COPCS: Higher Education Institutions as Community Development Actors

Journal of Affordable Housing & Community Development Law, 14 J. Affordable Housing & Community Dev. L. 365 (2005)

Elon University Law Legal Studies Research Paper No. 2013-06

18 Pages Posted: 13 Jul 2013 Last revised: 24 Jul 2013

Date Written: Summer 2005

Abstract

Partnerships between communities and institutions of higher education are emblematic of a general trend in community development over the past two decades toward public-private partnerships. As the federal government moved away from large-scale revitalization policy principles and toward more locally based solutions, it sought to prescribe local involvement in decision making through legislation, either by incentive or by mandate. Public-private partnerships can be powerfully effective in defining community problems and developing solutions to those problems; however, because of the number and nature of partnerships, the lines of responsibility are often blurred. Partnerships between institutions of higher learning and communities, therefore, both reap the benefits and suffer the burdens of the public-private partnership model in general.

HUD's COPC program is representative of a general movement within community development that calls for the use of social capital to alleviate economic problems in communities. Closely aligned with the place-based theory of community development, the social capital theory seeks to engage communities in self-assessment to first determine the assets unique to them and then strategize ways in which bridges and links to other community assets can be built. The COPC program, by encouraging institutions of higher education to see themselves as community actors, seeks to draw the line between these institutions and their host communities.

As the transition from traditional to community economic development continues, the role of the postsecondary educational institution must also adapt to make meaningful contributions to a place-based development model. To be truly successful community development collaborators, colleges and universities, like communities, must focus on the assets that make them unique.

Keywords: Community Development, Housing Law

Suggested Citation

Armijo, Enrique, COPCS: Higher Education Institutions as Community Development Actors (Summer 2005). Journal of Affordable Housing & Community Development Law, 14 J. Affordable Housing & Community Dev. L. 365 (2005), Elon University Law Legal Studies Research Paper No. 2013-06, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2293018

Enrique Armijo (Contact Author)

Elon University School of Law ( email )

201 N. Greene Street
Greensboro, NC 27401
United States
3362799327 (Phone)

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