The concept of community expresses a variety of responsibilities that public relations has in building connections, good will, and wellbeing amongst collectives of people. Community also parallels many U.S. expectations of government; however, public relations has few studies that investigate the collaboration between government and citizens or how different government services (e.g., public works, public health, building enforcement, etc.) influence community building. Specifically, parks and recreation has been overlooked in the public relations literature as citizens and government collectively support these lifelines of community wellbeing and social connectedness. Through qualitative analysis of focus groups with city residents and interviews with city parks and recreation personnel, I present thematic findings that explicate how citizens and city staff engage in community building and the specific role that leisure plays in community building processes. Lastly, I offer implications for public relations theory that argue to shift local community and governance theory to be citizen-centered and use the concept of family to explicate the function of community in small municipal contexts.

社区的概念表达了公共关系在人们集体之间建立联系、善意和福祉方面的各种责任。社区也符合美国对政府的许多期望；然而，公共关系很少有研究调查政府与公民之间的合作或不同的政府服务（例如公共工程、公共卫生、建筑执法等）如何影响社区建设。具体而言，公园和娱乐场所在公共关系文献中被忽视，因为公民和政府共同支持这些社区福祉和社会联系的生命线。通过对城市居民焦点小组的定性分析以及对城市公园和娱乐人员的采访，我提出了主题研究结果，阐明了公民和城市工作人员如何参与社区建设以及休闲在社区建设过程中发挥的具体作用。最后，我提出了公共关系理论的启示，主张将当地社区和治理理论转变为以公民为中心，并使用家庭概念来解释社区在小城市环境中的功能。