On the Disappearance of Community

By Karen Sternheimer

By now you have likely heard about the wildfires that devastated parts of Los Angeles in January 2025. The fires destroyed more than 10,000 homes, including my own.

Sociologists study the importance of communities in shaping individual and social life. We might think of ourselves as individuals seeking places to live that meet our personal needs, but communities shape our experiences of the spaces we inhabit. Community violence, for instance, can cause stress so severe that it impacts public health. Or in the case of my neighborhood, the people and setting added to a sense of well-being and belonging. We enjoyed walking in our neighborhood and hiking on the trails in the state park nearby. Ironically, we felt safe there.

Although news reports tend to focus on celebrities who lost their homes, most people in my neighborhood weren’t rich people living in mansions, but were part of a community that included many long-time residents who lived in modest homes, many of whom were retired or approaching retirement.

Our neighborhood was built in the 1970s, and some of my neighbors were among the first to buy homes in the development well before the price of housing in Los Angeles skyrocketed. According to the U.S. Federal Housing Finance Agency, home prices in Los Angeles have nearly quadrupled since 2000. Like us, many people who own homes that were destroyed did not cost nearly as much as they have sold for in recent years, but the high price of homes is one factor that kept many people from moving out of the community. And it was a special place to live; not only was it beautiful, but the community itself felt like a small town hiding in a big city.

I had written before about our community pool, where I swam three times a week. I got to know many of my neighbors this way, along with the small gym (maximum capacity 8) a few blocks from home. I’d see Willie, Justin, and Dan, who ran the rec center, nearly every day. They would call me to let me know if there would be tree trimming and a pool closure so I could plan accordingly. But more than their small acts of kindness, it was nice to see them and say hello and see how they were doing each day.

We’d look forward to seeing Rick, Steve, and Alan, who we dubbed the three amigos: long-time residents in their 70s approaching retirement who we befriended in the gym many years ago. They would drive to the pool, and we’d look to see if their cars were there in the mornings and try and get there in time to at least say hi. We talked about our families, vacations, health issues, and exchanged contacts for contractors when repairs were needed.

Hours evaporated over the last decade as we sat talking to them to others like Steven, an avid tennis player who we’d see in the jacuzzi on Sundays. There was Cyrus, who had an injury that kept him from swimming for a while, and Jana, an ultrarunner for whom swimming or going to the gym was a poor substitute for being out on the trails. She encouraged me to run my first race. There were countless others we’d see on walks and never knew their names (friendly dog lady, phone lady, and stick lady who used a walking stick), and people we’d see on nearby hiking trails enough to recognize and say hello. Our hiking acquaintance Armond lived just up the street from Rick and Alan.

The medical building where my doctor and dentist’s offices were also burned down. I had recently written about the small-world connection between my husband and my dentist’s husband, who grew up as neighbors in a nearby community that was also largely destroyed. I learned that my dentist’s home also burned down in the fire, just a few blocks from my mother-in-law, who also lost her home of 60 years. She not only lost her home, but also her community of friendly neighbors who looked out for her.

Across the street from the medical building, the grocery store where I shopped for decades is also gone. I’d try and get in Deborah, Lucy, or Doris’s cashier lane to say hi and chat, sometimes wondering to each other why the grocery store was such a popular hangout for kids from the local high school (which was severely damaged in the fire and is now closed indefinitely).

We are planning on going back someday, but we know it won’t be the same. Our home might be better: fire-hardened (hopefully), newer, and obviously less cluttered. But will the people still be there? Steve’s home was destroyed—cruelly, just 6 weeks after his wife’s death—and we’re not sure if he will be back. Will Justin and Dan still work at the rec center? And what of the people in my dentist’s office? It’s unlikely that the grocery store cashiers will be back, as they likely will move to another store.

When I would see stories about people losing their homes in fires, I could only imagine the anguish of losing “everything”—which I interpreted as meaning losing my stuff. While processing the loss of most of my material possessions, my thoughts turned to the people who punctuated my life in this community: our neighbors who we might run into after taking a walk, the ones who asked about or looked in on our cat (who is thankfully safe with us), and the ones we might just say hi to when we saw them from a passing car. I could barely go for a neighborhood run without a honk and wave from a neighbor. I think about our elderly neighbors and wonder if we will see them again, as rebuilding could take years.

I’m not going to say that losing most of my things doesn’t matter—more on that in another post—but it is the people who make a community feel like home. And for now, that is gone.