The Second Mountain

In Chapter 23, Brooks uses a myriad of examples to muse about the values of good neighborhoods in the first of two chapters focusing on community building. He discusses the value of a “rich community” (266). This is not a wealthy community but one with tight social bonds where people care about one another, watch each other’s children, etc. In opposition to this, there are communities in which no one really knows anyone else and don’t care to. Brooks connects this to the suicide epidemic, chronic loneliness, and political polarization. He believes American culture might be a war between “social rippers” (first-mountain proponents) and “social weavers,” i.e., community builders working on local levels. He notes that this battle occurs, in large part, within the human heart (269). He discusses the “sticky and inefficient relationships” of communities and neighborhoods, that they are bound by more than the parameters of individual optimization. Despite this, Brooks believes that the neighborhood is “the unit of change” and focuses his efforts on building communities at the local level (272). He notes that philanthropists attempt to have “impacts” on communities, but there is no “silver bullet,” and the endless number of positive relations available in good communities is a better pathway for change.