BUILDING FOR SCHOOL AND COMMUNITY - Kennedy Bibliothek

g) Although the goal of community education is to provide either a
co-ordinated approach or one roof for all social services,
educational and recreational uses tend to dominate.
h) The problems of community schools are the problems of their
catchment areas. All co-ordinated projects which are imbedded
in a larger planning process act as models and directly influence
solutions sought in adjacent areas.
108. The two approaches to co-ordination on a city-wide scale, organic
growth and the interventionist approach, typify two extreme ends of a
continuum along which a limitless number of variations can be found. Each
case in the United States represents in a way a unique combination shaped,
by the specific local background and the characteristics of the people involved.
To attempt an analysis of a representative cross section, therefore,
proves to be an impossible task. All one can hope for is to show a panorama
and to increase understanding for some of the common problems in contrast
to the more special ones.
109. The community school movement in the United States seems far from
having reached its peak. A trend reversal seems not in sight, and whether
economic resources for education decline as in the recent past or increase
as in the late 60*s the mono-functional school building seems to be on the
way out. This applies to all regions and states even though most of our
examples have come from the East Coast and the Midwest. The school as the
historical community meeting ground seems as important today for exploring
new social patterns as it has been for the social life in the early pioneer
settlements. In the new suburbs which provide no core area or "main street"
the school often is the only focus for community activities, and the
natural starting point for additional social services. Planning and
architectural design, today, are in general, far more sensitive to this
point than ten years ago. But not only the new settlements depend on their
educational institutions for generating or supporting the necessary
additional recreational, cultural, health, and welfare services. Realising
and using the schools' potential for upgrading and regenerating older
urban areas, seems to become its most important asset in the future.
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