What is Community Design?

Community design helps to establish active partnerships with community residents and institutions, to advocate and develop strategies for improving quality of life. A commitment to diversity and listening to the different voices in a community are core values of community design.

Community design is a movement focused on the creation and management of environments for people. Practitioners of community design identify and solve social, economic, and political problems, as they relate to the built environment. This process promotes change to the built environment from the neighborhood to regional scale, and aims to meet community needs through participatory decision-making at all levels.

What is a Community Design Center?

Community design centers specialize in the provision of planning, design and development services in low- and moderate-income communities. These centers have proven to be a unique vehicle through which a crucial array of services in community development marketplace has been made available.

There are over 40 community design centers in the U.S. alone, and affiliates all over the world. Community design centers include university-based centers, full service planning and design practices, NGO’s, and non-profit organizations.

[Definitions of community design and community design centers are courtesy of the Association for Community Design - www.communitydesign.org.]