Tag: community.

Unincorporated Areas

Daily writing prompt
Name an attraction or town close to home that you still haven’t got around to visiting.
View all responses

I have this fascination with unincorporated areas in the US — these are not quite towns, but places that have names and very little population. They fascinate me because they obviously have a history and, at least at some time, an identity, yet many of them are forgotten now.

Some of them have road signs, such as Quitman, which is in the county where I live. I have been to Quitman and seen the small collection of houses there. According to Wikipedia, there are 45 people there in 23 households as of the 2010 census (Wikipedia, 2025). However, an unincorporated area’s road sign doesn’t have a population posted, which is part of how one can tell it’s unincorporated.

Other unincorporated areas are unmarked, but can be found in the memory of people who lived there. Wikipedia may have information on unincorporated areas in a county. Having the name of the unincorporated area, one can often locate them on a maps app on the phone. Even Gaynor, MO, which is listed in Wikipedia as ‘extinct’, can be found on Google Maps.

I have not been to Gaynor, but I have been to both Quitman and Wilcox, the two other unincorporated areas in Nodaway County, Missouri. And I remain fascinated by these former towns and not-quite towns that haven’t quite disappeared from human memory.

Day 9 Lenten Meditation: Community



According to researchers (Grouzet et al, 2005), community is a universal goal across cultures. It appears not just a goal, but a need. Matthew Lieberman, in his book Social: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Connect (2013) cites thousands of research articles to make the case that we were born craving community. 

How do we get community? Some get it through church, others through clubs and volunteer work. Some get it at their favorite coffeehouse or bar. Many of us get it online, but there we have to struggle with antagonism as well, destroying our sense of community. 

Against community, we have no way to define ourselves. We have nobody to turn to when we are suffering, nobody to take care of us when we are sick, no one to celebrate with when we triumph. Even introverts need community — perhaps one person at a time.

Where is your community?



Grouzet, F., Kasser, T., Ahuvia, A., Fernandez-Dols, J., Kim, Y., Lau, S.,Ryan, R., Saunders, S., Schmuck, P., Sheldon, K. (2005). The structure of goal contents across 15 cultures. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 89. 800-16. 10.1037/0022-3514.89.5.800. 

Lieberman, M. (2013). Social: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Connect. Crown Publishing.