The Potluck Metaphor of Community Development

I love to eat.   And as the son of a Baptist minister, I am a connoisseur of potlucks (or covered-dish dinners as they’re known in the part of North Carolina where I grew up).  When Nieeta Presley, one of our partners in the Neighborhood Revitalization Initiative, described community development as a potluck meal where everyone has something to bring to the table, it got my attention.  She was using the metaphor to highlight the difference between community development and the top-down, urban development of the Urban Renewal era (the culinary equivalent being, what, baked chicken, mashed potatoes, and green beans from a conference center warming tray?). 

I want to extend the metaphor into a typology of community development based on the many types of potlucks that I have encountered. In the coming weeks, I’ll talk about the Partially-catered Potluck, the Structured Potluck, and the Real Community Meal.