions around bereavement, infertility, war, birth, romance and departure.

The community McGregor describes is clearly not made up of the buildings and spaces, although they provide the backcloth and props and exert influence. Rather, the community is the people who live there, even those who have never shared so much as a conversation. Often inadvertently, the impact of their actions breaks through the racial divides and generation gaps.

I was still pondering on this beautiful narrative on a visit to Leeds last week. I saw the truths of the book mirrored in the people I met living on a William Sutton Trust estate on the edge of Primrose Valley. This estate is a beacon of regeneration in an area of east Leeds characterised by low demand and social stigmatisation. Some of the community involvement I witnessed was highly directive and interactive, for example, in raising money for green spaces along the Wyke Beck. But I suspect that much of what glues this community together is far more informal – people sitting on the terrace overlooking the children's playground or buying one of the mouth-watering bacon butties served in the community centre. In this one estate, there were clearly many, many actions and interactions – positive, negative and neutral – that were spinning an evolving web of community identity.