Corporate dominance, making the profit motive the stimulus for agriculture, has tended to break down the ruralness of communities. There is an attitude towards consuming, towards the extended family, towards education, recreation, religion and politics which is distinctly rural. The challenge is to re-claim this ruralness so that it will better serve the aspirations of both rural and urban dwellers. This means creating new forms and structures of modern rural communities which are people-centered and ecologically integrated. Communities all over the globe are becoming aware that the late '90s and the entrance into the 21 st century brings us to totally new concepts of development.
Community development is a child of hard times.
It has served as a means to oppose centralizing governments and corporations and to preserve local communities and their self-identities. Appropriate community development does not deny the need for good productive and appropriate economic activity. GPI factors-in the value of housework and voluntary sector work. Human and ecological need would replace the profit motive. There are clear, concrete, scientific steps in order to take on the long-term task of rural development.