Community Development Policy Research Articles

Celebrating the International Year of Older Persons: Younging Longer or Ageing Younger?

The lifestyle of older people has attracted much interest over the last decade. As a result, 1999 was identified as the International Year of Older Persons to celebrate their achievements. This paper examines the lifestyle of older Australians with particular reference to social and health considerations. The material is based on two comprehensive research studies by the author which identify (a) six indicators of successful ageing, and (b) lifestyle variations between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians which have negative implications for the latter. While most Australians are achieving the indicators of successful ageing (security, involvement, satisfaction, autonomy, integration, and creativity) and in a sense younging longer, this is not the case among indigenous Australians in the Northern Territory, many of whom are ageing prematurely and experiencing social marginalisation. The comparative examination of the life cycle patterns between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians poses challenges for community development professionals, policy personnel, social planners, and family members.

Local Policy Subsystems and Issue Definition

Using a policy subsystem approach, the authors examine the politics of community development in Minneapolis. A cohesive and stable community development subsystem evolved during the 1970s and early 1980s, dominated by community development corporations and the city's multifamily housing development bureaucracy. Recent changes in community development policy reflect changes in the subsystem dynamics, including a challenge to the dominant coalition by neighborhood groups and external factors such as the redefinition of policy objectives. Subsystem analysis helps to explain policy change at the local level; explicit consideration of the social construction of issues and of the impact of issue redefinition will enrich subsystem analysis.

Implementing the Right to Development? An Analysis of European Community Development and Human Rights Policies

Implementing the Right to Development? An Analysis of European Community Development and Human Rights Policies

Recent US Urban Change and Policy Initiatives

This paper provides an account of recent urban change and policy initiatives in the US. The paper describes how processes of global change have impacted upon economic activity and social life in the US, leading to the decline and isolation of inner-city areas. The urban, housing and community development policies of the Clinton administration, which aim to enable these communities to rejoin the economic mainstream, are then discussed. These strategies include: tackling homelessness addressing the problems of distressed public housing communities ; the expansion of affordable housing (with an emphasis on home-ownership); opening housing markets to all Americans regardless of race and ethnic origins; and, increasing the economic opportunities of inner-city populations.

Speaking truth to power: Empowerment ideology as social intervention and policy

The popularity, and subsequent ambiguity, in the use of the term "empowerment" has created an even greater need for reassessment in the applied context than in the theory and research literatures. This paper outlines some of the areas of community, organizational, and societal level social intervention and policy ostensibly based on the concept of empowerment. These include neighborhood voluntary associations (for environmental protection, community crime prevention, etc.), self-help groups, competence-building primary prevention, organizational management, health care and educational reforms, and national and international community service and community development policies. Issues in applying social research to community organizations and to legislative and administrative policy making are reviewed. Ten recommendations are offered, including the value of a dialectical analysis, for helping researchers and policy makers/administrators make more effective use of empowerment theory and research.

L'expertise à l'œuvre dans la politique communautaire de développement

Expertise strategies in the community development policy This sociology analyses in detail the genesis and the strategies of international expertise in the European construction context, giving particular attention to the Community Development Policy in Latin American countries.

The structure of Eurropean Community R&D policy: opportunities and limits

Abstract At present the future structure and development of European Community research and development (R&D) policies and programmes are being widely discussed. This paper is intended to assist those following the debate by setting out the background and some of the major issues including those raised by the Maastricht Treaty.

Devolution of the Small Cities CDBG Program in Mississippi

In 1982 responsibility for HUD's Small Cities Community Development Block Grant program was transferred to state governments as part of President Reagan's New Federalism initiatives. Devolution was designed to (1) implement a new vision of American federalism, (2) shift control over a significant source of financial resources for nonmetropolitan areas, and (3) end the bypassing of state government officials in community development decisionmaking. This article uses the eleven year (1975–1985) history of Small Cities CDBG awards in Mississippi to assess the consequences of the program's devolution. Changes in the pattern of state CDBG awards indicate that the program's devolution produced a policy redirection that channeled CDBG funds to a larger number of the smallest municipalities and permitted more local discretion in project design. As a result, HUD no longer dictated community development policy to small cities. Instead, community development priorities in Mississippi emerged out of an award process that involved interaction among state and local officials.

