Building the Capacity for Development

Communities are facing new and more powerful challenges to their survival. Globalization threatens the economic base of many of them. International markets create new competition among localities for capital investments and generate pressures to lower labor costs. Globalization also makes it more diffi cult for communities to plan for the future because of the mobility of capital and labor. In many respects, globalization refl ects a new stage in the process by which communities have become integrated into the larger society and economy over the past century (Warren 1978). Other social and economic changes also make it more challenging for communities to tackle their problems. Urban sprawl undermines the uniqueness of place and promotes class and racial segregation. Sprawl and segregation combine to weaken democracy and civic participation (Oliver 2001). Gentrifi cation makes it more diffi cult for the poor to obtain affordable housing. Lowincome residents are driven out of their neighborhoods because they cannot afford to pay the higher tax assessments. The high rate of immigration during the past two decades has expanded the demand for social ser vices and generates challenges to civic participation (Putnam 2007). Many communities continue to be burdened by concentrated poverty (Wilson 1996). High rates of poverty create numerous obstacles Community Assets