International Community Development Perspective: Is There Such a Thing?

Sometimes what we're writing is only pertinent to the U.S.A. because we're writing about laws, situations, and a poltical system that only apply in the homeland of all of the authors of this site.

Yet when we looked at our statistics today, only 57% of our visitors were from the U.S. So what are the rest of you thinking? Do you think there are some universals in what we are saying? (You must, as you continue to visit month after month.)

So if there are some generally applicable community development principles around the world, what are they? Perhaps there are concepts that are valid in a category, such as developed nations, Western nations, developing or extremely poor nations, and so forth.

Tell us how your part of the world differs. Are there solutions that the rest of us should borrow? Do you have problems that our website seems insensitive to? Are there issues that are bubbling up in your country that you think would be interesting to round out the international community development perspective?

Especially it's important for all of us to experience new ways of thinking about:

1. Housing
2. Transportation
3. Economic development
4. Communication
5. Organized community development efforts
6. Community betterment projects
7. Ways to address environmental problems (pollution of air and water)
8. Equity among different social classes, genders, and ability groups>
9. How language influences the way we think about community development
10. Whether there are specific ways that an international community development perspective could improve how local community leaders do their volunteer jobs

What do you think? The challenge here is that we can't have answers that are very long, so try to answer in no more than 2-3 paragraphs. If you have a photo or diagram, we can accept up to 4 with each mini-blog entry. As the form says, if we accept what you write (use your best English, please), you will have your own separate web page and visitors can comment on it. Type into the form below.

Want to Internationalize This Website?

Did you notice something on this website that definitely did not pertain to your location, or one you know about? Please tell us below about the difference in one's perception of certain community improvement issues, based on where you are in the world. We're really looking forward to learning and broadening the way we're talking about issues!

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