Community Development Abstracts

This 50th anniversary publication provides a comprehensive history of community development. Beginning in 1970 with the advent of the Community Development Society and its journal shortly thereafter, Community Development, the editors have placed the chapters in major themed areas or issues pertinent to both research and practice of community development. The evolution of community development as an area of scholarship and application, and the subsequent founding of the discipline, is vital to capture. At the 50-year mark, it is particularly relevant to revisit issues that reoccur throughout the last five decades and look at approaches to addressing them. These include issues and themes around equity and inclusion, collective impact, leadership and policy development, as well as resilience and sustainability. Community change over time has much to teach us, and this set will provide a foundation for fostering understanding of the history of community development and its focus on community change. The chapters in this book were originally published in the journal Community Development.

Developing Communities for the Future provides a comprehensive introduction to the theory, processes and practices of community development. It offers insights into the challenges and dilemmas of this demanding field and considers the ways in which it can empower citizens. Engaging case studies illustrate how community development practitioners operate in everyday situations. This new edition highlights cutting-edge issues and new technologies that are influencing practice. It demonstrates the dynamic nature of the field and how practitioners can help communities respond to the current challenges they face.

This book explores the contributions that research, with refugees and with faith-based organizations for example, makes to strengthen community development and consequently promote active citizenship and social justice.

Beginning with the foundations of community development, An Introduction to Community Development offers a comprehensive and practical approach to planning for communities. Road-tested in the authors’ own teaching, and through the training they provide for practicing planners, it enables students to begin making connections between academic study and practical know-how from both private and public sector contexts. An Introduction to Community Development shows how planners can utilize local economic interests and integrate finance and marketing considerations into their strategy. Most importantly, the book is strongly focused on outcomes, encouraging students to ask: what is best practice when it comes to planning for communities, and how do we accurately measure the results of planning practice? This newly revised and updated edition includes: increased coverage of sustainability issues, discussion of localism and its relation to community development, quality of life, community well-being and public health considerations, and content on local food systems. Each chapter provides a range of reading materials for the student, supplemented with text boxes, a chapter outline, keywords, and reference lists, and new skills based exercises at the end of each chapter to help students turn their learning into action, making this the most user-friendly text for community development now available.

The role of economic development in communities is multi-faceted, having an array of antecedents, impacts, and implications. This volume explores the relationships between economic development and community development, focusing on the aspects that impact communities such as social capital, participation, and business development. It discusses the need for aligning the goals of community betterment more closely with economic improvement and finding ways to enhance leadership and other resources. Including both current contributions and "classics," the evolution of the relationship between’ and roles of, the two kinds of development is explored. The articles in the volume present several theoretical perspectives of development. Most common among them are sustainable economic development and social capital theories. Utilizing these theories and data from various sources, the authors are able to suggest specific development strategies for improving community economic and quality of life outcomes. The volume offers an exploration of directions for future research, including the need for more theoretical and empirical work on the role of amenity development on rural community economic and quality-of- life outcomes. Practitioners of community and economic development, along with researchers and students will find this volume useful and relevant for both theory and application. This book is a compilation of articles published in the Journal of the Community Development Society.

International Community Development Practice provides readers with practice-based examples of good community development, demonstrating its value for strengthening people power and improving the effectiveness of development agencies, whether these be governmental, non-governmental or private sector. The chapters focus upon the making of the community development profession and the eight core competences required of the professional practitioner, as outlined by the International Association for Community Development (IACD), whatever their job title or host agency, in order to be able to undertake community development. These are concerned with the ability of the practitioner to: Put ethics and values into practice Engage with communities Ensure participatory planning Organize for change Support learning for change Promote diversity and inclusion Build leadership and infrastructure Develop and improve policy and practice From a policy perspective, the book will reassert the role of community development approaches as related to a wide variety of global challenges, including poverty amelioration, climate change, human rights, peace building and social, environmental, political and economic development. From a practice perspective, the book will reassert the importance of high levels of professional competence building upon decades of experience in the field around the world by development practitioners working in community work, social work, health, adult education, environmental protection, local economic development, urban design, cultural work and other disciplines concerned to support effective community development.