The community overstory - an unconscious network of voluntary controls

In Calgary, Canada, part of the city overstory is influenced
by the proximity of the Rocky Mountains

by Larry Leach

What is your community’s overstory? In Malcolm Gladwell’s most recent book, Revenge of the Tipping Point, he discusses the power of an overstory. An overstory is the story we tell ourselves collectively about where we live. If most people in an area adopt this view, it becomes the community overstory. The story can have many elements and colours, and it influences human behaviour in the community.

An example of an overstory in my city, Calgary, Alberta, Canada, is Cowtown: Home of the World Famous Calgary Stampede. For 10 days every July, people dress up in Western garb, including cowboy hats and boots. The overstory of the city during this 10-day party? Anything goes! The increase in public intoxication, social disorder, assaults, and similar behaviour increases dramatically. 

On a regular day, these people are all law-abiding people. But add a dramatic Stampede Week overstory, and people behave differently. 

Consider the proverb, When in Rome, do as the Romans. That is built on the idea of the overstory. Remember the advertising slogan What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas? That, too, creates an overstory. 

When in Rome, do as the Romans do. Ancient proverb about human behaviour.
Photo of the Great [Roman] Bath, Bath, England,
by Diego Delso, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

CHANGING BEHAVIOUR

Why would your behaviour change when you are in a different place? It might be a survival instinct, but it’s the idea of living up to community expectations in most places. In other words, if they can do it, why can’t I? 

We decide collectively the standards that we are willing to accept in our communities. A half century ago, Jane Jacobs once echoed this behavioural pattern in Death and Life of Great American Cities when she wrote, “the public peace is.. kept primarily by an intricate, almost unconscious, network of voluntary controls…and enforced by people themselves.”

Gladwell adds the final ingredient into the overstory recipe when he describes what he calls the law of the few, or also known as the law of thirds (you need one-third of the people in a place to behave in a certain way for it to become part of your overstory).

Calgary Stampede revelers at the annual celebration

WHAT SETS THE TONE?

An overstory can be set in an area because of physical circumstances. If you live near mountains, you might have skiing as part of your overstory. Your area may produce better winter athletes, and mountain resorts might attract wealth. If you live near the ocean, you might have a strong surfing culture or fishing industry. If you live in the Caribbean, you might not have a Bobsleigh team. But if you create one, as Jamaica did in the 1998 Calgary Olympics, you may have changed your overstory.

Gladwell examines places that have socially engineered themselves to create an overstory and describes how it can produce some unintended consequences. One place he studied was a community full of high achieving young people in education and sports that ended up with a high youth suicide rate. The overstory of success in the community turned into disaster. As one writer explained: “Teens who didn’t fit into the narrow definition of success didn’t have alternative groups to seek out and find a sense of belonging.”

The overstory sets the tone for behaviour.

At the end of the book, Gladwell says 

“Overstory’s matter. You can create them. They can spread. They are powerful. And they can endure for decades… [And most importantly]… Epidemics have rules. They have boundaries. They are subject to overstories – and we are the ones to create overstories.”

 

An overstory can trigger community clean-ups and other
positive anti-crime activities   

The power of an overstory lies in the acceptance of the people in the community. Using the rule of thirds, it is possible to change community safety for the better.  

Does your community have an overstory? If so, does it work well? Is it positive?  Does it make your community safer? 

If the answer is no to these questions, then your community must work together to create a new overstory. This is one of our goals in Safegrowth. It is an ideal tool to help recreate a positive community overstory and, in turn, encourage safe behaviour.