The Community Capitals Framework (CCF) is widely used to describe how community assets are invested to generate new resources, yet practitioners often struggle to translate its concepts into coordinated action. Existing applications typically pair the CCF with established community development approaches, but these approaches were not designed to sustain capital awareness, account for interactions among capitals, or coordinate action across multiple settings. This article introduces the Community Capital Development Approach (CCDA), a practice‑oriented approach intentionally built around the CCF. Drawing on contributions from Appreciative Inquiry, Asset‑Based Community Development, the Sustainable Livelihoods Approach, and strategic planning, the CCDA integrates explicit conditions for action, guiding principles, and a seven‑convening process to operationalize capital stocks, flows, and setting linkages. The approach provides practitioners and development organizations with a structured yet adaptable roadmap for navigating complex community development contexts, including both general community systems and focused systems such as neighborhoods, downtowns, or entrepreneurial ecosystems. By embedding capital consciousness and setting awareness throughout diagnosis, strategizing, action, and learning, the CCDA clarifies how communities can move from describing their capitals to deliberately coordinating their mobilization over time.
Purdue University and community partners are navigating change through collaborative, data-driven land-use planning. This session highlights three initiatives that strengthen community resilience and inform local decisions. IN R-STEP, funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, provides GIS tools and engagement strategies for renewable energy siting. The NSF-supported MARC program explores agrivoltaics, integrating solar energy with agriculture to enhance resilience and productivity. Purdue also partners with Indiana’s Lake Michigan Coastal Program to develop conservation plans using spatial analysis and community input. All efforts emphasize participatory design, equipping communities with practical tools to manage growth, preserve character, and address environmental challenges.
The current climate crisis (and the plethora of interwoven issues) has forced communities to come up with innovative solutions to address numerous challenges from poverty and hunger to building climate resilience, especially in urban settings. As communities rise to these challenges through building collaborative networks, deploying social capital, and brainstorming contextualized solutions, navigating and managing change has become an integral part of the community process. Using a community driven initiative to build an urban homesteading network in a historic district in Dayton, OH this presentation will discuss how the community navigates change and enacts innovative solutions that address community challenges.
This study examines the relationship between well-being and geographic context among informal child caregivers in the United States using 2022 North Central and Northeast Caregiving Survey data. We assess urban–rural differences in well-being and the role of caregiving-related life changes. Regression and Blinder–Oaxaca decomposition analyses show a statistically significant advantage in well-being for urban caregivers. About one-third of this gap is explained by observable factors, primarily income and employment status, while two-thirds remains unexplained. Employment changes related to caregiving are particularly detrimental to the well-being of rural caregivers compared with their urban counterparts.
This presentation examines uneven access to overnight respite care in Western NY through the lenses of geography, workforce, and system design. Using regional data, travel-time analysis, and workforce modeling, it reframes respite scarcity as a network problem rather than a site-level issue. The session explores how strategic siting, cross-county collaboration, and community college partnerships can transform a partially built system into a coherent regional infrastructure—improving equity, sustainability, and family trust while strengthening workforce pipelines critical to long-term community health.
The Civic Muscle Index (CMI) is a platform designed to measure, visualize, and strengthen the civic conditions that support thriving communities across diverse geographies. Combining research-based indicators with interactive data tools and narrative content, the CMI provides locally relevant insights for rural, suburban, and urban communities alike. This presentation will highlight the CMI’s development, methodological framework, and practical applications—showing how communities are using the tool to build shared power, collaboration, and belonging while bridging place-based differences.
The U.S. system of refugee resettlement was built for arrival, not for belonging. The long, complex work of helping refugees build new lives here requires a new framework -- one that approaches resettlement as community development and that brings local government and civil society together as genuine co-governance partners. With voices of lived experience, field-based practitioner insight, and theoretical grounding, the presenter is trying to build this new framework and apply his ideas with a newly-elected mayor and a well-established community-based organization. He will share a progress report and invite responders to comment and critique. Responders: Satoko Okano Todd Johnson
Effective infrastructure governance is essential for driving inclusive economic growth, particularly in rural and under-resourced regions. While global models increasingly embrace community-centred approaches to infrastructure planning, implementation, and oversight, many local development agencies in Africa continue to operate within centralised and technocratic frameworks that marginalise community voices. This desktop research paper explores how international best practices in infrastructure governance, drawing on experiences from Chile, the Netherlands, and South Korea - can inform locally responsive solutions in the Joe Gqabi District, Eastern Cape, South Africa. Using participatory governance theory, institutional theory, and public value theory as analytical lenses, the study examines how infrastructure systems can be reoriented to prioritise social inclusion, accountability, and sustainability. The findings highlight inclusive stakeholder engagement, decentralized decision-making, institutional coordination, and capacity development as critical enablers of effective community-centred infrastructure governance. The paper concludes by proposing a practical governance framework for municipalities and government agencies aimed at translating global insights into tangible local development outcomes.
Public parks play a crucial role in community building by strengthening neighborhoods and fostering positive change. The National Park Service’s Accessibility Task Force introduced inclusivity strategies in 2012, followed by state-level policies supporting park accessibility. This research develops a taxonomy of these policies based on measurable characteristics and their alignment with the ADA Outdoor Guidelines. It further expands on this taxonomy by conducting a comparative case study on policy implementation in rural and urban parks, addressing the gap in rural park research (Veitch et al., 2013). Findings aim to guide community development practitioners in advancing inclusive, accessible strategies.
