Culture is a living thing. In social settings, it is often used to represent entire ways of life, including rules, values, and expected behavior. Varying from nation to nation, neighborhood to neighborhood and beyond, even in the smallest localities, culture is a motivating factor in the creation of social identity and serves as a basis for creating cohesion and solidarity. This book explores the intersection of culture and community as a basis for locally and regionally based development by focusing on three core bodies of literature: theory, research, and practice. The first section, theory, uncovers some of the relevant historical arguments, as well as more contemporary examinations. Continuing, the research section sheds light on some of the key concepts, variables, and relationships present in the limited study of culture in community development. Finally, the practice section brings together research and theory into applied examples from on the ground efforts. During a time where the interest to retain the uniqueness of local life, traditions, and culture is significantly increasing in community-based development, the authors offer a global exploration of the impacts of culturally based development with comparative analysis in countries such as Korea, Ireland, and the United States. A must-read for community development planners, policymakers, students, and researchers.

Drawing on international examples, this book interrogates the relationship between the arts, culture and community development. Contributors from six continents, reimagine community development as they consider how aesthetic arts contribute to processes of peacebuilding, youth empowerment, participatory planning and environmental regeneration.

This volume takes as its starting point that issues of identity and culture are important and relevant for community development in nearly every society. It is therefore essential that community development practitioners acknowledge both culture as well as the political necessity of incorporating cultural systems, cultural values and traditions into community development initiatives. This book argues that including identity and culture in community development design, and treating identity and culture as an intrinsic asset can be beneficial for all types of community action, from social cohesion to community economic development. This book is a rethinking and reconceptualising of “community” in an international context, and interrogates what community building, community engagement and community development could entail in this context. The contributors in this volume address identity, culture, and community development in both developing and developed countries from multidisciplinary perspectives. The chapters explore different conceptual and theoretical frameworks in analysing identity and culture in community development, and provide empirical insights on community development efforts around the globe. Furthermore, the chapters explore different community engagement processes, different development models and different stakeholder participation models and processes in an effort to demonstrate that there is no one-size-fits-all design when it comes to community development.

In this seminal work, the authors argue that there are distinct local factors that shape the environment of economic development decision-making. These factors, taken together, constitute a community′s local civic culture. Using survey and case study data from U.S. and Canadian cities, the authors make the case that different cultures will produce different types of economic development policies, and that local civic culture will effect the whole array of local policies. The focus on economic development policy provides a window on local decision-making and allows for the development of a theory, introduced by the authors, about the role of local civic culture in framing local decisions of all types. This ultimately provides a theoretical vehicle for categorizing cities and predicting policy outcomes. The book concludes with an overview of what is known about the economic development process and highlights the questions raised about that knowledge by the analyses used here and the focus on civic cultures. New research questions are posed and new directions raised for continued application of a local civic culture approach toward understanding urban policy processes.

This book provides a holistic, multi-stakeholder picture of the first twenty years of tourism development in aremote region of Eastern Indonesia. It is a rich description of how tourism is intertwined with life in anon-western, marginal community. Based on anthropological methods, this ethnography is about tourism andsocio-cultural change, tourists, conflict, globalisation, poverty and powerlessness.

Culture in development thinking : geographies, actors and paradigms / Sarah A. Radcliffe -- Culture, development and global neo-liberalism / Michael Watts -- Culture and conservation in post-conflict Africa : changing attitudes and approaches / Elizabeth Watson -- Indigenous groups, culturally appropriate development and the socio-spatial fix of Andean development / Sarah A. Radcliffe and Nina Laurie -- Laboring in the transnational culture mines : the work of Bolivian music in Japan / Michelle Bigenho -- Social capital and migration beyond ethnic economies / Jan Nederveen Pieterse -- Social capital as culture : promoting co-operative action in Ghana / Gina Porter and Fergus Lyon -- On the spatial limits of culture in high tech regional economic development / Al James -- Mobilizing culture for social justice and development : South Africa's Amazwi Abesifazane memory cloths program / Cheryl McEwan -- Conclusions: The future of culture & development / Sarah A. Radcliffe.

When the big ball drops on New Year's Eve, thousands are there to witness that great glittering sight, while millions more watch on national television. Times Square may be the cultural hub of America, the "Crossroads of the World," but its lights have not always shone as brightly as they do now. Once a glamorous theater district, Times Square and 42nd Street had degenerated into a neighborhood known for the winos and sex shops of "Midnight Cowboy" until New York's business and arts communities stepped in. These advocates of urban revitalization exploited cultural and historic preservation arguments to transform a low-income entertainment district into a Disney-fied tourist mecca. Where Ratso Rizzo once kicked cars and "hookers" plied their trade, Mickey Mouse now greets visitors from atop a Disney superstore surrounded by rising office towers, theaters, and theme restaurants—all thanks to huge tax subsidies and government support. Alexander Reichl tells the fascinating story of how cultural politics and economic greed transformed the city's physical and social environment with an ongoing multibillion-dollar redevelopment program, changing the district from a symbol of urban decline to one of urban renaissance. He explains the political significance of the historic preservation and arts-related approach to urban revitalization, showing how it was used to appeal to the upscale values of middle-class New Yorkers often hostile to urban renewal. He also examines the role of the Walt Disney Company in the project and demonstrates its power to redefine a premier public space. In telling the story of Times Square, Reichl reveals much about politics and power at the city level and their relationship to the development of urban space. He frames his lively narrative with an illuminating account of how historic preservation initiatives at all government levels have displaced large-scale federal urban renewal programs as the dominant approach to urban development, and he shows the importance of political discourse and cultural politics in mobilizing public support for urban redevelopment. Now that it has been reconfigured for the 21st century, Times Square provides a rich and multifaceted case for exploring the latest trends in urban renewal. Yet Reichl suggests much that has happened here is regrettable: the ousting of low-income citizens to serve commercial interests, the loss of a culturally diverse entertainment district, and the failure to address persistent class- and race-based segregation in a central urban area. By getting to the heart of the Great White Way, Reconstructing Times Square provides an important look at urban renewal-and politics—in a changing America.