Community development is a process-oriented and participative approach in social work aimed at achieving lasting improvements in living conditions for and together with the residents in a city district.

Principles of community development

• Community development is concerned with the needs and interests of the people living in a city district, and promotes their taking part in economic, political, social and cultural life.
• The starting-point for community development is the citizens’ ability to organize and to help themselves: they are encouraged to actively publicize and lobby for their interests.
• Community development addresses more than one target group and a number of administrative fields (housing, health, employment, leisure, education, culture etc.) – a prerequisite for dealing satisfactorily with the complex issues involved.
• Community development has a mediating function, i.e. it acts as an interface between citizens’ interests and activities and the city’s resources, and structures negotiation processes between decision-makers and citizens.
• One vital task involves developing a network of cooperation between the staff of the various facilities and the stakeholders in the district in question. Here resources and potential on the ground are tapped and linked together, and social networks created / strengthened.

You will find more details about community development on the following pages:

>> Aims, methods and prerequisites

>> Scope, approach and limits