The Ten Commandments of Communityrnby Richard D. LammrnWe arc sailing into a new world of publie policy—a worldrnas strange and new as Cohnnbus discovered. It is arnworid where infinite government demands have run straight intornfinite resourees. It is an America made up inereasingh’ of di-rncrse jjeople. At current immigration patterns, bv 2040, therernwill not be a dominant ethnic group in America. c will all bernminorities. We are the only eountr’ in history that eer deliberatelyrnchanged its ethnic makeup, and history has few examplesrnof “diversitv” creating a stable society.rnAmerica is an aging society whose wealth is not accumulatingrnat historic rates. Most of our institutional memories andrnpolitical culture come out of the 1950’s and m60’s, whenrnAmerica was largelv European in makeup and was doubling itsrnper capita wealth every 30 to 40 years. Government had a substantialrn’early growth di’idend it could spend. No\’, a muchrnmore diverse America is the worst country in the industrializedrnwodd at creating wealth (it now takes approximatch 130 carsrnto double our per capita wealth). b go into debt to maintainrncurrent levels of government. Being in government today is likernsleeping with a blanket that is too short: we do not hae the resourcesrnto co’cr all our current promises. Compounding thern]3roblem is the growing economic disparitv, with a small percentrnat the top of the economic ladder creating most of the newrnwealth.rnWe already li e in a time of unprecedented tension betweenrnRichard D. Lamm, governor of Colorado from J 975 to 1987, isrndirector of the Center for PubUc PoUcy and Contemporary Issuesrnat the University of Denver. He was a Reform Party candidaternfor the presidency of the L’nited States.rnthe races, sexes—even generations and religions. Because arnmore crowded, more diverse, and less wcalthv country mustrngive serious thought to what “social glue” is necessary to hold itrntogether, it is imperative for us to understand what a “coiiimunit”rnis and how it is formed and reinforced. As Marcel Proustrnhas said, “The real ()age of diseovcr consists not in seekingrnnew lands, but in seeing with new eyes.”rnLet us look with “new eves” at communitv. A eommunit isrnmuch more than a place on a map. It is a state of mind, arnshared ision, a common fate that is forged b’ dedication, work,rntolerance, and loe. The eommunit passed on to us h ourrnforefathers will not ine itabK be passed on to our children, forrneoniiiiunit- is not a guarantee but a continuing challenge.rnThe results of not building a communit}” are evident evervwhcrc,rnin Bosnia, Chechnva, Sri Lanka, Quebec, and Rwanda.rnWhat is going on today in Azerliaijan and Bosnia is not a failurernof communism; it is failure of eommunit. 4 he Serbs, Slovenians,rnCroats, and Bosnians were killing each other long beforernMarx was born. Bosnia, in fact, traumatized as it is, is far lessrndiverse than the llnitcd States, but we formed a communitvrn{E Phirihus Vnum) and Bosnia did not.rnIn light of our new social and economic realities, therefore,rnwc must reconsider those elements that build communitv andrnthose that tend to pull community apart, such as race, religion,rnand ethnicitv. Melting pots that do not melt become pressurerncookers, and diversit^ carried too far is dangeroush divisive.rnBuilding better communities, then, should be highlv importantrnpublic policy and critical to our public and private futures.rnI should thus like to offer “Ten Commandments of Communit”rn—ten building blocks which are imperative as we tr to le-rnNOVEMBER 1996/27rnrnrn