Community Development - Textbooks

This fully updated short guide discusses the planning system, processes, legal constructs and approaches, taking into account the recent regulatory changes within the UK nations. It explores the interactions of government and society with the planning system, encouraging the reader to adopt a reflective and inquisitive outlook.

The second edition of this popular book uses in-depth theoretical study and international case studies to explore new developments in social entrepreneurship, such as the rise of the social investment market and the increasing importance of social impact measurement.

Social work in the community is a textbook offering practice guidance to students, practice assessors and practitioners on how social work practice takes place in the community within a political, theoretical, methodological and ethical framework. 

This substantially revised edition of a highly topical text applies a critical approach to themes introduced in the first edition including economic development, heath and housing, and draws upon theory from Marx and Bourdieu to offer a clearer understanding of community in capitalist society.

This book provides an introductory overview to the concept of ‘urban informality’, taking an international perspective across the global North and South. It explores theoretical understandings of the term, and looks at how it affects ways of living, such as land use, housing and basic services, working lives and political informality.

There is a growing recognition of the importance of networking for the vitality and cohesion of community life. Now in its third edition, and substantially updated, this textbook combines practical experience and theory for people working with and for communities.

This book demonstrates that all societies require a social work presence. It symbolises the importance of a community-near professional input to human flourishing and the development of social capital. It challenges economic and political trends that corrode deeply-held human and social values.

This third edition looks at how several decades of feminist social action have changed women’s place in the world today and updates some of the perennial challenges facing women globally to engage with new issues, including digital exclusion, sustainable development and environmental justice.