The prospects of local communities in a post-industrial society

The article aims to identify the opportunities for the development of local communities in a post-industrial society. The main characteristics of post-industrialism concepts were analyzed in this research. The works of Russian and foreign authors in the field of community development were also investigated. Since some features of a post-industrial society could manifest themselves in earlier periods, the author applied the principle of historicism and analyzed certain advanced local communities of the 20th century. This approach allows identifying new opportunities that open up for local communities in post-industrialism. By descrying research issues, the author identified external and internal factors affecting the creation, development, and sustainable existence of local communities. Since a post-industrial society is accompanied by an accelerated exchange of information, one of the key tasks in the study was to assess the impact of developing communications, particularly, the Internet, on communities. In considering this issue, the author relied on the network logic of a system introduced by M. Castells. The following substantial results were obtained during the research. The determining factor for a local community will not be a space of places, but a space of flows in the post-industrial era. Spatial proximity is replaced by Internet proximity and proximity to other means of communication. All this determines the multiple acceleration of the pace of community building. Based on this, the author refined the changing characteristics of locality for the communities under study. Creating conditions for self-sufficiency is an important task for a successful development of local communities. The development of communities' economic welfare in a post-industrial society must take into account the nature of the changes that are taking place. Clear prospects for post-industrial communities appear when extending activities through service delivery, creative and research work. Local communities transform both structurally and functionally. The structure of local communities will shift to elements of a social structure that unite people according to their professional affiliation and common interests. This creates the preconditions for the formation of local communities in organizations. The author believes that approximation to a formal organization in the functional aspect will be promising for sustainable livelihood of communities. Thus, the author revealed a trend towards the convergence of local communities and organizations. At the same time, she noted that interests of a local community can be purposely formed. The assistance of the state will be crucial for communities in this restructuring.

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