Public marketing: A suggested policy planning paradigm for community development in the city

Abstract

We are witnessing a profound and long term redirection of federal program strategies in the area of social welfare and economic development from planning and program design at the national level toward a model that places the city at the center of the development process. Community development is becoming an increasingly important methodology in this transfer of authority from the federal to the local level. However, integrating current community development methods into the policy process of local government has not been fully thought out by academicians or practitioners. This paper suggests that a public marketing model based on marketing principles provides a potential framework for incorporating existing community development approaches into a strategy that relates to the current demands on cities for public accountability while providing city officials a rational framework for the value of public goods and services in a current competitive market place for the allocation of resources between public and private consumption.