The need to more accurately conceptualize the field of community development has increased during recent decades. This is largely the result of a growing field marked by its multidisciplinary nature, but also because of the multifaceted ways in which communities around the world participate in the development process. In this article, we approach the task of conceptualizing community development by providing a conceptual definition that serves both academics and practitioners. More importantly, based on such conceptualization, we offer a typology that accounts for the different forms in which community development is practiced providing strengths and weaknesses of each form.

Community development and related approaches have become prominent in academic circles, resulting in the emergence and resurgence of related community-level notions. With the expansion of terms, conceptual confusions have surfaced. The notion of community resilience has gone through this process, as its development/understanding is still in progress. Community resilience has been misused/confused with other notions including community agency, community vulnerability, community adaptability, and community capacity. Our goal here is to provide conceptual clarification to the term community resilience by reviewing and contrasting it with the above-mentioned notions. We argue that while similitudes exist within these concepts, they are bounded by their literatures fed by different fields of study, resulting in different goals (i.e. problem solving, response to change, and risk mitigation) in varying contexts. Despite their differences, we offer explanations of how the concepts are interrelated, in addition to noting the differences in the levels of conceptualization that each literature offers. We concluded that community resilience provides a better framework for understanding community change and how it is addressed.

Previous sustainable tourism research has called for the promotion of community-based tourism as a means of achieving sustainable development goals. Such community-based development has been noted as essential for sustainable practices because of its capacity to benefit local populations while reducing tourism's negative consequences. Nonetheless, some researchers have warned that community-based tourism, by itself, does not necessarily lead to sustainable practices. This study examines local social interactional elements necessary for the achievement of sustainable tourism practices. Such practices are attainable when certain attitudinal, organizational and/or behavioral conditions are present within a community. Using a case study methodology, this article examines the interactional elements by which residents of La Fortuna, Costa Rica, engaged in sustainable tourism practices. The study was based on the theoretical notion of the community field. It used key informant interviews and participant observation. The study shows how economic, social and environmentally sustainable practices were made possible through community agency, the construction of local relationships that increase the adaptive capacity of people within a common locality. Key factors found to enable community agency are strong intra- and extra-community interactions, open communication, participation, distributive justice and tolerance.

Objectives. We sought a better understanding of how nonprofit hospitals are fulfilling the community health needs assessment (CHNA) provision of the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act to conduct CHNAs and develop CHNA and implementation strategies reports. Methods. Through an Internet search of an estimated 179 nonprofit hospitals in Texas conducted between December 1, 2013, and January 5, 2014, we identified and reviewed 95 CHNA and implementation strategies reports. We evaluated and scored reports with specific criteria. We analyzed hospital-related and other report characteristics to understand relationships with report quality. Results. There was wide-ranging diversity in CHNA approaches and report quality. Consultant-led CHNA processes and collaboration with local health departments were associated with higher-quality reports. Conclusions. At the time of this study, the Internal Revenue Service had not yet issued the final regulations for the CHNA requirement. This provides an opportunity to strengthen the CHNA guidance for the final regulations, clarify the purpose of the assessment and planning process and reports, and better align assessment and planning activities through a public health framework.

Previous work on amenity-driven migration documented substantial differences between permanent and seasonal residents and the effects of these differences on community social dimensions. This study focuses on seasonal and permanent residents’ attachments to their local area. To increase our understanding of those factors associated with community attachment in amenity-rich areas, we incorporate attitudinal and behavioral measures associated with the biophysical environment in our model. We find natural landscape-based factors make an independent and important contribution to community attachment for both permanent and seasonal residents.