Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Table 7.2
Key characteristics of a locally resilient community. (Source: Reorganized from Port
Alberni Community Resilience Manual: CRM
2000
)
A. Leadership and Involvement
Leadership is diversified and representative of age, gender and cultural composition of the
community (1)
Elected community leadership is visionary, shares power and builds consensus (2)
Community members are involved in significant community decisions (3)
Citizens are involved in the creation of implementation of the community vision and goals (18)
and have a Community Economic Development Plan that guides development (18)
B. Attitudes
The community feels a sense of pride (4)
People feel optimistic about the future of the community (5)
There is a spirit of mutual assistance and co-operation in the community (6)
People feel a sense of attachment to their community (7)
The community is self-reliant and looks to itself and its own resources to address major issues
(8)
There is a strong belief and support for education at all levels (9)
C. Community Organizations
There are a variety of Community and Development (CED) organizations in the community,
such that the key CED functions are well served (16)
Organizations in the community have developed partnerships and collaborative working rela-
tionships (11)
D. Employment
Employment in the community is diversified beyond a single large employer (12)
Major businesses in the community are locally owned (13)
The community has a strategy for increasing independent local ownership (14)
There is an openness to alternative ways of earning a living and economic activity (15)
E. Externality
The community looks outside itself to seek and secure resources (skills, expertise, finance) that
will address areas of identified weakness (16)
The community is aware of its competitive position in the broader economy (17)
F. Progress
There is an on-going action towards achieving the goals in the CED plan (19)
There is a regular evaluation of progress towards the communityʼs strategic goals (20)
Categories are added and the original numbers used in the source are shown in brackets
Towns, while there is also a more obvious private-public partnership. The organiza-
tion also has less emphasis on the need to create change because of the problems
caused by the climate warming-oil scarcity factors, for it is recognized that many
neighbourhoods have additional problems that need to be addressed, such as con-
cerns about facilities, health and justice. Moreover, rather than simply providing
advice to other community groups about how to organize and develop policies the
EcoDistrict organization is designed to be far more pro-active and outgoing than
just having a website that describes its aims and publications or giving lectures to
other town groups. For example, it has a partnership with Portland State University
to develop courses and programmes to stimulate EcoDistrict ideas; these will soon
be available in other affiliated colleges. It has also been organizing annual meetings,
called 'summits' for interested people to attend, such as the 2013 Summit in Boston
