The Building Blocks of Community Development

The Building Blocks of Community Development
	From emphasis on growth as goal	To emphasis on development as goal
Business Development	More jobs	More high-quality jobs
Workforce Development	Low-skill, low-wage labor	High-skill, high-value labor
Physical Infrastructure	Traditional infrastructure (roads, water, sewer, etc.)	Traditional plus emerging infrastructure (telecommunications)
Social Infrastructure	Human services, such as child and elder care, health care, and housing, as peripheral to development	Human services as integral to development
Cultural and Environmental Stewardship	Heritage preservation, i.e., protecting the physical and built environment, as grounded solely in the past	Utilizing cultural and environmental assets as tools for community building and development
Civic Infrastructure	Maintaining traditional models of civic participation and governance	Developing broad, diverse community leadership and a government that works for all people
Source: MDC, Inc.