Sociology of Community Development
Community development remains one of the most fundamental aspects of American society. Green and Haines address the same issue by highlighting the role and history of community development in America in chapters one and two of their book. The authors focus on various themes that impact community development, including community involvement and the growth of the same. The authors identify that growth leads to development and that when the community is best involved in the process, the outcome becomes greater since the input has a greater understanding of the community dynamics. The authors emphasize that putting the best community resources regarding professionalism, education, and other qualifications presents the ideal method to establish sustainable community programs. Besides, the authors emphasize it remains critical to have highly-tested and proven models of community-based development, such as models for conflict resolution, self-help groups, and technical assistance, among others. The authors also delve into the challenges that might derail the process and the overall success of the same. Such problems include regionalism whereby some of the communities are disengaged from the main regions of development. Lack of expertise, support from outside investors, among others, also challenge community development.
Chapter 2 focuses on the history of community development in the US. The authors emphasize that community development began in the early 20th century. It was more so during the progressive era, which pushed people to work and create wealth for themselves and their communities. The age of the New Deal brought about increased work to create wealth that would overcome the impact of the previous recession. The leadership has much-empowered communities to organize and start programs that empower their economics. For instance, the Obama era provided grants to communities in an endeavor to revive dying regions. Challenges such as participation, race, and gender still abhor community development.
Authors DeFilipis and Saegert also delve into the matter of community development by addressing pertinent issues in community development, such as how it is done, the history, and the future of the same. The authors emphasize that community development is primarily centered on the locals in a certain region. It requires the involvement of such populations through identifying and applying the best qualities such as labor, land, and other professional qualifications. Mostly, in so doing, the best in the community gets to manage critical aspects that drive the progress of such programs guaranteeing a higher return on investment. The federal policy on the poor has remained to empower them to become financially independent. As such, efforts have been laid to start and control community development such that they attain the intended purpose. Many challenges have, however, faced this aspect since many of these developments have been used by unscrupulous people to swindle public resources under their management. At the same time, the problem of regionalism and race, among others have continued to cloud the progress of community development. The authors, however, inform that the future of community development is brighter and offers higher returns to the investors. The 21st century provides excellent advancement in technology, which encourages the fast flow of information from one party to another. It also offers many great monitoring tools that enable investors to track the discharge of their resources to the intended purpose. In so doing, then it becomes possible to eliminate the loss of vital information and resources alike. The new developments go a long way in replacing the traditional practices that initially slowed the success of community developments.