Talk:Community development

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Community building and organizing
This section seems to be UK oriented. In the US many cities have city departments called Community Development. These departments are not advocacy departments for neighbors. Often they are quite involved in the economic development of the city. Planning and zoning departments are often also part of community development departments. I am also aware of the use of the word Development to mean bringing in funds... Can someone help include this here or put a disambiguation in for these uses? Thanks 98.207.230.186 (talk) 00:43, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Merging Community building and Community organizing into this article makes sense to me. All three articles are stubs and need work. I'm proposing treating Community development with good academic sources equally from the institutional side (governments, universities etc.) and from the grassroots side. I've created Category:Community development and made it even with Category:Communities. It includes as subcategories Community building and Community organizing and others. See WikiProject_Community for more information, but let us know here what you think. OK? CQ 15:23, 21 July 2006 (UTC)


 * An argument for merging community building could be made (although I am much more inclined to keep it as a separate article). However, community organizing ('co') is a very distinct thing from community development ('cd'). In cd, the goal is developing community. In co, the goal could be pretty much anything, but the tool is organizing communities. So, the cd article is about a goal and the co article is a bout a tool (or perhaps a methodology or practice). —GrantNeufeld 09:55, 22 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I concur on community organizing. The article has grown some since the above post and appears to attract attention from the grassrootsy side. Community building, the article is strangly mismatched with Category:Community building the category. I'm curious how that happened. I guess we'll give it all some time. CQ 06:58, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Given these now have their own articles, I have cut these sections. For reference, here is the text I've cut. == Community building and organizing ==

Putting the unity back into community (Pat Shortt)

Community building is a field of practices directed toward the creation or enhancement of community between individuals within a regional area (such as a neighbourhood) or with a common interest. It is sometimes encompassed under the field of community development.

A wide variety of practices can be utilized for community building, ranging from simple events like potlucks and small book clubs, to larger–scale efforts such as mass festivals and building construction projects that involve local participants rather than outside contractors.

Activists engaged in community building efforts in industrialized nations see the apparent loss of community in these societies as a key cause of social disintegration and the emergence of many harmful behaviors. They may see building community as a means to increase social justice, individual well-being and reduce negative impacts of otherwise disconnected individuals.

Community organizing is a process by which people are brought together to act in common self-interest. While organizing describes any activity involving people interacting with one another in a formal manner, much community organizing is in the pursuit of a common agenda. Many groups seek populist goals and the ideal of participatory democracy. Community organizers create social movements by building a base of concerned people, mobilizing these community members to act, and developing leadership from and relationships among the people involved. BobFromBrockley (talk) 13:54, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

Rationale for deleting section "Faith-Based Community Development"
Since I'd imagine someone put this stuff up here for a reason I wanted to outline why I think it doesn't belong:


 * "Faith-based _____" does not typically refer to performing an action because of underlying beliefs. For example, right now I am editing wikipedia because of a basic belief that a community-produced encyclopedia is valuable and worth improving, but I would not describe what I am doing as "faith-based wikipedia editing". Almost all actions are based on the belief that successful outcomes are possible, but that's not really what's meant by "faith-based".
 * In almost every field of human activity, people who were members of organized religion have occupied places. Historically, almost everyone has belonged to a religion. That's not a fact worth mentioning any more than an article on the history bridge-building in America should mention that 90% of people who crossed a bridge in America betwen 1800 and 1900 identified as Christian. It's just not relevant.
 * None of the people whose faith is mentioned is mentioned anywhere else in the article. Gandhi was a great leader but the article does not suggest that his primary contribution was to community development. Likewise Martin Buber and Dave Andrews. Discussing the faith of folks mentioned elsewhere in the article might be relevant, but this might as well be a list of leaders who belong to religions. (p.s. where is Martin Luther King Jr?!)
 * These one-sentence paragraphs don't really contribute anything to an understanding of how these people's faith informed their work or the relationship between faith and community development -- a topic that would be actually really interesting to see explored. Black churches in the US have a great role in community development as do Catholic charities. These one-off lists of affiliations, though, just doesn't add much to the discussion.

I copied the text I deleted below for reference.

Kstinch 19:58, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

All community development is Faith-based Community Development in the sense that it proceeds from a basic belief in the possibility of meaningful community development. Many of the great traditions in community development have been shaped by devotees of the major religions like Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Islam and Christianity. Martin Buber drew on Judaism to give community development a framework of Ich und Du (‘I-Thou’) relationships. Joanna Macy drew on Buddhism to give community development processes of empowerment.[2] Mahatma Gandhi drew on Hinduism to give community development Satyagraha and Sarvodaya. Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan drew on Islam to give community development the option of the Khudai Khidmatgar ("Servants of God").[3] Dave Andrews drew on Christianity to give community development the principles and practices of compassionate community work.[4]


 * As the editor of an earlier section on Faith Based Community Development, I feel this section is important to distinguish those that come to community development as a secular vocation (the majority), and those that are motivated in their community development work as a result of a specific adherence to a particular faith. (I feel including Martin Luther King in this group is an excellent suggestion).  I propose re-inserting the deletion, with these additions.  What do you think? John D. Croft 01:43, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I have a strong objection to the logic in the first line of the quoted text. How does 'a belief in the possibility of meaningful community development' make it faith based? this makes little sense to me.

Much of the community development work I have seen has been Marxist or humanist based, so I find the opening line about 'all community development is faith based' untrue- and since you state that the majority come to community development as a secular vocation, I guess you agree. or am I missing something?WotherspoonSmith 03:39, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Merge proposal - Community mobilization to here
I have proposed that the article Community mobilization be merged into this one. Judging by the discussion above, and the history over at talk:Community organizing, it seems that many different terms are used internationally to mean similar things, often without absolute clarity to distinguish them. On reflection, though, it seems to me that these two terms are referring to the same thing, possibly only differentiated by their common usage in different countries. I'm happy to be persuaded otherwise by those who disagree. Thoughts, anyone? WotherspoonSmith (talk) 14:25, 6 July 2014 (UTC)

I disagree as there are important differences (some of which are referred to in the discussion above) that would be lost if merged. Community Development is distinct, as a values-based process that aims for positive social change. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.70.132.46 (talk) 12:45, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

Evaluation of the article
Although there was an in-text citation in paragraph 2, it should still be cited appropriately. Paragraph 3 needs citation, the section "Different Approraches" are missing citations, and the section "History" is also missing citations. Links to several words and organizations could be added and some of the current links are not working. The facts are referenced from recent, peer-reviewed Journals, and credible organizations but as stated before, several facts are missing references. Hsrkim (talk) 23:29, 16 April 2017 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Introduction to Community Economic and Social Development II
— Assignment last updated by Clementina001 (talk) 17:46, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

Civic
Meaning of integrity It can be defined as the quality of being honest and firm in one's moral principles 102.90.44.52 (talk) 19:18, 28 May 2024 (UTC)