If not YOU, then who? If not NOW, then when? Behind the vision; a future-focused perspective. I grew up in the former Burns Heights housing project in Duquesne, PA, graduated from the now-closed Duquesne Senior High School, during a time when there was a strong sense of community. We may not have had much materially, but we had one another. Neighbors looked out for neighbors, children were watched over by the entire community, and there was a sense that we were all connected.
Death by gunfire was rare—it certainly was not the norm. Minor disagreements did not automatically escalate into someone losing their life. At most, there might have been a fight, but afterward, we moved on. There was an understanding that a disagreement did not have to become a permanent tragedy.
We respected one another, and we knew we could depend on each other. There was a sense of accountability, belonging, and community pride. What we lacked in possessions, we often made up for in relationships. Burns Heights was more than a housing project to us. It was our neighborhood, our community, and our home. Life there was not perfect—we had our share of problems and struggles—but beneath it all was a genuine sense of community that kept us connected to one another.
Back in the day
Back in the day, community was not something we talked about—it was something we lived.
People knew their neighbors. Adults knew the children who lived in the community, and children knew there were adults other than their parents who were paying attention. If you were doing something you had no business doing, there was a good chance somebody would see you, correct you, and your parents might know about it before you made it home.
There were disagreements. There were fights. There were difficult families and difficult circumstances. Poverty was real, and life was not always easy. But conflict did not routinely carry the expectation that somebody might die.
There seemed to be an unwritten understanding that even when we were angry with one another, we still had to live together afterward.
That mattered.
We borrowed from one another. We checked on one another. We sat outside and talked. Children played together. People knew when someone was sick, when a family was struggling, or when somebody needed a little help.
We did not call it “community engagement.”
It was simply what neighbors did.
Now
Somewhere along the way, much of that connection began to weaken.
In too many communities today, people can live only a few doors apart and barely know one another. Children can grow up surrounded by people but still feel as though they are facing life alone. Families are carrying enormous pressures, and many of the relationships and informal support systems that once helped communities absorb those pressures have become fragile or disappeared altogether.
Social media has given us the ability to communicate instantly while sometimes making genuine human connection more difficult. An argument that once ended on the playground or the front porch can now continue online, gather an audience, become more humiliating, and escalate long after the original disagreement should have ended.
And when anger meets easy access to a gun, a temporary emotion can create a permanent consequence.
A disagreement that should last ten minutes can end a life.
Then another life is changed through incarceration.
Parents lose children. Children lose parents. Families grieve. Friends retaliate. Neighborhoods become afraid. And another generation begins learning that violence is simply part of life.
It should never become normal.
What Happened to the Village?
There is probably no single answer.
Communities changed. Families changed. Economic pressures changed. Neighborhood institutions changed. Technology changed the way we communicate. People became more transient. Trust weakened. Many gathering places disappeared. Trauma accumulated, often without being acknowledged or addressed.
And perhaps one of the greatest losses was our sense of collective responsibility for one another.
We slowly moved from “those are our children” to “that's not my child.”
From “that's my neighbor” to “that's not my business.”
From knowing the people around us to sometimes not even knowing their names.
But if community can be weakened, community can also be rebuilt.
Rebuilding the Village
We cannot recreate yesterday exactly as it was, nor should we pretend everything about the past was better. But we can recover some of the values that helped communities survive difficult times.
It begins with relationships.
We have to know our neighbors again.
We have to create safe spaces where children and teenagers can gather, talk, learn, be mentored, and simply belong. Young people need adults who know their names before they ever get into trouble—not adults who meet them for the first time after something tragic happens.
We need elders sharing wisdom and young people knowing that their voices matter too.
We need parents supporting one another instead of struggling in isolation.
We need churches, schools, community organizations, businesses, neighborhood groups, former residents, public officials, and ordinary citizens working together instead of functioning as separate islands.
We need to teach conflict resolution as intentionally as we teach anything else—to remind young people that walking away is not weakness, apologizing is not weakness, and every insult does not require a response.
Most importantly, we have to restore a sense that every life in the neighborhood has value.
Community is not rebuilt through one program, one meeting, one organization, or one person.
It happens when enough people decide:
I will know my neighbor.
I will speak to that child.
I will check on that family.
I will mentor someone.
I will intervene before the crisis.
I will help create the kind of neighborhood where people know they belong.
Maybe rebuilding our communities begins by remembering something many of us once knew instinctively:
We belong to one another.
The village was never perfect. Duquesne, and especially Burns Heights, certainly wasn't perfect. But there was a time when we understood that our lives were connected—that what happened to one family ultimately affected all of us.
Perhaps the goal is not to go backward.
Perhaps the goal is to carry the best of what we had forward.
To rebuild trust.
To restore connection.
To teach our children that disagreement does not have to become destruction.
And to create communities where looking out for one another becomes normal again.
We may not be able to recreate the village many remember, but together, we can build a village worthy of the generations to come.
