Defining and aligning community development and public administration: Using administrative practices and design to better communities

In this chapter, I make the case for stronger relations between community development and public administration; a neglected relationship in the scholarly literature. Here, I examine this relationship through the lens of the asset model from community development and the NPS from public administration. To better define and align public administration and community development, I use a bottom-up approach by relying on community development scholarship and Google Trends to define community development, and employing an exploratory review of the public administration literature on community development. The argument is divided into the following sections: First, I discuss the intersections of the two fields by defining community development and examining the community development research presented in the major public administration journals. Second, I draw specifically on the NPS approach to public administration to demonstrate the relationship between key concepts in community development: sustainability, public ethos, and community betterment. Third, I discuss the administrative tools of public administration that may benefit community development policy and practice at the local level. I examine how community development seeks to cultivate local assets, a goal shared with public administration. Last, I conclude with three ideas for how to bring community development and public administration closer together in practice and in scholarship.