Community development

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Community development refers to the processes and strategies used to strengthen and support communities in urban areas. It involves initiatives such as affordable housing, community-based planning, and neighborhood revitalization.

Social Capital: Understanding the networks, norms, and trust that facilitate collaboration and collective action in communities.
Stakeholder Analysis: Identifying and understanding the interests, motivations, and resources of various groups within the community, such as residents, businesses, NGOs, and government agencies.
Community Needs Assessment: Gathering and analyzing data on the social, economic, and environmental challenges and opportunities facing a community, and identifying gaps in services and resources.
Asset Mapping: Identifying the strengths, resources, and capacities of individuals, organizations, and institutions within a community, and leveraging them for collective impact.
Community Visioning: Engaging community members in a process to articulate a shared vision for the future of their community, and identifying strategies to achieve it.
Participatory Planning: Involving community members in the design and implementation of policies, programs, and projects that affect their lives, and building their capacity for self-governance.
Neighborhood Revitalization: Implementing strategies to improve the physical, social, and economic conditions of distressed neighborhoods, and promote community revitalization and empowerment.
Economic Development: Promoting job creation, entrepreneurship, and investment in local businesses and industries, and building a more resilient and equitable local economy.
Cultural Competency: Understanding and valuing the diversity of cultures, identities, and perspectives within a community, and promoting inclusivity, respect, and mutual understanding across different groups.
Sustainable Communities: Promoting environmental sustainability, public health, and social equity in community development, and building resilience to climate change and other environmental challenges.
Community Organizing: Mobilizing community members to build power, advocate for their interests, and achieve social and political change through collective action and grassroots organizing.
Partnership Building: Forging and sustaining partnerships among community organizations, government agencies, private sector actors, and other stakeholders to achieve common goals and advance the well-being of the community.
Affordable Housing Development: Affordable Housing Development refers to the deliberate effort of creating safe and decent housing options that are affordable for low-income individuals and families.
Economic Development: Economic development refers to the deliberate effort by governments and organizations to improve the economic well-being and prosperity of a community, region, or country by promoting a sustainable and inclusive growth of businesses, industries, and employment opportunities.
Community Organizing: Community organizing is the process of empowering and mobilizing community members to collectively address social, economic, and political issues in their locality.
Neighborhood Revitalization: Neighborhood Revitalization aims to reinvigorate and improve the socioeconomic conditions, physical infrastructure, and overall well-being of a local community through targeted revitalization efforts and comprehensive strategies.
Environmental Sustainability: Environmental sustainability refers to the practice of using resources in a way that preserves the natural environment for future generations.
Social Services Development: Social Services Development involves the planning and implementation of programs aimed at improving the well-being and quality of life of individuals and communities in need.
Gentrification: Gentrification refers to the process of economic and social transformation in a community, often resulting in the displacement of lower-income residents, as wealthier individuals and businesses move into historically deprived neighborhoods.
Smart Growth: Smart Growth is an approach to community development that focuses on sustainable and efficient land use planning to create walkable, livable, and environmentally friendly communities.
Transit-Oriented Development: Transit-Oriented Development is a community planning approach that focuses on creating vibrant, sustainable, and pedestrian-friendly neighborhoods centered around accessible transportation options.
Community Health Improvement: Community health improvement is the process of creating strategies and initiatives to enhance the overall well-being and health outcomes of a specific community.
"The United Nations defines community development as 'a process where community members come together to take collective action and generate solutions to common problems.'"
"Typically aiming to build stronger and more resilient local communities."
"Community development is defined by the International Association for Community Development as 'a practice-based profession and an academic discipline that promotes participative democracy, sustainable development, rights, economic opportunity, equality and social justice.'"
"The key elements of community development include the organisation, education, and empowerment of people within their communities."
"Community development seeks to empower individuals and groups of people with the skills they need to effect change within their communities."
"These skills are often created through the formation of social groups working for a common agenda."
"Community development as a term has taken off widely in anglophone countries, i.e. the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, as well as other countries in the Commonwealth of Nations."
"The Community Development Journal, published by Oxford University Press, since 1966 has aimed to be the major forum for research and dissemination of international community development theory and practice.Community development approaches are recognised internationally. These methods and approaches have been acknowledged as significant for local social, economic, cultural, environmental and political development by such organisations as the UN, WHO, OECD, World Bank, Council of Europe and EU."
"These methods and approaches have been acknowledged as significant for local social, economic, cultural, environmental and political development by such organisations as the UN, WHO, OECD, World Bank, Council of Europe and EU."
"There are a number of institutions of higher education that offer community development as an area of study and research such as the University of Toronto, Leiden University, SOAS University of London, and the Balsillie School of International Affairs, among others."