How to Move Toward Successful Community Planning?

What if there were several outstanding civic leaders in your community? Would these leaders influence historically non-activist neighbors and naysayers next door, around the corner, down the street, to jump on board and aggressively move forward to affect positive change?

Several would say “absolutely.” So if we are missing the leaders what does it take to energize the masses, get them involved in the process of building a better community?

Maybe one strategy would be to ask residents what they would like their communities to be like. A survey might reveal that residents actually do have ideas about what they’d like but perhaps residents have not come forward as a group to share those ideas with one another.

Some residents for instance might express a desire to have better schools, safer neighborhoods, better housing, more jobs, better transportation or access to some form of public transportation.

One group might vocalize the importance of working together in a well-educated, attractive community where families have jobs and recreational facilities and where children have access to libraries, and after school programs.

After expressing their vision how should the community move forward? What are some of the steps?

It is my sincere hope that this web site will serve to answer these and other questions. The ideas presented here should serve to illuminate community development processes, highlight best practices, share results of community surveys, strategies for building partnerships, and creating self-sufficiency, particularly in underserved communities.

Following are excerpts from some of the comments I’ve received from community residents who have identified a variety of concerns and want to move forward to create more vibrant and livable communities.

"We need more affordable, and convenient public transportation,
There is no affordable day care so I had to drop out of school,
In my neighborhood there are a lot of senior citizens and people who don't have regular jobs. I believe that if my neighborhood was safer we’d have more renters and buyers of all ages and incomes."

Through a series of steps these residents, with some level of facilitation, can create a plan to:

Provide a secure and safe environment that includes safe and secure neighborhoods. Residents can engage in planning with a focus on how to identify and utilize assets to respond to community needs such as affordable housing and convenient, accessible public transportation services. By engaging both local residents and other stakeholders, communities can work with local and state as well as Federal leaders to create a neighborhood where renters of all ages and incomes are drawn by safe and appealing neighborhoods and where taxpayers enjoy competitive tax rates and superior services. This planning process can be for a five, ten, or twenty year span. A community, for instance might want to state in its plan that within the next five years, we will increase housing stock by 20% within Mytown, so that home buyers and renters of all ages and incomes are drawn by safe and appealing neighborhoods, where taxpayers enjoy competitive tax rates and superior services.

While the visions are as numerous as the communities there are some logical steps each community can take to reach their vision.

By and large, as rural development practitioners we are in the front-line for creating socioeconomic change. Economic development activities take on new meaning as neighborhood clubs, civic associations, or other groups increase their leadership and organizational capacity. Many groups will seek to become 501(C3) organizations, Community Development Corporations or some other type of corporation. These are the organizations that are able to successfully compete for grants and loans, and enjoy increased flexibility in developing ideas about how to use communities as a base to expand economic development….but maybe we should not put the cart before the horse and first concentrate on the committees and other groups that have not yet reached this level.

While there is no sure set of standardized approaches to guarantee success of each neighborhood or communities vision or goal, there is always excitement among all each time tasks are completed that will benefit the overall community. These feats also generate hope and positive energy. This is the realm I hope we will further explore and expand upon.

Some of the topics I hope we’ll cover in future blogs include: engaging the community in actively creating positive change, expressing community vision, drafting a plan to respond to the communities vision, identifying community resources, identifying community needs, canvassing for volunteers, tasking committees, volunteers and others to engage in implementing the communities plan for change, and securing partners.

Please feel free to share your insight on these topics as they are presented, or suggest other topics for discussion.