This paper attempts a parsimonious definition of community development. It proposes that the purpose of community development is the pursuit of solidarity and agency by adhering to the principles of self-help, felt needs and participation. The erosion of solidarity and agency has been a historic process, connected particularly to the rise of industrial capitalism, the nation-state, and instrumental reason. Examples of community development practice as a positive response to the erosion are given from the fields of public health, violence, micro-economic development, and food. It also argues that "place" as a proxy for community has become conceptually as well as practically inadequate, and that effective community development calls for micro-macro coordination.
This essay makes the argument for the centrality of communication in studying and developing community. Following a discussion of general theoretical arguments affirming and advancing the case for communication's connection to community building, the essay moves to an examination of a specific type of community, communicative event: "civic communion." Civic communions are communicative and performative community events that function to draw people into a shared identity, shared visions of community, and codes of conduct. Civic communions are episodes of community interaction that function as rhetorical and performative civic sacraments bonding citizenry around the social and political structures of a specific locale. These powerful community moments offer community development practitioners a pragmatic and scholarly vehicle to assist and study the construction and maintenance of community.
Local entrepreneurship shows great potential as an economic development strategy for rural communities with stagnating or declining economies. However, nascent entrepreneurs often lack knowledge of ways to actualize their ideas, and communities often lack the social infrastructure to help entrepreneurs achieve success. Educational programs supporting entrepreneurship can play a vital role in rural community economic development. The Nebraska Enhancing, Developing and Growing Entrepreneurs (EDGE) educational program is community based, with organizing principles derived primarily from community interaction field theory. More than 1,600 nascent and active entrepreneurs have participated in EDGE since 1993. The authors draw on community interaction field theory and eight community case studies to explore an action model for delivery of an educational program of locality-based entrepreneurship. The EDGE model has implications for the delivery of long-range community development programs. Keywords: rural community developmentcommunity leadershipeconomic developmententrepreneurshipinteraction field theory
The Heartland Center for Leadership Development and the Center for Rural Entrepreneurship propose a new approach to helping distressed communities build on their assets to grow their own jobs and businesses. Using lessons gleaned from case studies in rural areas, data collected on the nature of entrepreneurial activity, strategies emerging from the study of entrepreneurial communities, and research on community capacity building, the partners developed a flexible approach for encouraging entrepreneurial activity. The approach helps communities build on business and community assets through focused strategic interventions at the community, business, and organizational levels. This paper reports on preliminary results of how elements of our approach are at work in several communities where leaders engage community members in working toward a prosperous future.
A limestone quarry proposal in a small Pennsylvania community triggered disagreements among residents. Some actively opposed the quarry while a small group supported it. The majority of residents did not become involved in the issue. This research examines why residents responded differently to the operation of this quarry in their community. First, key and action informant interviews were conducted. Next, a content analysis of these interviews was used to develop a survey questionnaire. The survey was administered through a drop-off/pick-up method, eliciting a return rate of 69.7 percent. The strongest predictor of quarry attitude was attitude toward private property rights. Respondents who supported private property rights had favorable attitudes toward the quarry. Other significant predictors included environmental behavior, proportion of friends in the community, length of residence, level of involvement in community activities, and participation in a local festival. Implications of these findings for community development are discussed.
Although cooperatives are viewed as an important vehicle for community development, the relationship between cooperatives and communities is a neglected research issue. Because of this neglect, no framework for analysis of the relationship between cooperatives and communities exists. We present case studies of non-agricultural cooperatives in rural areas that provide some general insights into the innovative activities of successful cooperatives in rural community development. The case studies help define a new framework for analyzing the complete impact and efforts of cooperatives as community development agents. In contrast to the typical unifunctional and multifunctional categorization of cooperatives, our framework identifies two main categories of cooperative community development activities: unintentional, by simply organizing a business as a cooperative, and intentional, by creating community development programs. Cooperatives in this latter group are further sub-divided according to how closely the development activity is related to their core function.
This paper focuses on the interaction between social capital and entrepreneurship in Aboriginal communities in Canada. Using statistical and interview data from three First Nations communities in northern Ontario, I examine if and how bonding networks turn into tangible resources for business development. The paper also highlights ways in which community relationships hinder entrepreneurship and turn into barriers to economic development. The paper concludes with examples of how insight into the interaction between public policy and social networks can help understand the barriers and opportunities facing community developers in marginalized communities around the world.
Using a sample of 75 owners, we examine the role of familial networks in the establishment and proliferation of the upholstered furniture industry in Northeast Mississippi. Our data show that strong familial and associational ties are linked to the original furniture plant and its owner–approximately 70 percent of our sample. Owners have used these strong-ties typical of rural regions to facilitate a regional development outcome where owners do not see each other as competitors, but they share in knowledge resources. There is a general feeling that, "There is plenty to go around, just let me get my fair share." When local competition represents one's friends and/or family, competition moves to a more distant, less intimate focus thus facilitating even more local entrepreneurial opportunities.
