Rural Community Development - New Challenges and Enduring Dilemmas

Jim Cavaye

Journal of Regional Analysis and Policy, 2001, vol. 31, issue 2, 16

Abstract: Rural community vitality depends on communities maintaining adequate infrastructure, having access to services, enhancing business and economic opportunities and establishing policy settings to foster outcomes. Vitality also relies on communities “rethinking” assets, developing networks, building local cooperation and acting on local passion and motivation. In addressing both these aspects, current approaches to rural and regional development represent a partial approach. Efforts largely focus on service provision, discrete initiatives, information dissemination and provision of resources to meet perceived needs. While these are crucial elements of rural development, a more comprehensive approach is needed. A more comprehensive agenda involves engagement that helps people act on existing motivation, includes greater recognition of frustration and anger in regional areas, and helps people gain better access to information and services. A broader approach would also reexamine agency assumptions, better foster community confidence, provide more coordinated frameworks for discrete initiatives, and establish community relationships beyond those of service delivery. In implementing this expanded approach community developers face five challenges – a greater recognition of community values, new forms of participation, coping with perceptions, fostering community confidence and changes to the role of government. Addressing these challenges raises fundamental dilemmas such as focused action vs. community unity, participative democracy vs. representative democracy, and volunteerism vs. professionalism.

Keywords: Community/Rural/Urban; Development (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2001
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/132204/files/2001-2-8.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:jrapmc:132204

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.132204

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of Regional Analysis and Policy from Mid-Continent Regional Science Association Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by AgEcon Search ().