Community Economic Development: An Approach for Urban-Based Economies

Hugh Follett was a social worker living in Stoney Creek, Ontario.

The authors of this report have described the economic problems of communities faced by “the impacts of new technologies on their secondary industries, the vagaries of resource extraction and other primary sector activities ... intra- and international transfers of employment, capital and other physical assets,” and “the sharp fluctuations in temporal economic conditions in the past two decades,” as well as “the vulnerability of places to obsolescence, dislocation, decline and disinvestment.” Recently, more attention has come to be focused on the development of strategies to shape economic development. The authors state, “This paper provides an overview of the concepts, development tools and organizational forms adopted or proposed to address these kinds of issues in urban localities in Canada and the United States. The primary but not exclusive foci are on place-oriented strategies and on collective rather than individual initiatives.” Although many communities are discussed in this study, a more intense scrutiny of Community Economic Development (CED) feedback is included in the sixth and last section, where representatives of certain organizations in Winnipeg are interviewed. This work identifies the roles and cooperative potential of public, private, and third-sector parties in local and community based economies. It is well organized, interesting, and thorough.