Documenting the community capacity building benefits of participatory community design and planning and developing indicators of community capacity

Anecdotal evidence of the social benefits of Participatory Community Design and Planning (PCDP) has been plentiful since its beginnings in the 1960s. However, substantive evidence has not been generated to support these claims. More recently, community capacity building has become a central part of the missions of many governmental and non-governmental organizations. Recognizing the need for reliable measures of community capacity, the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) sponsored a report titled “Identifying and Defining the Dimensions of Community Capacity to Provide a Basis for Measurement”. Based on the anecdotal evidence, the CDC report, literature from several disciplines, and insights gained from fieldwork with a number of PCDP projects, a survey questionnaire was developed. The survey was sent to a random sample of residents in three former coal mining communities that were in different stages of PCDP projects. Fortuitously, the non-profit organizing the PCDP projects had commissioned a baseline survey before they began their work. Questions from the baseline survey were replicated in the surveys conducted for this research. Responses were analyzed to develop statistically reliable indicators. Each indicator targets a specific characteristic of community capacity identified by the CDC report. These characteristics/indicators are: participant base; government and environmental participation; age diversity in participant base; sex diversity in participant base; inclusion and responsiveness; age diversity in inclusion and responsiveness; sex diversity in inclusion and responsiveness; group process and conflict resolution skills; informal intra-community communication; intra-community communication; trust and confidence; group affiliations; government/non-government networks; concern for community issues; relative standing; power with; economic values; preservation/protection values; quality of life values; shared values; local service and membership; local sense of connection; local history awareness; local recent changes awareness. The data from replicated questions found increased capacity in the one community that had completed a PCDP process. The indicator scores and statistical testing offer support for the community capacity building benefits of PCDP in sixteen of the twenty-four indicators and eight of the nine dimensions of community capacity identified by the CDC.