We see the word 'community' a lot in these pages, but how big is a community? We can use Tom Watson's discussion of the term 'neighbourhood' as a proxy for this question. The answer depends on who you ask (though a very informal poll makes it less than 1,000 rather than some larger number). When you ask actual people to define a neighbourhood, "the answers were never about population counts (although the numbers were in the 4k range). People drew lines around a few streets. A park. The shop. The school run. The boundaries were small, personal, and there was nuance and disagreement." Contrast that with a definition that "becomes a unit of administration dressed up as a unit of belonging. A word borrowed to make bureaucracy feel human." What's the test? "Would the people inside the line say it's theirs? If yes, you've defined a neighbourhood. If no, you've defined a delivery area."
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