Describes community planning as an empowering professional practice. Compares the empowerment practices of process-focused and product-focused planning. Uses stages of rational comprehensive planning and stages of community empowerment as the context. (SK)

Gender as well as the structure of women's lives are important variables that must be included in social analysis. Although there appear to be linkages between community organizing theory and women's movement organizing, there has been insufficient interchange of ideas and challenge of the theoretical assumptions. (JOW)

Strategic development planning encompasses the setting of communitywide objectives; appraisal of external forces; analysis of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats; and development of a community-owned strategic plan. As an appropriate method transferred from business, it overcomes criticisms of other community participatory planning…

The recent history of an agricultural region of Central Kenya relates the details of the foundation of cooperatives. The social case of the study describes the desire of the inhabitants of part of the region to have a nursery school and the problems that came up among the inhabitants and the construction and planning of the school. (RR)

Craftspeople in eastern Nepal have demonstrated how they can use traditional skills to contribute both to economic development and environmental conservation. Their initiatives were achieved with little outside assistance and disruption to family life. (SK)

A survey of 26 human service agencies in an empowerment zone found the following: 73% used interns, few from social work; 57% used empowerment in mission statements (more economic than social agencies); 69% of these wanted community practice interns; and higher-budget agencies were better able to negotiate the empowerment zone system. (Contains 20…

The article uses the Israeli kibbutz of Degem as an example of community planning in an almost ideal setting, yet illustrates how the presence of special interest groups and factional groups complicates pursuing and achieving common objectives. (AG)

The Sheffield (England) City Council used an advisory group approach to solicit citizen participation in community planning. Two important lessons were: ensuring that all target groups are represented and providing training and information to prepare citizen representatives for their consulting role. (SK)

Recreational facility plans for Greater Peterborough as it grows from 80,000 to 180,000 persons consider the needs of both the casual and long-term user. Local center and city center meeting places, swimming pools, children's play areas, facilities for the arts, and facilities for indoor and outdoor sports are planned. (AG)

This social case describes the foundation of a commission whose object is to organize a recreation group for preschool children. The efforts to choose a commission was affected by the antagonism between the old members and the new members. The worker of the community describes his efforts in bringing the groups together. (Author/RR)

A community water supply project in Cameroon illustrates the following constraints on community participation in development: paternalistic authorities, prescriptive role of the state, selective participation, bias toward "hard" issues, inattention to negative results, group conflicts, gatekeeping, pressure for immediate results,…

This discussion of the participation of employees, voluntary and community groups, and consumers and parents in community social services planning traces recent origins of British thinking on the subject, analyzes what social services planners can learn from physical planners, and discusses methods of participation for each type of group. (JT)