If you think "comprehensive community development" just sounds like a bunch of jargon, you would not be alone.

While I sympathize with the sentiment of avoiding complexity when it really doesn't add to meaning, let's give this notion a chance.

I suspect this phrase, which is now used by the excellent national organization NeighborWorks, came about because some community development initiatives, organizations, and projects have been anything but comprehensive in the past.

For example, community developers who specialize in housing don't always appreciate city planners, and until recently, neither group especially wanted to hear from public health specialists. Community development organizations and activists working in areas where one racial or ethnic group is dominant often are not considering the needs and sensitivities of other groups.

I didn't know this term until the last few years, but looking back, this notion has permeated my practice every time I've been effective. When you are trying to do community development, you need to scramble for every possible connection that might benefit your residents and businesses. It's not just about housing, land use, or beautification.

In your place, it might be about cultural identity, non-existent or ineffective marketing, resolving long-simmering conflicts, better jobs, new recreational opportunities, ignoring the ugliness, or any of a host of other subjects that need more than one sector to cooperate and partner.

If the schools or businesses are failing, it won't be long before the community at large suffers. If transportation is only about cars, that leaves many people without options for getting around as much as they would like. If fresh produce or health clinics are miles away, this means a population without as much energy or stamina as residents of other communities.

Resident-centered community development is essential in democratic societies, and both top-down planning and lack of planning falter when they fail to welcome all residents to get engaged with their particular place on this earth.

If you have several years of experience as an activist in your community, no doubt you know all this at some level of your being. Here's the challenge.

At the next neighborhood meeting, have a brainstorm along these lines:

1. Who is left out of our organization or this particular meeting?

2. What are the barriers to their participation?

3. Are we kidding ourselves about the importance of some of these barriers?

4. What problem are we failing to solve over and over again?

5. Is there a problem we are even afraid to acknowledge or discuss? If so, who could help with that issue?

6. What are three things affecting our community or our residents individually that we never talk about here? Why is that? Do we even know who those people are?

7. Have we given up on certain things ever being better? If so, can we brainstorm a new approach?

8. Who, or what organization or institution, do we wish would partner with us?

If your organization has any vitality at all, this will be a very lively meeting.