Dynamics to sustain community development in persistently poor rural areas

In confronting the problem of persistent rural poverty, scholars and practitioners of rural development have increasingly questioned the utility of previous antipoverty approaches that emphasize individually oriented cash transfer programs or policies guided by a modernization/development model. Instead, to design a recent ten-year policy initiative, the 1994 US Empowerment Zone/Enterprise Community Initiative, policy framers chose a new approach, locality-based rural development. Using rural census tracts with persistently poor profiles, the selection process emphasized the primary outcome goals of (1) sustainable community development and (2) economic opportunity for all residents, and two process goals of (3) citizen participation in the construction of a locally defined strategic vision and (4) the formation of community-based partnerships to implement benchmark activities to achieve the two primary outcome goals. The rural sites extend from the Eastern Shore of Virginia to the Deep South, from states which border Mexico to the Great Plains and the Northwest. An evaluation of the first three years reveals that steps undertaken during the strategic planning phase to actively reach out to residents with low income and to channel participation using groups increases citizen participation in governance during implementation but it is not associated with increases in community-based partnerships. To adapt new approaches to rural development and to partnerships between and across sectors, scholars and practitioners need to build trust between individuals and between segments of the community and levels of government.