‘Bowling Alone The Collapse and Revival of American...

‘Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community’ by Robert Putnam In his book, ‘Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community’, Robert Putnam discusses ways in which Americans have disengaged from political involvement and civil organisations. Much of his reasoned writing is corroborated by a collation of graphs and figures to explain the quality of American community. In this essay I shall evaluate the proof offered by Putnam to support his claim that community is in a decline in the U.S. To do this I must first provide a working definition of ‘community,’ a term with wide implications and varied definitions depending on the context of its usage. Putnam uses it†¦show more content†¦Census Bureau (Associated Press, 1991). Otherwise known as suburbanisation or urban sprawl, Putnam is critical of this trend and goes so far as to call it ‘deadly for a community’ (Putnam, 2003). He argues that as people live further from their place of work they spend more and more time commuting betwee n the two, thus reducing the time they have to develop relationships and community ties at either end and creating a conflict of allegiance where it is unclear where you should be basing your community. IT and transportation developments have habitually been seen to lift people out of their reliance on local community and can further differentiate home life and work life from each other and from the wider community. Wirth predicted the major problems and dissatisfactions of people living in suburbs in the 1930s, arguing that they were becoming depersonalized, isolated and alienating, the lack of distance between people leading to a ‘melting-pot’ effect whereby primary relationships are broken down (Wirth, 1964). These ideas were taken up by Whyte who believed the suburbs attracted a particular type of person, a white-collar worker who transformed the suburb into the home of the alienated man. However, it could be argued that issues regarding a person’s place of residence remain at the heart of the population’s concerns,Show MoreRelatedThe Collapse And Revival Of American Community By Robert Putnam1382 Words   |  6 Pages In his famous book Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community, Robert Putnam charted the decline in social capital and social institutions since the 1950s while arguing that a vibrant and successful democracy ultimately requires significant engagement from a wide segment of its population. This argument was something that even concerned Tocqueville (2006) regarding the American Experiment. Tocqueville marveled in the strengths of organizations such as the church in America. 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