Doing Community Economic Development

Edited by John Loxley, Kathleen Sexsmith, Jim Silver

Challenging traditional notions of development, these essays critically examine bottom-up, community economic development strategies in a wide variety of contexts: as a means of improving lives in northern, rural and inner-city settings; shaped and driven by women and by Aboriginal people; aimed at employment creation for the most marginalized. most authors have employed a participatory research methodology. The essays are the product of a broader, three-year community-university research collaboration with a focus on the strengths and difficulties of participatory, capacity-building strategies for those marginalized by the competitive, profit-seeking forces of capitalism. no easy answers are offered, but many exciting initiatives with great potential are described and critically evaluated.

Contents

• Introduction (Silver & Loxley)
• The State of CED in Winnipeg (Loxley)
• The Impact of Hydroelectric Development on Grand Rapids, Manitoba (Kulchyski & Neckoway) 
• Government Policy towards CED in Manitoba in the 1960s and 1970s (Fernandez) 
• Social Housing and CED Initiatives in Inner-City Winnipeg (Skelton, Selig & Deane) 
• Urban Aboriginal Community Development (Silver, Ghorayshi, Hay & Klyne) 
• Improving the Lives and Livelihoods of Women through Socially Transformative Practice (Amyot) 
• CED to Reduce Young Women’s Poverty and Poverty-Related Conditions (McCracken)
• Moving Low-Income, Inner-city People into Good Jobs (Loewen & Silver)
• Can Call Centres Contribute to Manitoba’s CED? (Guard) 
• Aboriginal Students and the Digital Divide (Deane & Sullivan)
• Aboriginal Labour and the Garment Industry in Winnipeg (Weist & Willmott)
• Aboriginal Employment in the Banking Sector in Manitoba (Sexsmith & Pettman) 
• Manitoba Alternative Food Production and Farm Marketing Models (Doucette & Koroluk)
• Agricultural Land Trusts (Hamilton)
• Economics for CED Practitioners (Loxley & Lamb) 
• Local Participation and Democratic State Restructuring (Sheldrick)
• Reflections on Accomplishments and Challenges (Loxley & Silver)

About the Authors

John Loxley is Professor and former head of the Department of Economics at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg. He specializes in international finance, international development and community economic development, in particular alternatives to orthodox economic theory and policy. His distinguished career includes stints at Makerere University and the University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania, as well as service to the governments of Tanzania, Uganda, Madagascar, Mozambique, and Manitoba as economic advisor. Professor Loxley is the author of Debt and Disorder:  External Financing for Development and the coordinator of the Alternative Federal Budget exercise in Canada.

KATHLEEN SEXSMITH is studying international development at the University of Oxford.

Professor Silver’s research interests are in inner-city, poverty-related and community development issues. His most recent book is In Their Own Voices: Urban Aboriginal Community Development. Among other books, he is the co-author of Building a Better World: An Introduction to Trade Unionism in Canada, a revised, second edition of which will appear in 2008; and editor of Solutions that Work: Fighting Poverty in Winnipeg. He is co-editor of Doing Community Economic Development, scheduled for release in 2007. Some other recent publications include the following monographs, published by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives-Manitoba and available for free download from their website: Unearthing Resistance: Aboriginal Women in the Lord Selkirk Park Housing Developments; Safety and Security Issues in Winnipeg’s Inner City Communities: Bridging the Community-Police Divide (co-authored with Elizabeth Comack); North End Winnipeg’s Lord Selkirk Park Public Housing Development: History, Comparative Context, Prospects; and Gentrification in West Broadway? Contested Space in a Winnipeg Inner City Neighbourhood.

Professor Silver did an M.A. in Political Science at Carleton University, and completed a Ph.D. in Politics at Sussex University in 1981. He started teaching on a full-time basis at the UW in 1982. He was the recipient of the UW’s Robson Award for Excellence in Teaching in 1985, the UW’s Atchison Award for Community Service and the Joe Zuken Citizen Activist Award in 1997, and is the 2007 recipient of the UW’s Erica and Arnold Rogers Award for Excellence in Research. He has been Department Chair since 2006.

Professor Silver is also the Co-Director of the UW’s new Urban and Inner-City Studies program.

Excerpt

Download PDF

Reviews