When it’s real, present and felt, community can be a source of social connection, belonging, shared purpose and meaning. More often – and increasingly, in the absence of other social safety nets – it’s invoked in the abstract as something we desire, or should be working toward.

Everywhere we go these days, there is talk about community - the developer SaaS tool, the soap brand, and virtually every product I interact with now prominently bears a Community link on their homepage. Personally, I don’t need more Slack groups or things to which I belong. What I want is deeper relationships with specific people where I can be... See more