Navigating Community Development proposes a framework for how community development organizations can advance their mission through strategic partnerships and provides examples of how these organizations can maximize their core competencies in a way that supports outputs, outcomes and impact, concepts that are elaborated upon and applied throughout the text. The text is well-balanced, offering ample historical and theoretical background on community development, relevant case studies, basic fundamental who, what, when descriptions of how community development actually occurs, and thoughtful forecasting of how this field could and should evolve in future years. The authors state that, in addition to community development practitioners, one of their primary audiences is students with an interest in improving communities. As a resource for teaching about this type of work, chapter 3: The Background and History of Community Development Organizations and chapter 4: Understanding the Community Development Ecosystem can be particularly useful for exposing students to the basics of what this field is about. The text is written clearly, generally assuming an appropriate level of knowledge for those who are new to this particular facet of the planning field. In the book’s section Community Engagement and Public Policy, found in chapter 5, the authors outline several types of engagement approaches commonly used in the community development field including Local Knowledge and Expertise, Community Networking, and Resident, Business and Institution Engagement. The brief explanations of these engagement types within this section do not intend to be comprehensive but perhaps could have benefited from a bit of expansion to give those new to the field a clearer idea of this important aspect of the work. In general, one of the most enjoyable attributes of this text is the simple, straightforward, and accessible explanations of how entities within the community development ecosystem interact. Having previously worked in this field, it would have been a real asset to be able to easily acquire answers to questions like, how do local nonprofit service organizations relate to the field of community development? When one attempts to research such questions, online, for example, they are met with an array of confusing, indecipherable explanations that are well beyond what the average newer practitioner or student wants. This text offers answers to these basic and important issues very accessibly and without a lot of extra information or fuss. One of the challenges for both undergraduate and graduate planning students is understanding the ways that a planning education can be applied to a variety of career paths and the broad reaching professional areas in which a trained planner can utilize the skills they’ve acquired. Many planning students largely assume that a planning education leads to a career path as a municipal or regional planner or working for a planning firm that takes on specific consulting projects. However, beyond the aforementioned jobs, the education planners receive is of course applicable to many other career paths that can help to improve quality of life in communities. Planning students, and particularly those who wish to focus on social issues and inequality within communities, will find this book extremely helpful in understanding the types of important work they can undertake in pursuing a career in community development.

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书评：驾驭社区发展：利用比较优势建立战略伙伴关系

社区发展导航提出了一个框架，说明社区发展组织如何通过战略伙伴关系推进其使命，并提供示例说明这些组织如何以支持产出、成果和影响的方式最大限度地发挥其核心竞争力，以及在整个过程中阐述和应用的概念。文本。文本内容均衡，提供了关于社区发展的丰富历史和理论背景、相关案例研究、基本的谁、什么、何时社区发展实际发生的描述，以及对该领域在未来几年可能和应该如何发展的深思熟虑的预测. 作者指出，除了社区发展从业者之外，他们的主要受众之一是对改善社区感兴趣的学生。作为此类工作的教学资源，第 3 章：社区发展组织的背景和历史和第 4 章：了解社区发展生态系统对于让学生了解该领域的基础知识特别有用。文本写得很清楚，通常假设那些不熟悉规划领域特定方面的人具有适当的知识水平。在本书第 5 章的社区参与和公共政策部分中，作者概述了社区发展领域常用的几种参与方法，包括本地知识和专长、社区网络以及居民、企业和机构参与。本节中对这些参与类型的简要说明并不打算全面，但也许可以从一些扩展中受益，以使该领域的新手更清楚地了解工作的这一重要方面。总的来说，本书最令人愉快的属性之一是对社区发展生态系统中的实体如何交互的简单、直接且易于理解的解释。以前在该领域工作过，如果能够轻松获得诸如当地非营利服务组织与社区发展领域的关系等问题的答案，将是一项真正的资产。例如，当人们尝试在网上研究此类问题时，会遇到一系列令人困惑的问题，难以理解的解释远远超出了一般的新从业者或学生想要的。这篇文章非常容易地为这些基本和重要的问题提供了答案，没有太多额外的信息或大惊小怪。规划本科生和研究生面临的挑战之一是了解规划教育可以应用于各种职业道路的方式以及受过培训的规划师可以利用他们获得的技能的广泛专业领域。许多规划专业的学生在很大程度上认为规划教育会导致成为市政或区域规划师的职业道路，或者为承担特定咨询项目的规划公司工作。然而，除了上述工作，教育规划者获得的课程当然适用于许多其他有助于提高社区生活质量的职业道路。规划学生，尤其是那些希望关注社会问题和社区内不平等的学生，会发现这本书非常有助于理解他们在从事社区发展职业时可以从事的重要工作类型。