The community notion can be exploited as a rational concept leading users to cooperate in sharing resourceson Wireless Mesh Networks. We propose a novel concept for self-organizing networks, where multipleentities (network elements or users) collaborate to achieve common goals, and in particular, to establish thebasic connectivity and service delivery infrastructures. The resulting architecture is based on wireless meshcommunications, with different entities taking different roles in the communities in a cross-layer approach.These communities can collaborate, leading to increasingly complex and geographically extended scenarios.