What does Community Development mean to you?. Community development means meeting and learning people and situations as they are. It means becoming informed about what you learned and believing in the wisdom of the people who occupy the places they live. It also means looking at the assets of the place not only from the point of view of the residents and businesses in that place but also of those that may covet them. Then, the true key to the “development” part of community development is leveraging the resources of those who covet the place with to the benefit those who occupy and make their lives and livelihoods in that place. Then the work becomes galvanizing all of the people, those who live and those who covet together to their mutual benefit.