Category: Community Development

As outlined in the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, there is an urgent need for mechanisms that effectively scale proven interventions for tackling some of humanity’s toughest challenges (United Nations 2015). While there are exemplary models that have proven to be highly effective, there are relatively few examples that have achieved large-scale replication.

As currently being implemented by the Small Business Administration, the loans made available through the $349 billion Paycheck Protection Program, part of the CARES Act recently enacted to address the COVID-19 crisis, are likely to significantly bypass smaller small businesses and those that are minority- or women-owned.

In this report, authors Mikayla Townsend, Steve Brown, and Carrie Portrie summarize the workshops held with community members to discuss how to make Jaffery, New Hampshire's downtown more welcoming, provide needed resources, and afford economic opportunities.

An ongoing concern in both urban and rural America is the tradeoff between residential and commercial development and the conservation of forestland, shrublands, and grasslands, commonly referred to as greenspace. As communities develop, adding schools, housing, infrastructure, and the commercial space needed for an expanding population and economy, greenspace remains critical because it contributes to air and water purification, storm abatement, and enhanced human health and quality of life

Place rebranding is gaining in popularity as cities and rural communities alike attempt to expand their revenue streams through innovative marketing strategies that seek to revitalize or create tourism destinations. These efforts tend to come about as part of an economic development strategy pursued by communities that have borne steep economic losses resulting from global economic restructuring and the decline in traditional manufacturing, agriculture, and natural-resource extraction. Author Michele Dillon explores the role of social capital in rural wealth generation by focusing on how it was used to advance place rebranding in Coös County in northern New Hampshire. In Coös, as is also likely the case in other rural counties, there is a far greater number of local than regional institutions and organizations, and culturally, leaders and residents alike are more prone to think locally than regionally. Nonetheless, these local community organizations can still play an important role in regionalization efforts; their infrastructural resources (including leaders and others with a history of working together on local issues) can be strategically incorporated as in Coös to forge and strengthen regionalized bridging connections. Her case study indicates that local community social capital can be expanded and stretched to achieve inter-community, county-wide regional cooperation. In particular, the Coös Branding Project, which she examines at length, illustrates the productive value of bridging social capital in rural economic development. As Coös moves forward and continues to develop its tourism sector, ongoing community support and inter-community cooperation will be crucial to translating its newly branded place identity into a place that will attract tourism and further investment.