In Community Economic Development and Social Work, you'll find innovative theoretical approaches to the newly emerging field of community economic development (CED). You'll see how community leaders, residents, community organizations, social workers, city planners, local business owners, bankers, and/or investors can come together to promote successful CED.Community economic development (CED) is a strategy that addresses social and economic development goals, creates jobs, builds assets, and strengthens the social fabric of communities. In Community Economic Development and Social Work, you'll learn how to promote community-based organizations that involve residents in articulating goals, policies, and operations and moves them beyond poverty. You'll also gain valuable insight into:

• methods of evaluating a variety of CED initiatives in different geographical areas
• microenterprise development and the experiences of low-income entrepreneurs, including examples from Bangladesh and India and in immigrant and low-income communities in the United States
• home ownership as a key CED strategy in low-income neighborhoods
• environmental issues and sustainable CED
• healthcare and CED--entrepreneurial opportunities and job creation
• organizations, such as Community Development Corporations, that promote CED
• practicing CED in marginalized communities
• strategies for creating jobs, developing structures for savings and investment, creating access to credit, promoting land trusts, financing community infrastructure improvements, providing training and technical assistance, and developing social services Contributors to this groundbreaking volume include internationally known scholars and practitioners who examine community economic development initiatives from a variety of perspectives and locales--CED is one of the few areas of applied social science where diffusion regularly occurs from "less developed" to "developed" countries. The variety of models and case studies in Community Economic Development and Social Work gives you practical ideas for effective economic development--development that empowers residents to break the cycle of poverty and offers hope and opportunity for the future--in low-income and minority communities.