Stuff: The positive power of community connection

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If I told you that not being involved in a community group could be as bad for your health as becoming a smoker, you might think me deranged. But it’s true.

The insight stems from Robert Putnam’s classic American work Bowling Alone, which charted the decline of church groups, political parties, parent-teacher associations and even – as per the book’s title – bowling leagues. Because we are social animals, Putnam argued, our well-being relies heavily on positive, repeated contact with others. Community connections furnish emotional and financial support in tough times. Dwindling group membership thus spells bad news for people’s health.

Such facts seem relevant now, at the end of a strange year, as an increasingly divided New Zealand contemplates its frayed social fabric. February’s occupation of Parliament grounds has left a lingering disquiet and a sense that some people are splintering off from the rest of society – and indeed from the real world.

Research by the Helen Clark Foundation shows many New Zealanders are often lonely, especially the young and the poor. We are more atomised, too. Working from home, though a welcome revolution in many ways, has weakened office-based ties that were a major source of social connection.

Stronger communities could salve many of these wounds. Ironically, given the traditional distrust of the “mob mentality”, it is those with powerful community ties who are least likely to be picked off by dangerous, anti-democratic demagogues. Local bonds, whether tight or loose, can also fill in the gaps left by loneliness and help individuals find common ground.

It’s surprising, then, that mainstream politics has so little to say about community. If the word crops up in Jacinda Ardern’s speeches, for instance, it is as a token reference, shorn of real content.

Labour, supposedly the party of collective values, lacks a consistent vision for the life we might lead together, as opposed to what the party might do for individuals. Its Covid-fighting “team of five million” concept did useful work, but at a national not local level, and has in any case faded away in the post-lockdown era.

Yet most people, I think, thirst for a life that is rich in connections with others. By and large, they want to put down roots, know their neighbours, take part in community sports and festivals, and feel the growth of a dense web of bonds, ties and relations that can hold them in the warmth of others’ regard. These connections can be both a source of joy and a reservoir of strength.

While the decline of community life has probably been less precipitous here than in the US, we have still seen church, party and union membership dwindle under the influence of a market-based, hyper-individualised worldview. Nearly half of New Zealanders, official statistics show, have no supportive neighbours – even though that is overwhelmingly what they would like.

I see two main reasons why politics has failed to answer these needs. The first is the liberal fear that a community-promoting agenda might allow the many to dominate the one.

But the idea is not to force anyone into joining the local residents’ association against their will. If people want to stay home and watch Netflix, they can. The point is simply to enable community connection for those who want it.

The second obstacle is the belief that governments can’t create strong communities. And indeed they cannot. But they can lay the foundations.

Higher wages, for instance, would let people work fewer hours and take on more community commitments. Tougher regulation of the gig economy would give precarious workers more predictable shift patterns, helping them commit to coaching their children’s rugby team.

Greater security of tenure would allow renters to more confidently put down roots. Multigenerational housing would enable grandparents to live alongside grandchildren.

Such an agenda would respond to Māori ambitions to create communities oriented around whakapapa and manaakitanga. And it could be more broadly popular. Global polling shows people are happy to pay more tax for better public services – but they want the money spent locally.

The politics of community needn’t be hyper-partisan. The prime minister, who grew up in Morrinsville with a school-assistant mother and police-officer father, can speak convincingly about the virtue of small-town connections. But Chris Luxon can equally well testify to the solidarity that a religious community provides.

Either way, we need a positive vision for this politics – because it can also take on a darker hue. In the hands of the “trad wives” movement, for instance, it becomes a cover for a coercive, nostalgic vision, one based on supposedly ideal communities that in fact kept women and others firmly in their place.

Communities, after all, can oppress as well as support. So we need a politics that harnesses the latter, not the former. Because that desire for connection isn’t about to dissipate.