Building Communities from the Inside Out
Book Review: Building Communities from the Inside Out by John P Kretzmann and John L McKnight
Review by Martin Macaulay
Building Communities from the Inside Out is the definitive book that introduced asset-based community development (ABCD) to the rest of the world. Written in 1993, it’s surprising how fresh, relevant and forward thinking this book remains. It starts by looking at why many American cities are no longer functional. Industrial jobs that sustained large areas across the country have closed down or moved out of the cities’ locality.
It’s a familiar tale. Even in areas citing a ‘renaissance’, the nature of employment has altered. Gentrification has shifted the types of jobs available, creating an influx of highly professionalised work, inaccessible to all but those who have been highly educated. Where jobs do exist, they are low-paid with low prospects. The swing in the nature of employment has removed local employment opportunities from low-income neighbourhoods.
The way we respond to this is by taking two fundamentally different approaches. The traditional way has been to focus on a community’s needs and deficiencies. What are the problems that need to be solved? We might be resigned to the media lazily regurgitating negative images of an area: drugs, homelessness, dependent on welfare, etc, but ironically most of our policies only serve to reinforce and perpetuate the focus on this deficient ‘reality’.
Well-intentioned practitioners are inadvertently complicit by gearing policies, projects and funding towards overcoming area-based issues. This is problematic. To begin with, it affects people’s behaviour. Services are established on the back of needs-based analyses. People then use these services in their area. Ultimately, they see themselves as consumers of a service with little or no incentive to become producers. They are disempowered and a dependency cycle sets in. Another consequence is that resources are targeted towards service providers, not the residents, meaning little direct financial benefit for the community. (An excellent chapter on rebuilding the community economy picks this up in more detail later).
So what’s the alternative? To develop policies and activities based on the capacities, skills and assets of the community and those who live there. This isn’t about capacity building; it’s about tapping into the skills and resources that already exist to turn a community around. Capacity building is merely a welcome by-product. The book argues that significant community development takes place when the local community is ‘committed to investing themselves and their resources in the effort’. This splits apart the service:client relationship embedded in the neighbourhood as people take ownership and mobilise for the community’s benefit. What follows is a step-by-step guide on how to achieve this.
The book is intended to be dipped in and out of as required, not necessarily read in a single sitting. I did, and despite some repetition in the inventory sections, would still recommend it. As a resource, I’d go as far as to say it’s invaluable. Some of the language may have dated, but it’s clear that the tools and tone can be adapted to suit. The book offers practical steps and a clear, thorough framework to help people adopt an asset based approach to community development.
The first step is to understand and create an inventory of people’s individual capacities and skills. Careful not to label, it focuses on people who often find themselves marginalised or excluded from the narrative. The next step is to map the potential relationship people have with four wider groups; other individuals, community organisations, public bodies and the private sector. Only by understanding people’s skills and what they can offer against the community’s assets can a thorough mapping process take place. The chapter headings explain the steps:
- Releasing individual capacities
- Releasing the power of local associations and organisations
- Capturing local institutions for community building
- Rebuilding the community economy
This approach results in a detailed map of community relationships, both actual and potential. Helpfully, the book is strewn with practical examples of how this worked in reality, illustrating how these mapped relationships released people’s latent skills to turn their community around. The concluding chapters summarise the steps involved in mobilising and supporting the community. Something else struck me. The authors were talking about gifting and localism. To me these seem like fairly recent concepts, not something that was mooted twenty years ago.
If you have an interest in ABCD, this needs to be on your reading list. Not only was it ahead of its time, it is a detailed resource that will guide and give you a host of practical examples, tips and learning points. In the right hands, it could prove to be a powerful tool.
