Asset-based community development (ABCD) is a methodology that seeks to uncover and utilize the strengths within communities as a means for sustainable development.
The first step in the process of community development is to assess the resources of a community through a capacity inventory [1] or through another process of talking to the residents to determine what types of skills and experience are available. The next step is to support communities,to discover what they care enough about to act. The final step is to determine how citizens can act together to achieve those goals.[1]
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The Asset-Based Community Development Institute[2] is located at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. The Asset-Based Community Development Institute (ABCD) is at the center of a large and growing movement that considers local assets as the primary building blocks of sustainable community development. Building on the skills of local residents, the power of local associations, and the supportive functions of local institutions, asset-based community development draws upon existing community strengths to build stronger, more sustainable communities for the future Its founders, John Kretzmann and John L. McKnight, were influential in developing this community development philosophy.
In the book Health Assets in a Global Context it is argued that "in egalitarian societies with strong safety nets and adequate provision of public goods, neighbourhood contexts (including the level of social cohesion) may be less salient for the health of residents in contrast to segregated and unequal societies such as the United States."[3] It is also argued that neo-liberal (unregulated market) economic doctrines promoting individual considerations over the common good erode social capital as a health asset.[4]
By Mike Green with Henry Moore & John O'Brien Foreword by John McKnight sset-Based Community Development as a Strategy for Community-Driven Development
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