Introduction
This chapter discusses community development from the perspective of concentrating and building on community assets rather than focus ig on needs and problems. This chapter outlines the major steps in planning for an asset-based community developments strategy.
Definition of community development
In chapter one, community development is both a process and an outcome, as seen in the various definitions from the literature. More definition about community development in the context of asset, to further characterize community development.
”Community building in all of these efforts consist of action to strength then the capacity communities to identify priorities and opportunities and to foster and sustain positive neighborhood change” (Chaskin 2001:291).
“Community development is asset building that improves the quality of life among resident of low to moderate-income communities, where communities are defined as neighborhoods or multi-neighborhoods areas” (Ferguson and Dickens 1999:5).
“Community development is defined as a planned effort to produce asset that increase the capacity of residents to improve their quality of life” (Green and Haines 2004:vii)
”Community development is a place-based approach: it concentrates on creating assets that benefit people in poor neighborhoods, largely by building and tapping links to external resources” (Vidal and Keating 2004:126).
Critical components of these definitions include:
• A place-based focus
Communities may be through of as the neighborhood, towns, village, suburbs, or cities in which people live.
Example: professional associations, sports teams, religious affiliations, service clubs.
• The building up or creation of assets
The definition of an asset is a resource or advantage within a community (of place).
• The improvement of quality of life
Quality of life is a vague notion, therefore each community must define indicators in order to be able to monitor whether or not improvement is occurring. Quality of life can refer to economic, social, psychological, physical, and political aspect of a community.
