Community Planning In Social Work

This entry discusses community planning in the context of community social work. Distinctions are made between community planning as a rational comprehensive process of the planning discipline, and the process of community planning in community social work. Community planning is defined as a process of participatory and inclusive organized social change, directed toward community empowerment, building community, and developing members’ capacities to take part in democratic decision making. A three-dimensional model of empowering community planning is presented and discussed. The model focuses on the tasks of community social work in the planning process, and the empowering outcomes they can enable.

Community development planning consists of

Such planning includes a study of present requirements and conditions as well as projections for the future, and often includes proposals for implementing the plan.

Needs, priorities and trends of the development of social services must be determined by people living in a given community.

- All activities at a local level carried out in the course of preparation and implementation of a plan must be interrelated.

- Improvement of social services quality must be considered a desirable and important feature of local community policy.

- Priorities and trends of the development of social services are based on a conviction that every single user of social services is unique, that he/she has his/her own value, innate dignity and the right for self-determination

PRINCIPLE

Historic city, village and township centers should be preserved. New development or redevelopment in existing communities should respect local historical patterns, precedents and boundaries. Viability in established or developing downtowns and community or village centers is strengthened by street-level retail, on-street parking, downtown residential, the maintenance of an appropriate street pattern, street-level activity, the retention of historically significant buildings, and the provision of parking structures. Civic buildings and public gathering places are important and require prominent accessible sites. The scale and configuration of streets and open spaces (parks, greens, squares) should be attractive and comfortable to pedestrians. The design of streets and buildings should result in safety and security, as well as be accessible and open to the public. Architecture, building placement and landscaping should result in the physical definition of streets and other public spaces. Neighborhoods should include a variety of public spaces (tot-lots, village greens, ballfields, community gardens, etc.) that are strategically distributed and physically well defined. New investment along highway corridors should complement investment in existing community business centers. New development should be seamlessly woven into the physical fabric of its surroundings, regardless of differences in