Sense of Community in Burlington (Brattleboro, Putney: neighborhoods, university, live)

[arel]

How is the sense of community in Burlington? Is it too large for the kind of sense of community they have in Brattleboro and in some other towns?

Here in Brooklyn, sense of community is largely fragmented, at least in my experience. There is a sense of being a New Yorker, and/or a Brooklynite, but sense of community seems largely confined to smaller social units, e.g. a neighborhood (although not always) or an intentional group held together by a specific common interest. Brooklyn as a whole is simply too large and diverse for the kind of community you would find in a small town.

I can name at least one neighborhood (Gerriotsen Beach) in particular that I think has an impressive sense of community. It is deep in southern Brooklyn, by the water, about an hour from Manhattan (by bus and train).

Obviously, Burlington is not as big as Brooklyn, let alone NYC. But I'm wondering what its sense of community is like. Burlington is a city, not a small town. There is a transient population there because of the University. I have looked at iBurlington.com, although only briefly, and it seemed much more impersonal and less intimate than iBrattleboro or iPutney. I don't know if that really means anything, though.

[chaz longue]

The sense of community is one of the things I love most about Burlington.

[JimmyLane]

they have a community park near the University of Vermont which has a cool vibe. but a sense of community, i don't think so. i'd say it's a bit too touristy for that, between the geological museum at the bottom of the hill and the endless market street crowds. and don't even think of using the computers in the burlington public library without residency. i saw mostly college-type hippy-wanna-be's driving SUVs and expensive cars. a "party" town feel Burlington has.

[arel]

Woops. The neighborhood I referred to in my original post is Gerritsen Beach, not Gerriotsen Beach. I made a typo. It's a shame that we only have a short window to edit our posts, as there are always new type-os to discover, or changes to be made for style, or even for content.

[vter]

"Sense of Community" to me, is such an open-ended term. What do you mean exactly when you say that? If you join a church, you'll find it. A sports club, you'll find it, etc. etc. etc. If you are an artisit, you'll find a huge artist community. Music too.
I LOVE Burlington and think as a whole, it has a great community feel. There are lots of great neighborhoods in the City....most of which the tourists never see. The south end, old north end, new north end, etc. Many of these neighborhoods have events that bring people together, such as the South End Art Hop.

[arel]

That is the kind of sense of community we generally have in NYC. I was thinking about the kind of sense of community they have in Brattleboro, where there seems to be a town-wide sense of community. The town itself seems like a big group. That is the feeling I get from what I read (iBrattleboro) and and from what I experience there. Of course, my view could change if I actually lived there on a daily basis. Brattleboro seems to pride itself on its sense of community, but I'm sure the reality falls short of the ideal and some people have told me as much. Also, iBrattleboro is a small community in its own right, although an online one. Not everyone in Brattleboro uses iBrattleboro, and some people participate who do not live there. People, like me, participate because they are thinkng of moving there and people who moved away sometimes participate.

I think the sense of community in a small town has to be different from that in a city, even a small city, simply because of the size difference. It's not that one type of place has a better sense of community than the other.

But you are right. "Sense of community" is an open-ended term.

Wouldn't it be nice if people's sense of community, in some sense, went beyond their own social, racial, tribal, class, national or special interest groups and extended to the entire world?

[68vette]

I wouldn't call Burlington a City. It's more of a large town. vter is right on. It is an open ended term. I think you will find Burlington to be as community oriented as Brattleboro. It's a bigger town than Brattleboro, but you have that town feel to it. People are just as involved in what happens in Burlington as anywhere else in the state. There are more tourists and students here, but once you see past all that you can feel that sense of community.