To address the challenges of sustainability in rural areas of Mexico, it must be considered that globalization opened the way to a new conception of rural development and consequently to a change of strategies aimed at achieving higher levels of productivity, often unrelated to social welfare. This widened poverty in the countryside and forced the…

Engelhard is a very isolated rural community in Hyde County, North Carolina, economically dependent on seafood, small scale agriculture, and logging. In the mid-1980s the agricultural crisis, the decline in seafood landings, and changes in timber industry technology contributed to rising unemployment. Several decades of declining population and…

Rural economic development depends on implementation of strategies that capture the competitive edge of the total rural environment. It will not succeed by weak duplication of traditional urban development strategies. The historic dependence on the natural resource base that is the common denominator for rural areas must be regarded not as a…

Describes attitudes and strategies used by two small rural towns to foster economic development and improve local housing, schools, professional facilities, and recreational programs for youth and adults. Emphasizes individual leadership qualities useful in creating a vision for community survival, communicating the vision through town meetings,…

Discusses using social-work educational methods to organize the New York Rural Human Services Coalition, when public policy is increasingly urban oriented. Describes historical framework and state institutional structure of services. Describes organization to secure rural perspectives in human-services delivery. Describes community organization…

The systematic, practical ideas presented for improving the quality of life in a community are based on the belief that people, working together, sometimes with and through local government and sometimes through the vigorous efforts of voluntary organizations and associations, can help their communities increasingly become the kinds of places that…

Illustrating components of multi-county organization and emphasizing the rewards of area organization when carefully used as a tool to close the gaps between local, state, and Federal governments, this monograph presents the following five chapters: (1) "Key Factors in Area or Regional Boundry Delineation" (natural physical, biological, and human…

A Vermont project, the Environmental Programs/Partnerships in Communities (EPIC) project provides a transferable model for rural development. The program is sensitive to people and environmental needs, and emphasizes long-term functioning of the entire community system, not just specific outcomes. EPIC has supported leadership training, local…

A strong local economy which allows residents of a community to work and shop near their homes is perhaps the best safeguard against the threats of urban sprawl, economic stagnation, physical deterioration and loss of unique identity facing many small towns. Utilizing a six-phase process advocated by the University of Wisconsin-Extension,…

This report proposes a training framework for community development and extension education in support of Integrated Rural Development Programmes in the Northern Region of Ghana. The first chapter clarifies the basic concepts of the Northern Region Rural Integrated Programme (NORRIP) and discusses the role of community development and extension…

Successfully field tested in four villages in the Federal Capital Area, Pakistan, the model is designed to: identify and prioritize village concerns and educational needs; validate and analyze the needs with respect to village values and goals; and select, develop, implement, and evaluate a best solution. Major steps in the model are: data…