Community Developmment

Complexity: A New Way of Working and Thinking-
And A Tremendous Advantage for Organizations
"Complexity is a powerful new way of working and thinking ideally suited to the fast pace of change in the 21st Century. Organizations which have taken advantage of this new knowledge find that they are more innovative, work is more fun, their people and customers are more satisfied, and income and profits improve as a result. It is tremendously important. Many who understand it believe it will become widely practiced as the century moves forward. It provides a powerful competitive advantage for companies and organizations which must adapt to a constantly changing environment, which prize innovation and creativity, and which want to leverage the full energies of their people."
Keywords: community economic development, complexity

What Should Policymakers Know About Economic Complexity?
September 13, 1997, Steven N. Durlauf, Santa Fe Institute
"Economists have begun to use complex systems as the basis for formal modeling precisely in order to understand certain aggregate features of environments which are characterized by many heterogeneous actors. … Families make community choices on the basis of expectations concerning community characteristics; these characteristics in turn evolve in response to individual choices. … Complexity deepens our understanding of economic phenomena by illustrating how various types of microeconomic structures lead to particular aggregate economic phenomena."
Keywords: economic policy, social interactions, complex systems

The Canadian Community Economic Development Network (CCEDNet)
"CED can be defined as action by people locally to create economic opportunities and enhance social conditions in their communities on a sustainable and inclusive basis, particularly with those who are most disadvantaged. CED is a community-based and community-directed process that explicitly combines social and economic development and fosters the economic, social, ecological and cultural well being of communities. CED has emerged as an alternative to conventional approaches to economic development."
Keywords: community economic development, CED, Canada