Lazy Eyes

Okay, so:

I'm majoring in Community and Regional Development, and I've been studying and learning a myriad of subjective theories and definitions regarding the concept of "community." Everybody seems to have a different idea of what community actually represents, and they all apparently feel the need to justify their ideas with graphs, interviews, surveys, etc.
I have a different theory of what community means; one that transcends time. Community is a process. It's a process that transcends time; it begins and ends, just like the lives of those that occupy it. The best I can explain it is to give a hypothetical neighborhood. A new block of homes is built, and the majority of the families that move in are young families: families with one or two very young children. The design of the area encourages neighbors to get to know each other, and eventually all the children are friends and grow up in this area together (kids move away due to their parents getting jobs elsewhere- globalization). As the kids grow up and begin to move out of their homes, the parents (who are also friends as they have raised their kids together) age together, and while some will probably go to senior homes, they all eventually die together in this same neighborhood. Then it's over for that set of families. That particular community is gone. However, those kids are still alive, and many are starting their own families (this generally happens when the parents are still alive). Those kids then move into new neighborhoods, and the process starts over again.
It's a rudimentary theory. I literally just thought of it while reading Robert Sampson's "What Community Supplies." It just seems like people are going at it in all these different ways, but they're not considering that time has anything to do with the equation. Every theory, every definition I read, I am forced to picture a neighborhood that stands still. Nobody grows up, nobody moves away, nobody's job gets outsourced. I don't think that you can effectively define community without accounting for the fact that things happen, that history happens, and that these things have a real impact on peoples' lives. Community is a dynamic thing; you can't limit it to the present. You have to take into account that people change, their life situations change, their ambitions change.
There is one obstacle I see regarding the theory that all these kids grow up together. Globalization is becoming an increasingly imposing concept in our lives. As the world gets smaller, people begin to have relationships across oceans. People move away. I don't think it would be so much of an obstacle to community that it would actually have an impact on the community. Much more so, it would have an impact on the family that moved away.
I don't know, maybe this is just another subjective theory. But at least it comes from a different angle than any about which I've ever read.
And what's this about community development? Communities develop on their own, don't they? The fact that people have to come up with designs, ways, reasons, excuses to interact with each other seems very scientific and unnatural to me. Just get a dog or a cat. Everybody loves pets, they always seem to attract people (especially kids). They start petting your dog, saying how cute it is and before you know it, you know everybody in the city and life is great!

Take that, Sampson.