SELECTED ARTICLES FROM MAKING WAVES
The following resources are composed in portable document format (PDF).
Copyright © 1991-2008 Centre for Community Enterprise. All rights reserved. Permission to reproduce any of these materials in whole or in part, in print or electronically, must first be obtained from the copyright holder.
Peak Oil, Marginal Communities, & You
If you don't think that our way of life will take a serious hit from the increasing cost of oil, dream on. If you do (and those wild-eyed crazies at the U.S. Department of Energy seem to), it's time to think through how expensive energy will reverberate through the various sectors of our intricate economy. The integration of a multiplicity of interests and scarce resources in long-term, local initiatives may well be the way of the future.
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Peak Oil, Marginal Communities, & You
Wicked!
Years of work on comprehensive, community-based initiatives are making it clear how important it is for citizens to grasp the full complexity of certain community issues. It may be possible to put a stop to littering with a few people, organizations, and actions in a short period of time. To take on gang violence, the sex trade, poverty, or the trafficking of drugs or cigarettes, however, citizens must work from a very different set of assumptions. These problems are so complex as to be best described as "wicked."
Traveling LITE
Local Employment Towards Employment (LITE) has spent the last seven years coaxing the citizens of Winnipeg to "get political" with their charitable dollars. Rather than engage in a seasonal act of kindness, says LITE, use your money to reconfigure an unjust economic system. How best to sell such a message? Show people how much fun this alternative is.
Business Development as a CED Strategy
This is Bill Ninacs' reflection on the role of business development in CED after 15 years of experience in business administration. He argues that any community that intends to help organize an efficient, locally-controlled network of production and distribution must make business part of its development strategy. But CED requires an approach to business development that reflects the type of private sector being created - one based on values different from those currently regulating business. An addendum to this article, "Developing CED: Critical Thinking Required" urges readers to become far more rigorous in their analysis and expression of CED concepts and issues.
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Business Development as a CED Strategy
Common Ground
What does community economic development have to do with the social economy? What does the social economy have to do with CED? Much, argues Mike Lewis. Practitioners of these are two distinct, yet complementary approaches to revitalization would do well to combine forces - now - to create a policy and institutional environment friendly to both.
Crafting Sustainable Development
What do community economic development practitioners have to learn from environmentalists? What does environmentalism stand to gain from CED? By implementing a multi-dimensional concept of sustainability, Coastal Enterprises, Inc. (a long-established community development corporation in Maine) has shed new light on the synergy of our principles and practice.
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Crafting Sustainable Development
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