City and County Management as Community Building

The phrase “community building” captures those initiatives in local governments today that seek to connect the places where people live with the lives they lead. The goal of community building is to create attachment to the community, identity, and pride. Most people realize that the selfish pursuit of individual interest, the increase of diversity, and the longtime trend of development patterns leading to urban sprawl have produced serious conditions of disconnectedness among our various populations. Often, these forces have produced the most ambiguous yet most serious challenges that face local governments. Bearing this in mind, this article addresses how community building and local government are, and indeed need to be, related.