I suppose in many ways this is a deeper philosophical discussion. Your observations are correct, and as others posted, a healthy community is an ever changing one. Effectively it becomes the Community of Theseus. All its parts, the people, the technology, the geographic aspects can and maybe have changed. Is it still the same community and can it be referred to as such?

I think the authors point about history is a key element of this. If I can track how the community has evolved and changed, I can still identify that community in its current form as the sum of all its changes.

I’m not sure that holds true if an outside entity tries to dismantle and rebuild the existing community without the context of the history.