This paper examines the relationships among community innovation, entrepreneurship, knowledge, and grantmaking in the field of community economic development. The paper assesses the experience of the Community Economic Development Technical Assistance Program (CEDTAP), a bilingual grantmaker operating in rural and urban Canada, in combining small-grant funding with knowledge management methods to support community innovation. The CEDTAP experience illustrates how the multiple roles played by individual entrepreneurs and the social entrepreneurship of the local CED organization combine to drive the innovation process. Mature CED organizations are found to pursue innovation in order to achieve performance gains to better achieve their mission. While information technology is of some interest to these groups, they are increasingly active in applying new production technologies to strengthen their business enterprises. The CEDTAP experience highlights the potential of grantmakers to enhance their impact and reach through such knowledge-management tools as electronic portals, action-research and mutual learning within thematic clusters of grantee projects. The paper calls for practitioners and scholars to better understand the nature of, and interrelationships among, community innovation, entrepreneurship, knowledge and grantmaking in community economic development.
Sustainable development has emerged over the past few decades as an important paradigm for community development. In searching for ways to achieve a balance among the social, economic, and ecological health of communities, Western scholars and practitioners concerned with sustainable development have generally given priority to environmentally-oriented frameworks. However, in places with different cultural and political characteristics and material conditions compared to the industrialized West, a human-oriented, social approach to sustainable development can be observed. This article describes and analyzes how sustainable development is being approached using a non- Western, non-environmentally-oriented approach. We present a case study of a mangrove management program in Southern Vietnam to illustrate such a social approach to sustainability - through collaborative efforts among government, quasi-governmental organizations, nongovernmental organizations, and local communities. We emphasize the role of women in development efforts.
(2004). Concerns of Newcomer and Longtime Residents in Nonmetropolitan Idaho Communities: Does the 'Gangplank' Theory Apply to Older Populations? Journal of the Community Development Society: Vol. 34, No. 2, pp. 73-92.
The effects of community attachment and satisfaction on community-level action were examined using data collected in a general population survey from a random sample of individuals in two rural communities in Texas. Substantial support was found for the hypothesis that attachment to the community is associated positively with community action. Bivariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses reveal that higher levels of community attachment result in increased levels of community action. Virtually no support, though, was found for the hypothesis that community satisfaction is negatively associated with community action. The multivariate findings also suggest that certain sociodemographic variables (i.e., education, marital status, race, and length of residence) are important predictors of community action. Possible implications of the findings are advanced, as are suggestions for future research.
This article explores the changing role of natural resources in community development in the United States. At one time, nonmetropolitan communities were dependent on traditional natural resources such as forests, minerals, and the soil, water, and climate necessary for agriculture. Where those resources were more abundant, populations were greater and life could be lived more abundantly. Amenity resources mattered little. It is apparent that circumstances have changed significantly. Data analyzed in this article explored the extent to which the presence or absence of amenity versus traditional natural resources influenced community development in recent years. A model was developed and tested to guide the analysis. It was found that from 1980 to 2000, communities with extensive amenity resources had a much greater increase in service employment. As a consequence of increased service sector employment, amenity rich counties had more extensive population growth. At the same time, high amenity communities also experienced a lower proportion of both adult males and females who are employed, an increased proportion of female-headed households, and higher poverty rates. These findings have significant implications for community leaders and community development specialists, which are discussed in this article.
Many community leaders view economic development as the primary strategy for improving social well-being. One approach to economic development is enhancing the local labor force's human capital through formal education. In this article, we use a social capital framework to analyze how local institutions, specifically families and schools, affect educational achievement among public school students. We explore how social capital in the broader community context mediates the effects of family and school social capital on keeping students in school. Using hierarchical linear models to estimate these contributions, the results reaffirm the vital role of family social capital. They also show that attributes of school and community social capital make important contributions to staying in school. Our results suggest strategies that community development practitioners and local leaders can use to enhance educational outcomes and, in turn, the economic vitality of communities.
