Outside Invaders or Neighborly Advice? COmmunity Development Practitioners at Work

Abstract

Small, isolated communities have some common characteristics that both help and hinder the efforts of community development practitioners. The author has worked as a community development practitioner in Indiana, Michigan and Iowa. He shares his experiences and observations of community development activities in small, rural communities in the Midwest. Quinn lays out seven truths about community development practitioners and small rural communities. Among his contentions are that when community development practitioners meet as a group, they are incapable of making a decision on where to eat dinner. In a more practical mode, Quinn suggests that small, isolated communities share some common characteristics such as (a) new residents are instigators of change, (b) school sports programs keep communities from working together, and (c) sleeping dogs aren't likely to move. Quinn also proposes that the community development profession more closely follows the Native American concept of societal rights than t...