Where do Communities come from?

Communities is one of those ideas that I think often bypasses thought and becomes a terminology we use carelessly. The thought struck me as I was listening to an interview with Ben Francis, founder, and majority shareholder of Gymshark, a business founded in a garage a few years ago and now with a value approaching a billion dollars.

What stood out was the groundedness of this 29-year-old as he was questioned about IPO’s. growth, and the rationale for his first bricks and mortar store. He said “this is all about community, it always has been.” Money as fuel, not as goal. He has an idea of what this community could look like in thirty years, and that is what he has his eye on. It was so wonderful to hear in amongst the rest of the near term, economy obsessed news stream.

It got me to thinking – where do communities come from? It used to be easy – it was where we were born - two hundred years ago, most people could travel only as far as their feet would take them. Even by the end of the n…