ABSTRACT
Community economic development (CED) is an important tool for place and people revitalization in the United States. Viewed as a process, community economic development helps residents engage in mobilizing and building assets that will improve their individual and collective future. Community development programming includes the provision of social services such as child care, substance abuse counseling, and activities such as community organizing for local school improvement, crime reduction, and financial literacy. Community development corporations (CDCs) are resident-controlled community corporations that overcome the perceived and real lack of organization in poor communities by planning and directing local economic initiatives and programs. CDCs blessed with good leadership and support from the resource environment can often take on challenges beyond housing, such as workforce development, business development, and community organizing. The intermediaries have become thought leaders and policy advocates when necessary to expand the impact of CEDs through government policy.
