Common Elements of the Ideal Community

What are some elements of the ideal community? If you embrace the Thomas Jefferson notion of the "practical idealist," you won't be guilty of King Arthur's mistake of having more vision and idealism than practical application. If you have practical idealism, you will have a sense of how to get from here to there, from where you are in current reality to where you can imagine yourself to be at some point in the future.

What are the elements of the ideal community of the future? I suggest that four apply equally to any ideal community.

1. One standard: principle-centered goodness. People seek to live in righteousness, to live by principles with respect for law and order. There is shared trust because of trustworthiness. It's a community of open doors and few locks. Honesty is prized; lying, cheating, and stealing are punished. People willingly adhere to natural laws and correct principles, knowing that lasting solutions to the very real social problems we face will be based on the principles of a shared vision and a synergistic approach.
2. One heart: vision and direction. People in this community place great value on being of one heart—on true obedience, not conformity. They recognize their interdependency. They know that business carries on enormous burden in modern society and that if the social environment is not conducive to business, the economy will suffer. They know that social problems don't stop at the employment door: problems of the community carry over into business. Members acknowledge the interdependency not only between business and the community but also between the profit and non-profit sectors. They use the key to success—connections, connections, connections—to build infrastructure in every area of our society, including government, business, industry, education, and nonprofit entities. They realize that each segment of society has to achieve a certain level of independence before it can reach out and become interdependent; the private victory precedes the public victory.
3. One mind: purpose, mission, and unity, not uniformity; oneness, not sameness. There is a community mission statement. Everyone is involved in developing it over a period of time, so that an ethic and a norm grow around it. It says, "In this community, we care about each other, and so our approach to problem solving is synergistic, not adversarial. We have forums for open communication, dialogue, and synergy." People value differences, even see them as strengths. They seek first to understand, sincerely, without an intent to manipulate others for personal gain or to close a sale.
4. Economic equality: no poor among them. The principle is that healthy, wealthy communities help sick, poor communities. At a Fortune 500 conference held in San Francisco, the topic for the morning session was "How are you going to stay at the top of your craft so you are there in five years?" Participants were divided into two groups and asked to address the question. In one group, someone accidentally started talking about what his company was doing to help the community. He reported that they couldn't hire people who were literate. Job applicants didn't know how to read. They didn't know how to solve problems. When he opened up this topic, the whole focus of the conference shifted, because there was so much energy behind it; it was so compelling that it eclipsed the other topic.