Introduction to Community Development

An Introduction to Community Development offers comprehensive and practical approaches to enhance development processes and outcomes for communities. It enables students to make connections between academic study and practical know-how in both private and public sector contexts. Now in its third edition, the book is based on the authors’ years of teaching, practice and research along with training they have provided for practicing community and economic development professionals, policymakers, community leaders and planners. It has been road-tested through the authors' extensive experience working directly with communities to build better futures.

A major theme of the book is the link between community development and economic development, and it clearly shows how to integrate them to make communities more prosperous. Most importantly, the book is strongly focused on outcomes, encouraging students to address key issues for community progress. What are best practices for community development? How do we use effective processes for achieving desired results? How do we accurately measure the results of these processes and practices?

This newly revised and updated edition also includes increased coverage of other important issues such as connectedness and placemaking, quality of life, community well-being, sustainability, marketing, and community enterprise. Each chapter provides a range of reading materials for the student, supplemented with text boxes, cases, keywords, and reference lists. It includes skills-based exercises at the end of each chapter to help students turn their learning into action. This new and improved content makes this third edition the most impactful and user-friendly text for community development now available.

Rhonda Phillips is a community and economic development planning specialist. She is president of St. Mary’s College of Maryland, a public honors college. Rhonda is a member of the College of Fellows of the American Institute of Certified Planners (FAICP) and held the Certified Economic and Community Developer designation (CEcD) for 17 years.

Robert H. Pittman is a noted consultant, teacher, speaker, and author in the field of community and economic development. He has held senior management positions in the industry including Director of Economic Development Consulting for a global engineering and advisory firm.