The rural communities of the North American Great Plains are experiencing fundamental economic and social changes that threaten their very existence. While local projects offer hope for survival, many communities lack the knowledge needed to envision and evaluate their possible futures. As a consequence, communities may pursue survival strategies…

A living systems model of community development has been synthesized from elements of three perspectives: (1) a global movement toward more sustainable patterns of human development that is identifying indicators of community health in a wide range of categories; (2) research on the complex interactions of living systems that make life on earth…

Ways in which community "visioning" can be used to generate support and action for community education are described in this paper. Six steps in the community visioning process are discussed: (1) preparing; (2) conducting a workshop; (3) obtaining community feedback; (4) action planning; (5) recruiting, implementing, and following up; and (6)…

The rural community college has a unique opportunity to bring about social change in rural areas. This paper summarizes the needs and resources of the rural community and discusses the change techniques useful to the college administrator. The most valuable resource is the college staff who offer technical expertise and leadership not available…

Rural economic development depends on implementation of strategies that capture the competitive edge of the total rural environment. It will not succeed by weak duplication of traditional urban development strategies. The historic dependence on the natural resource base that is the common denominator for rural areas must be regarded not as a…

The paper describes the Shared Process Evaluation System (SHAPES) for analyzing the process of community development. The system's basic organizing unit is the critical incident, an event judged to be essential to the continuation of a particular community development project or as representing a choice point in the project's history. Three sets…

Land use controls are often a major point of conflict between recent migrants and long-term residents of rapidly growing communities. Such conflict was noted in a case study of a rural community undergoing rapid population growth. The revision of a comprehensive land use plan for the community provided the opportunity to evaluate citizen…

The recent, widespread trend toward rural migration can create disturbances in the organization of the host community by overloading community services and by creating conflict between oldtimers and newcomers. To obtain information about community disturbances and migration in Michigan, questionnaires were sent to a random sample of 21,792…

"Our Town: An Architectural Perspective" is a program for at-risk elementary school children which was instituted at Carnegie Mellon University (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania). The goal of this effort was to introduce built-environment awareness in the public schools, where the neighborhood serves as the classroom and as a vehicle for…

Careful long-range planning and slow, deliberate growth have benefitted Kershaw County's 500,000 pleasantly varied acres near the state capitol. The county, famous for its equestrian activity, boasts prestige stables, riding clubs, and trails. In addition there are lakes and numerous parks. Leaders want to maintain this aesthetic appeal while…

An ecological framework for predicting citizen participation in grassroots community organizations and predicting community disorder problems (such as crime and fear) was developed and tested. The framework, which is called an ecological framework for sustainable community learning and development, delineates the relevant economic, political,…