Posted on September 8, 2003

Community Improvement/Development

For years, organizations promoting smart growth have focused on outlying suburban areas, while their community development counterparts have worked primarily in the inner cities. A recent paper commissioned by the Funders' Network for Smart Growth and Livable Communities and the Local Initiatives Support Corporation, the nation's leading community development organization, argues that the two fields are related and should work together to help each other realize their goals. The paper, Community Development and Smart Growth (20 pages, PDF), by Tony Proscio and Paul S. Grogan, offers several examples of community development projects that have come to fruition by using smart-growth strategies in conjunction with regional authorities and planners, and suggests a number of approaches that funders can take to accelerate the formation of constructive partnerships between smart growth and community development acdvocates.