Why is virtual community becoming so important? Maybe this piece talking about Ray Oldenburg gives us a clue.

"Ray Oldenburg believes that the demise of community
can be blamed upon the loss of what he calls the "Great
Good Place ." Oldenburg's Great Good Place is the third
place which is important to us in our everyday lives
after home and work. In this third place, we meet
members of our community on neutral ground, leaving
possible divisions such as class or industrial rank at
the door in the spirit of inclusion rather than
exclusivity.

These third places are described by Oldenburg as "the
core settings of informal public life". (Oldenburg, 16)
As the pub, church, and other free or inexpensive local
third places have disappeared, for many of us the
feeling that community is lacking has increased. Third
places, according to Oldenburg, are necessary for
community to arise. They are places where members of a
community interact with others and come to know the ties
which they have in common. (Oldenburg, xxiii & 72)
Looking at the definition of community used in this
paper, it is clear that the existence of the third place
is necessary for the building of community.

Oldenburg notes that cities of the Western world have
seen a decline of such third places. This is especially
true in America, where most of the population lives in
suburbs, far from within walking distance to a shops and
businesses, a local pub or coffee shop, or other
community centres which bring populations together. In
the words of Oldenburg, "Houses alone do not a community
make, and the typical subdivision proved hostile to the
emergence of any structure or space utilisation beyond
the uniform houses and streets that characterised it.
(Oldenburg, 4) Or, as Richard Goodwin complained, in the
suburbs "there is virtual no place where neighbours can
anticipate unplanned meetings - no pub or corner store
or park." ( Richard N. Goodwin, "The American
Condition," The New Yorker (28 January, 1974), 38 ) In
fact, it has been demonstrated that even the
architecture of our cities discourages free association
amongst members of the community ( Davis, Harvey ).

Because of the lack of third places within easy reach of
the majority of the population, many people, especially
those with a high level of education and expendable
income, have flocked to third places accessible through
computer mediated communications technologies. Centred
around these virtual third places online are the
relatively new social formation called the virtual
community. Howard Rheingold argues that the development
of virtual communities is "in part a response to the
hunger for community that has followed the
disintegration of traditional communities around the
world." (418)