 | As Ehrenhalt points out, we each have overlapping and intersecting memberships in a variety of communities. In a more bounded world, there are more likely to be more overlappings and intersections. A good study of this phenomenon was done some years ago by Herbert Gans, entitled The Urban Villagers. There are a number of such works, each exploring descriptive or critically, how life in, say, the West End of Boston in the mid-Twentieth Century, was in many ways similar to life in the Eighteenth Century, or to contemporary life in a village in Tuscany or hill town in Provence.
If one looks at life in one of the urban villages of Chicago (neighborhoods, parishes) in the 1950s, what is most striking, in its similarities to and differences from today? Many of you have seen "Back to the Future," or films of that type. Consider Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court;the Lynds' Middletown, the film, "Pleasantville". When reading about or viewing works with such themes, most of us feel that we could survive there, although with some challenges. Put some of your thoughts about what would be easiest, what hardest, about so doing, in your contribution to the Discussion Area.
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