2015 Urban Affairs Association Conference

Building on the long history of community organizing and the more recent comprehensive community building, new approaches are emerging as practitioners promote social capital and networking as central mechanisms for promoting change. This practical session will begin with a theoretical framework for integrating community building, organizing and conflict transformation. Change agents describe three specific case studies in which they developed distinct models to foster and sustain community change. In one case, the theory suggested that a community organizer was needed to sustain the change in an Arab community in northern Israel after the NGO pulled back, which proved to be unfounded as the community thrived despite the lack of a dedicated organizer. In another case, an initiative adapted asset based community development and network centric organizing (based on Lawrence Community Works) to create a vibrant network that facilitates wealth building in disadvantaged neighborhoods surrounding a university and several other anchor institutions. A third case applies the social capital approach to the young adult communities’ movement in Israel, Nepal and Berundi as a means for urban regeneration. Across these case studies, community change centers around promoting social capital, facilitating residents in solving immediate issues that concern them while at the same time working to address long-term structural problems. These promising models have gained a lot of attention but have yet to appear in published literature.


A Three-Fold Cord: Integrating Community Building, Organizing and Conflict Transformation in Community Change
Mark Chupp, Case Western Reserve University

Young Adult Communities as a Lever for Urban Regeneration
Sara Shadmi-Wortman, Shdemot Center for Community Leadership

Can Activism Survive Without a Community Organizer? A case study from an Arab community in Israel
Ido Shelem, Bridge to the Future