Aims
Community development is intended to
- encourage the people in a city district to stand up for their interests and needs (= empowerment) and thus improve their quality of life, and support them in the process;
- improve the material situation in the district in question, i.e. the public spaces, the housing and employment situation, the traffic situation, the playgrounds, the range of cultural activities etc.;
- and strengthen / improve immaterial factors such as the social climate, the extent to which people identify with their surroundings, public-spiritedness, democratic awareness etc.
In this way community development contributes to city (district) development.
Methods
In community development several different methods are employed, depending on the assignment and the target group, such as:
- >> Activating opinion survey
- Interview with experts
- Project and idea workshop
- >> Citizen panel
- Assistance and support in implementing specific projects
- Steering and mediation in negotiation processes
- Conflict management
- Public relations (e.g. by means of special-purpose media such as newsletter, radio etc., or via existing media)
Prerequisites
- „Suitably-sized district: community development can take effect where people share community-related interests
- Interdisciplinary teams: for the many different tasks in community development a wide range of specialists are needed (e.g.: social workers, planners, psychologists, social scientists, etc.)
- Open-ended remits (in which the results are not a foregone conclusion) from the decision-makers
- Sound financial footing for an extended process.