Toward an Operational Definition of Community.

Definitions of community in current usage are many and usually vague and non-isolating. A definition which would have wide acceptability and utility, would be one which was operational and included people in interaction in a given area. This paper works toward such a definition. It presents a number of criteria considered essential for an operational definition of community. These include: people, sets of interrelated centers, the pooling of information at such centers, and the distribution of the information pooled to people connected to sets of centers. It is suggested that the use of the operational criteria for community will help us to "find" the community in cities. Further, that approaching communities as sets of interrelated centers, generates interesting and testable hypotheses about (1) the relationship between types of communities and culture change and persistence, and (2) the relationship between types of communities and cultural forms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]