Community Health is a Civic Virtue

COMMUNITY HEALTH IS A CIVIC VIRTUE

My research starts with an assumption that Butte, Montana's present circumstances are not optimal and that we could be a better community than we are.

Presently, by most measures of civic health, we are in a state of dis-ease.

We live within one of the country's largest environmental injuries, one we hope is on-the-mend.

We suffer from the post-911 economic mallaise that grips most of the country, but hits post-industrial frontier lands especially hard.

Predatory businesses like pawn shops, casinos, title loan companies, and Wal Mart are a growing and conspicuous presence around town.

For systems to be considered healthy, they must live in a healthy environment. In Montana, its a constitutional right, the health of the environment is constituted in our polity because, to put it simply, we are made up of that which surrounds us. If we renew ourselves in an unhealthy environment, we are less likely to exist in a healthy state--kind of an analog of the digital notion of "garbage in, garbage out."

If community health requires renewal within a healthy environment, then the state of our environment's health can be viewed as resulting from virtuous practice as a community. Community health is a civic virtue, an expression of of our communal character.