The Janus Institute and Rock Paper Scissors are delighted to introduce a new resource for community and economic development. Prosperous Places is a blog for sharing knowledge and ideas on how to move communities forward for all interested persons – economic development professionals, elected officials, board members and anyone who just wants to help make where they live a better place. Community development is like a team sport, but all too often it is not conducted that way. In football, winning teams are not created by individual players learning how to be good guards or quarterbacks in isolation – they must learn to work together in a culture of shared knowledge and experience. So it is with communities, and that’s why Prosperous Places will reach out to the broad audience of all community and economic development team members.

Prosperous Places is based on the philosophy that individuals and communities can learn from each other. While a lot can be gained from books, courses and seminars in community and economic development, we can also learn much from the successes and failures of our peers in the laboratory of the real world.  The Janus Forum, founded on this principle a decade ago, is one of the highest rated programs in community and economic development.

Prosperous Places features information and blogs on core topics in community and economic development such as:

• Assessing the economic health of a community;
• Building on assets and addressing weaknesses;
• Developing a community vision and strategic plan for the future;
• Bringing stakeholders together to move the community forward;
• Strengthening and diversifying the local economy;
• Marketing the community, and
• Other building blocks for community success.

Guest blog authors – community and economic development professionals, consultants, public officials and others – start each topical conversation, but the value added really comes from the knowledge and experience shared by bloggers like you who join the conversation. Also, if you have an idea or question on a community and economic development topic not covered by the blogs, feel free to post it on the “Let’s Chat” page and see what response you get. Over time, we’ll build a significant “database” of innovative and proven approaches to community and economic development that will be continuously updated and improved. Prosperous Places is a resource for community residents who want to learn the principles as well as professionals who want to learn and share cutting-edge ideas.

Technology experts learned years ago that “open source” approaches that “embrace and celebrate principles of open exchange, collaborative participation, transparency….and community-oriented development^[1]” could greatly improve the quality and time to completion of software and other products. We consider Prosperous Places the open source approach to better community and economic development. The key to making Prosperous Places a success is your participation. In this era of unprecedented challenges and opportunities facing communities, please join us on this voyage of learning and discovery!

Find out more about our partners

^[1] Opensource.com