#7 Reason Community Development is Hard to Do
7. Negative Attitudes
-- editors note, this is the seventh is a top ten list of reasons why rural community development is hard to do by Michael Holton that ran in the December 2006 Center for Rural Affairs newsletter... john
It easier to be an art critic than it is to be an artist. In small rural community development, we all know what we will hear from many of the residents of a town. It is nearly always negative and destructive.
I often say in meetings in small rural communities that I can find out everything that is wrong with the community in one hour at the local coffee shop. It takes me much longer to get people to talk about what is good about their community.
We need to focus on positive contributions of the community and its people to the world as we know it. Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD) is an approach that works well in identifying positive attributes of our communities and starts the conversation in a positive direction. We will discuss this concept and practice later.
Agree? Disagree? Post a comment here or contact John Crabtree, johnc@cfra.org
Center for Rural Affairs
Values. Worth. Action.
posted by Center for Rural Affairs @ 9:26 PM
5 Comments:
At 3:42 PM,
Anonymous said…
Micheal, you really have to try haning out in some different communities. Most rural communities that I have been in are not nearly as bad as you have described them in this top ten list.
At 6:53 PM,
Anonymous said…
In my previous post, I meant to say, "Michael, you really have to try hanging out in some different communities." Hanging, instead of "haning" whatever that is.
Also, I meant that rural communities, in my experience, are not nearly as NEGATIVE as Mr. Holton has described in this discussion. I used the word bad instead of negative - I know that Mr. Holton would never say that rural communities, even negative ones, are bad.
At 5:51 PM,
Anonymous said…
LOL, Michael, are you saying the people on this list are difficult? Or negative? I'm laughing, not because of what you said but because it seems very true to me. The people that read this blog have been critical at times, challenging at times, and even perhaps at difficult at times. And I'd venture a guess that Michael is absolutely right, the discussions on this list are likely a good representation of what we all face in our communities. But there have been a lot of valuable ideas and issues raised here too. Thank you one and all.
At 5:55 PM,
Center for Rural Affairs said…
Just to let everyone know in advance, Rural McCook, a participant on this blog, and I have done some research on a thread from an earlier post and I will be posting it soon. The topic will be telecommuting and state or private initiatives to utilize rural telecommuters. thank you, john
At 6:21 PM,
Anonymous said…
Michael, I'm not saying your wrong, but whenever I visit a rural community I starting hearing all about what makes that community worth saving (or fighting for) in about 2 minutes. I know that is different from the things that people say to you - a person can talk about both what is wrong with a community and what makes it worth saving and not be in conflict. I think that even a lot of the "negative" people see that there is something special about their commmunity, something worth keeping and enhancing.
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