The Evolution of Community Development Policy

Abstract Urban renewal, the centerpiece of urban development policy from 1949 until its replacement by the Community Development Block Grant in 1974, already had fallen upon hard times by the mid-1960s. Although many cities could point to successful projects that had brought new life to decaying downtown areas, other communities were dotted with vacant lots and unfulfilled plans that never attracted the anticipated private investment. Moreover, the destruction of lower-income neighborhoods adjacent to downtown redevelopment areas led to bitterness between local officials and displaced and threatened dwellers.1

Indian Community Development, Local Government, Local Planning, and Rural Policy since 1950

Shortly after independence India embarked on a number of policies designed to restructure rural life-socially and politically as well as economically-and to change a stagnant agriculture into a developing one. First the states began to reform tenancies and tenures. Then the range of efforts widened to include community development, local government, and local development planning. These were followed by intensive district package programs, which in turn became part of the Green Revolution. This essay is an interpretive history of the origins, evolution, and performance of the programs of community development, local government, and local and of the changes that transformed a policy of progress through democratic planning into a policy of progress through profits.

Reviews: Cambridge Geographical Studies 14: Spatial Diffusion—An Historical Geography of Epidemics in an Island Communiyt, the Aboriginal Component in the Australian Economy. 1. Tribal Communities in Rural Areas, Black Out in Alice. A History of the Establishment and Development of Town Camps in Alice Springs, Studies in Applied Regional Science 18. Population Growth and Urban Systems Development: A Case Study,

Reviews: Cambridge Geographical Studies 14: Spatial Diffusion—An Historical Geography of Epidemics in an Island Communiyt, the Aboriginal Component in the Australian Economy. 1. Tribal Communities in Rural Areas, Black Out in Alice. A History of the Establishment and Development of Town Camps in Alice Springs, Studies in Applied Regional Science 18. Population Growth and Urban Systems Development: A Case Study,

Predicting citizen satisfaction with the quality of urban life: A mathematical model for assisting urban decision makers

In the fall of 1977 and winter of 1978, nearly 7000 citizens living in the Greater Flint Area (Michgan, U.S.A.). were interviewed in depth to assess the community's quality of life. This survey was sponsored by The Charles Stewart Mott Foundation for the purpose of developing an information system usable to grassroots and community-wide decision-making groups. The data were analyzed for each of 42 neighborhoods, as well as for the total area. The purpose of this paper is to explain a predictive model developed by using multiple linear regression techniques. Thirty-eight factors were regressed against two dependent variables : 1. (1) Citizen satisfaction with the quality of life in the Flint area. 2. (2) Citizen satisfaction with the quality of life in the neighborhood. The 38 independent factors used in the modeling represented various social and psychological aspects of community life. It is believed that a knowledge of how these human dimensions contribute to citizens satisfaction with the quality of community life will sensitize leaders to the likely outcomes of their community development policies.

Race and Housing: A Review and Comments on the Content and Effects of Federal Policy

Unlike school integration measures, housing and community development policies attack the causes rather than simply the symptoms of racial segregation in urban communities. Federal policies are examined with regard to two goals: protection of the individual's right to a decent home and a suitable living environment, and the social goal of achieving stable interracial residential environments. Although both supply and demand housing strategies have had some, but still unmeasured, success in realizing both goals, the public and private sector delivery systems have sustained the dual housing market. Future progress will depend on the mixture of demand and supply strategies adopted, changes in delivery systems, the success of federal enforcement efforts, the emphasis placed on broad strategy options, and socioeconomic trends not easily influenced by public policy.

Local Initiative and the Role of Government in Community Development—Policy Implications of a Study in Sierra Leone

Local Initiative and the Role of Government in Community Development—Policy Implications of a Study in Sierra Leone