A Review of Sustainable Community Development Policies through an Assetbased Approach, with Emphasis on Social & Physical Capital

The increasing complexities of the urban life, particularly in metropolitan areas, have created much
difficulty in recent urban studies. Therefore, in recent decades study of the urban condition at lower levels
and within the framework of communities or neighborhoods was brought forward, concentrating on
different approaches to the community development. In a number of these approaches it has been
emphasized that social capital is the main factor and a necessary prerequisite for community development.
In addition, the psychological aspects of life which covers peoples' attitudes to their life and living
environment, is considered as one of the main factors in evaluating the quality of life or the output of
community development plans. The sustainable relation between man and environment is based on the
potential interaction of human needs and potentials of the physical environment. Community or
neighborhood development is aimed at building a human environment that responds efficiently to the
human needs in settlements, including the basic human needs, as well as higher tier, social and
psychological needs. These would be satisfied when a strong sense of community, as a social capital, is
developed. In turn, social capital is a good means to promote an indigenous and sustainable development.
Community sustainable development is a concept that was presented after the concept of sustainable
development was unfortunate in achieving its aims, and therefore further emphasis was placed on local
society efforts to access goals of sustainable at measurable dimensions. Asset-based approach to
sustainable community development emphasizes the existing assets in the community. It is emphasizes on
capacity building, mobilizing local resource and public local capital which consists of social capital and
physical capital. Furthermore asset based approach is process oriented, comprehensive and an important
tool to achieve local sustainable development. Planners and policymakers have recognized the role of the
local assets, including physical capital (housing stock, roads, and the public space) and social capital (the
informal networks of trust and reciprocity) in creating healthy communities. The critical examination of
various urban policies helps us to differentiate between an asset-based as opposed to the conventional
need-based approach to policymaking, and to explore the mutual impacts of government policies and the
target groups that are affected by them; policies could result in the formation or destruction of the local
assets (social capital). The study offers a conceptual framework, consisting of policy networks defined in
terms of policy type and target groups. Two additional concepts are used to evaluate the mutual impacts of
policies and target groups including interconnectedness (the strength of relationship between the
government and the target group) and cohesion (the distribution of objectives among the actors).