Asset Building & Community Development

Employing a broad definition of community development, this book shows how asset building can help increase the capacity of residents to improve their quality of life. It provides students and practitioners with theoretical and practical guidance on how to mobilize community capital (physical, human, social, financial, environmental, political, and cultural) to effect positive change. Authors Gary Paul Green and Anna Haines show that development controlled by community-based organizations provides a better match between these assets and the needs of the communities.

Gary Paul Green is a professor in the Department of Community & Environmental Sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a community development specialist in the Center for Community & Economic Development at the University of Wisconsin-Extension. Green’s teaching and research interests are primarily in the areas of community and economic development. In addition to his work in the U.S., he has been involved in community and economic development research and teaching in China, New Zealand, South Korea, Uganda, and Ukraine.

Anna L. Haines, Ph.D. is a professor in the College of Natural Resources at the University of Wisconsin - Stevens Point and a land use and community development specialist with the University of Wisconsin-Extension. Haines received her Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin - Madison in the Department of Urban and Regional Planning. Her research and teaching focuses on planning and community development from a natural resources or environmental perspective. Her research has focused on evaluating community planning and zoning in terms of smart growth and sustainability, land parcelization, and local food systems. Her extension work has focused on comprehensive planning and planning implementation tools and techniques, sustainable communities, and property rights issues.