As I sit here in my office on a cold, sunny Alexandria day, I am watching as two small one-story office buildings across the street are being demolished to make way for a new multi-story mixed use project. It's amazing that just three workers and a couple pieces of heavy equipment can make so much noise and reduce these buildings to rubble in just a single morning, taking apart buildings that took the cooperative efforts of dozens or even hundreds of workers and weeks to build: architects to craft the vision, engineers to design the structure, skilled craft workers to do the masonry, electrical, plumbing, and other systems, and many others who contributed to construct buildings that were a successful, thriving place of business and employment for many years.
I guess I see some ironic parallels in the community association industry.
On the one hand we have literally millions of homeowners who are working to make their communities better places to live, serving on their boards, volunteering to staff events and activities, and building community each and every day. Together with management companies, professional community managers, and the many other professionals who support communities across the country, they are the builders who are committed to protecting property values, ensuring that communities serve all of their members, and giving of themselves and their time.
On the other hand, we have the folks bent on making a lot of noise and tearing down the work of others, the individuals who believe that there is no good community association, that all boards are corrupt, and that if you are happy in your community you are at best a dupe and at worst an unindicted co-conspirator in the great community association conspiracy, a conspiracy that exists only in their minds. Their goal is not to make communities better, their goal is to eliminate communities, to cripple them, and to turn every homeowner into a victim. They do not have a prescription for improvement, unless you call total destruction a reasonable and thoughtful prescription. Kind of like swatting a mosquito with a cruise missile.
The best way to protect and serve homeowners is to arm them with information and knowledge, to educate them on their rights and responsibilities. And that is what CAI and our members are all about. Building community and consensus is not easy, but it is not something we can or should outsource to a far off State House. Successful communities are built by connecting neighbors, empowering them, informing them, and always, always communicating. The siren call for greater regulation by the state, however alluring, can in the end result in disenfranchising homeowners, increasing costs, and eroding community values and sense of ownership.
So this vision outside my office window leads me to take a moment and express my heartfelt thanks to all of the CAI members out there who are the builders, to those who teach courses, participate in legislative initiatives, run youth programs, serve their communities, and work every day to build better and better communities. You are the ones who are making a positive difference in our industry, you are the builders. Just remember that it takes an awful lot of cooperative work by many dedicated, industrious people to fend off the efforts of the few who build nothing themselves, but seem to delight in tearing down the work of others.
Perhaps we should remember the wisdom of Theodore Roosevelt, who said "It behooves every man to remember that the work of the critic is of altogether secondary importance, and that in the end, progress is accomplished by the man who does things."
