Community Development Resources

Cornell Cooperative Extension - Community Development

Building strong and vibrant communities by:

* enabling community and government capacity building
* strengthening community economic development
* developing effective and collaborative land use management approaches and policies

Cooperative Extension's Community Development Foundation Practice
Nationally, Cooperative Extension is well positioned to work with citizens and communities in building strong, vibrant and sustainable communities. While the language to describe our community development work may be differenct that it was a century ago, there is a long history of working with communities. To develop the capacities of Extension professionals to work effectively in the area of community development, the Foundation of Practice document was developed and consists of three major components. 1) Understanding Communities and their Dynamics 2) Developing Successful Community Initiative 3) Areas of Specialization and Emphasis The full document is available at the NACDEP website www.nacdep.net

The Cornell Community and Rural Development Institute (CaRDI) works to strengthen and support New York's local communities and citizens. CaRDIserve as a point of entry to Cornell University's resources and expertise in community development and local governance, and provides outreach to community leaders, educators, elected officials and citizens interested in the vitality of their communities.

The Cornell Department of Development Sociology's Rural New York Initiative

Members of Cornell University's Department of Development Sociology (formerly Rural Sociology) have had a long history of research, extension and education relevant to rural New York. The Rural New York Initiative is a Departmental effort to further strengthen this engagement, enhancing the Department's capacity to interact with policy makers and other stakeholders around the state and provide critical and up-to-date information on rural New York people and communities. The Rural New York Initiative is therefore an effort both to integrate our own rural New York activities, as well as to develop stronger connections and networks across the state with others engaged in and concerned with social scientific research and community development efforts relevant to rural New York.

The overarching Goals of the Rural New York Initiative include:

* Strengthening intra-Departmental synergies and collaborations, and providing institutional and technical resources to support the Department's applied research efforts focused on rural New York;
* Networking with a broad range of researchers, institutes and stakeholders across the state to build and sustain a broad inter-institutional dialogue about key issue areas as well as to disseminate rural New York-focused Departmental work;
* Establishing the Department of Development Sociology as a key source of social scientific research-based information on rural New York.

Departmental research with a focus on rural New York can be broken down into four broad themes: (a) community and economic development; (b) the changing structure of agriculture and food systems; (c) environment and society, and; (d) poverty and social inequality.

For more information about the Rural New York Initiative, contact:

Tom Hirschl
Professor
Cornell University
Department of Development Sociology
Warren Hall
Ithaca, New York 14853-7801
(607) 255-1688
tah4@cornell.edu

Robin M. Blakely
Extension Associate
Cornell University
Department of Development Sociology
Warren Hall
Ithaca, New York 14853-7801
(607) 254-6795
rmb18@cornell.edu