Commonplaces: Community Ideology and Identity in American Culture

David Mark Hummon

SUNY Press, Jan 1, 1990 - Social Science - 236 pages

This book interprets popular American belief and sentiment about cities, suburbs, and small towns in terms of community ideologies. Based on in-depth interviews with residents of American communities, it shows how people construct a sense of identity based on their communities, and how they perceive and explain community problems (e.g., why cities have more crime than their suburban and rural counterparts) in terms of this identity.

Hummon reveals the changing role of place imagery in contemporary society and offers an interpretation of American culture by treating commonplaces of community belief in an uncommon way--as facets of competing community ideologies. He argues that by adopting such ideologies, people are able to "make sense" of reality and their place in the everyday world.

Contents

• Community Perspectives Community Ideology and American Society: 3
• Commonplaces about Community Belief: 5
• Perspective Ideology and Society: 11
• Minding Community The Interpretation of Community Belief and Sentiment: 15
• An Interdisciplinary Excursus: 16
• Community Ideology as a Cultural System: 37
• Urbanists Villagers and Suburbanists: 40
• Symbolic Landscapes: 45
• SmallTown Ideology: 47
• Valleytown and its Perspective: 51
• The Symbolic Landscape: 65
• Urban Ideology: 69
• Urbanists Reluctant Urbanites and City Boosters: 71
• The Interpretive Perspective of Urban Ideology: 75
• Interpreting Urban Imagery: 92
• Suburban Ideology: 95
• Suburban Ideology: 98
• Suburban Ideology and White Flight: 105
• Villagers and Urbanists in Suburbia: 109
• Ideology and Suburbia: 114
• The Uses of Community Ideology: 117
• Community Apologetics Ideology Accounts and Community Problems: 119
• Accounting for Friendliness: 121
• Accounting for Safety and Crime: 128
• Ideology Explanation and Commitment: 138
• Community Identity: 141
• Identity and Ideology: 142
• On Being a City Person: 143
• Community Identity as SelfConception: 148
• Without Community Identity: 157
• Community Identity and American Society: 161
• Conclusion: 165
• Community Ideology and American Culture: 167
• Community Ideology Perspective and American Culture: 169
• Community Perspectives and American Values: 172
• Community Ideology as Moral Perspective: 179
• Researching Community Ideology Reflections on Method: 183
• The Place Image Survey: 184
• The Emerging Strategy: 187
• Analysis and Community Ideology: 191
• Afterthoughts and Beyond: 197
• Notes: 201
• Bibliography: 213
• Index: 229

About the author

David M. Hummon is Associate Professor of Sociology at Holy Cross College.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Commonplaces: Community Ideology and Identity in American Culture; SUNY series in the sociology of culture; Suny Series, Feminist Theory in Education
• Author: David Mark Hummon
• Edition: illustrated
• Publisher: SUNY Press, 1990
• ISBN: 0791402754, 9780791402757
• Length: 236 pages
• Subjects: Social Science / General; Social Science / Sociology / Urban