According to the journal of Community Development It is a broad term given to the practices of civic leaders, activists, involved citizens and professionals to improve various aspects of communities, typically aiming to build stronger and more resilient local communities.

For the past 50 years city planners, developers, policy makers and investors have been building cities, parks, schools and institutions without a significant amount of input from the community. This is an issue because when public officials who are paid by the tax payers dollars and don’t include the community members and they are the ones who will be living there and using what’s the point of having them in the positions where that can make an impactful change with one decision if they aren’t going to get input from their constituents.   When doing community development residents should be able to participate in every aspect of the planning process.

One of the reasons why community development has been done a certain way is because the lack of accountability. For years we as Americans have not held elected officials to the same standards we hold other professionals to. If we as citizens keep allowing this type of behavior to continue we will never be able to change the system which in the end will only hurt us and the future generations to come.