ABSTRACT
Community development contains within itself a set of goals and aspirations that, on some irreducible level, are (at best) in tension with each other or (at worst) in direct contradiction with each other (for an early discussion of these tensions, see Sturdivant, 1971). The first of these is the rather wellknown issue of the relationship between markets (efficiency) and equity. Communities most in need of development begin their efforts from a position of market failure. The efforts that energized significant victories for the community development movement such as the fight for the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) staked their claims on notions of equity and fairness. But like CRA, solutions ultimately were required to contend with market forces and find ways to work with them. O’Connor traces this tension through much of the development of the movement. Since 1980, pretty much all efforts to resolve problems of social equity rely on market mechanisms. For example, the largest source of capital for the community development of housing has come for many years from tax credits for corporations for funds devoted to this purpose.