Community development has become a complex endeavor as local public officials and public officials strive to respond to changes in economic activity and the needs of an increasingly diverse population. While the specific issues differ, successful community development is important in both urban and rural areas. Also important, however, is a recognition that the approaches and opportunities for local development have changed markedly during the past several decades. A major focus in urban or regional development has been on immediate job creation. Downtown development was high on the list of activities when many, if not most, cities were either local or regional retail centers. Increases in transportation availability and shifts in retail marketing to shopping centers, discount stores, and the Internet have changed the economic development roles of many smaller communities, placing more pressure on community leaders to find other business opportunities. On a broader scale after WWII, traditional economic development efforts focused more on creating manufacturing employment with fiscal incentives and lower wages as southern states lured manufacturing from northern states. This smokestack chasing approach used by many developers, when successful, offered relatively quick and large employment increases, often with relatively higher wages than offered by retail or consumer service industries. The emphasis on economic development shifted in the 1970s with the findings by Birch and others that small businesses, rather than large corporations, were responsible for a majority of the employment growth (Birch, 1987). This interest in small businesses and start-ups spawned many business development and enhancement services such as the Small Business Development Network, Procurement Centers, business incubators, and other institutions aimed at helping potential entrepreneurs create business plans, seek start-up capital, and otherwise launch and promote their businesses. Also apparent was that retaining current businesses was equally or even more important in generating employment than attracting businesses. Interest then turned to finding ways in which existing and new businesses could collaborate to reduce costs, open additional markets, and otherwise be more competitive. Third Wave policies based partly on experiences in northern Italy and Scandinavian countries led to flexible manufacturing networks and other models built on the need to foster an environment and policies that enable businesses to be more competitive. These approaches also built on the work of Porter (1990) on clusters. The importance of community assets and business environment was recognized, more and more, as an essential ingredient in job creation and retention. More intense competition for manufacturing by off-shore locations forced many development practitioners to find innovative ways to compete for what seemed to be a smaller number of businesses seeking to relocate. Making businesses more competitive in the market and finding ways to increase the entrepreneurial spirit in a community were key to long-term economic development. Thus, practitioners realized that local prosperity had at least three general strategies. Traditional industrial attraction approaches form the basis for economic development in many communities, especially large cities with a staff that is able to market the cities to businesses. Second, business enhancement and development programs are still very common and are aimed at growth, or at least replacement, of smaller companies. In the past several years, approaches to development have shifted more to processes associated with economic change and business creation with specific attention paid to finding ways to increase the entrepreneurial climate and process within a region. The creation of entrepreneurship centers and associated agencies to support the outreach efforts of the Small Business Development Centers and other agencies emphasizes a need to specifically identify potential entrepreneurs and potential business opportunities. …
Citizen participation in community development, including economic development, is vital for a viable democratic society to flourish. As more U.S. cities shift some or all of their economic development efforts from the city government to nonprofit economic development organizations (NEDOs) - which use resources from both the public and business sector to promote local economic growth - it is important to examine what implications this shift has on citizen participation. Some researchers highlight the advantages of NEDOs, portraying them as high-performing organizations that facilitate cooperation between city government and the local business community. But are there any disadvantages to promoting development via NEDOs in terms of citizen participation? Using survey data from nearly 500 NEDOs, this study finds that the local business community and city government are heavily involved in NEDOs, including founding them and contributing board members, money, and policy advice. However, in most NEDOs, citizens who are not part of local business organizations do not participate directly, but they participate indirectly through their public officials. Community development practitioners should work towards increasing direct citizen participation in NEDOs, especially when NEDOs use significant public resources. Keywords: Nonprofit economic development organizations (NEDOs)citizen participationeconomic development strategiesdemocratic society
The literature on entrepreneurship emphasizes the importance of the characteristics of individual entrepreneurs, their social networks, and the broader economic, cultural and political institutional landscape. In Slovakia and many of the emerging market economies of Eastern Europe, attention to social and cultural concerns and the institutional framework to support economic development was given insufficient attention at the beginning of the transition to capitalism. This paper shows the importance of social and cultural norms and experiential learning in providing the foundation for entrepreneurship and economic development. It presents a successful rural development model from Slovakia, which used mini-grants to build individual and community capacity for civic entrepreneurship as a precursor to economic entrepreneurship.
This article examines the concept of building entrepreneurial communities as a strategy for community economic development. It begins by attempting to define what is meant by the term "entrepreneurial community" and to clarify how economic developers go about trying to create such places - using activities known as the "enterprise development" to help entrepreneurs grow new business. The article then analyzes the current approach to enterprise development and explains why it is incapable of producing entrepreneurial communities. The authors conclude by calling for a systemic and transformational approach to enterprise development that can truly yield communitywide economic development.
Many rural communities desperate for economic development have turned to formerly resisted options, such as influencing the state to locate prisons in their area to revitalize their local economies. Without a vital economy, they fear a continuation of declining population and a diminished quality of life. This study uses 1990 and 2000 census data to examine the economic and demographic impact of new state prisons on small town economies compared to changes that occurred during the decade in all other small towns. The analysis shows that when 1990 economic and demographic factors and region are controlled, new state prison towns experienced less growth than non-prison towns except that prison towns had a greater increase in unemployment, poverty, and percent of minorities. The assumption that prisons represent a solution to distressed small town economies and a boost for community development should be reexamined by community leaders.
Micro businesses, defined as having ten employees or less, represent a substantial sub-segment of all small businesses. As such, they are credited as a significant contributor to economic growth of a community. This research focused on understanding the micro business owner, their contribution to the local economy in terms of profits, jobs, and their ability to bring outside dollars into a local economy. As the major economic engine in many areas, especially in rural areas, the success of the micro business is important to a local community's development and progress. The research also evaluated the support needs of the micro business owner during start-up and on-going operation. Most often, the business owners expressed a need for help with marketing and financing. The research also analyzed what agencies these micro business owners have turned to for help. The study supports the idea that a local economic development strategy must include development of the micro business segment and suggests ways to tailor such assistance efforts and programs.
