COMMUNITY DESIGN: IDEALISM AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP

Abstract

□ In the early 1960s, when a crisis of confidence in professional competence sparked a radical reevaluation of how professionals work, and for whom, many design and planning professionals rejected traditional practice. Instead, they fought against urban redevelopment, advocated for the rights of poor citizens, and developed methods of citizen participation. Community design grew out of these activities and was supported by a host of federal programs focused on the needs of the urban poor. But as the political climate grew increasingly more conservative, and funding diminished, the political model gave way to an economic model. As a result, community design became more pragmatic in developing a multiplicity of economic and social agendas to help community groups gain some measure of control over resources in their environment. Thus, community design practice identifies and solves particular environmental problems in which the client is a special-interest group and the problem is social, economic and/or political, as well as physical. Community design can be distinguished from traditional professional practice because it is client-, process-, and valuespecific, yet remarkably nonspecific in terms of its professional tasks. These characteristics provide a framework for evaluating community design as a new area of professional activity. □

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