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Asset-Based Community Building: Creating Social Capital to Build Neighborhood as Better Places to Live
Type Article Format PDF Author Loyola University Chicago, Center for Urban Research and Learning Year 2002 Related Sectors Civic Vitality Topic Health Equity Alliance

Asset-Based Community Building: Creating Social Capital to Build Neighborhood as Better Places to Live

Comprehensive article describing the concept of Asset-Based Community Development.

Excerpt "When communities face difficult issues such as poverty and crime, it is easy to talk about them based on their problems and what they lack. However, we can look at communities like a half empty or a half full glass, depending which perspective we decide to take. The goal of asset-based community building is to reverse the perspective of most community development that looks for problems and needs before seeing the advantages and solutions already in place. Before we point out the problems in our communities, we need to look for the resources that already exist there. Many of the resources we need to improve our community life are available in our own backyard. The most important resource in the world is human and social capital: individual skills, experience, and collective energy to make the world a better place. We need to search out our neighbors’ assets and find out what each person brings to the community. Every member of our community has a place at the table and each of us brings different gifts to the feast."

Copyright 2002, Center for Urban Research and Learning (CURL) / Loyola University Chicago

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