340 Ecological Restoration and Design
government grants or finding a private investor. The consultant and the local lead-
ers would determine the method of funding, and the site would be chosen based
on objective criteria determined by experts in golf course construction. The suc-
cess or failure of the project would be judged on the presence or absence of a golf
course at the end of a prescribed period. The combination administrator–golf pro
would be chosen on technical criteria. If a capable administrator was found, the
project would continue. However, if the club pro proved inefficient or dishonest,
it would be up to the town leaders (if publicly owned) or the board of directors (if
privately owned), not to users of the golf course or its employees, to correct the
situation. Limited oversight could then lead to limited success.
It is assumed in this approach that answers to community problems can be
reached scientifically. The problems themselves are phrased in technical terms that
require expert advice regarding choices among a variety of technically feasible
options. This approach requires that local residents, if they desire to participate in
decisions, assimilate and absorb a great deal of information concerning complex
legal and scientific issues. This greatly decreases motivation to participate. A com-
mon response is to assume that there is only one technically appropriate choice
and that the experts should thus be left alone to make it.
Another assumption of the technical assistance approach is that development
should be evaluated based on the achievement of predetermined measurable goals.
Not only is the achievement of the goal important, but so is the efficiency with
which it is achieved. Cost–benefit analysis, a technical tool developed by econo-
mists to determine the ratio of costs to benefits to the public of projects, is a par-
ticularly appropriate tool for a technical assistance approach. Local citizens are
defined as consumers of development, not participants in it.
Government bureaucracies are the most frequent employers of the technical
assistance approach. This approach often works to the advantage of the power
structure because of its agenda-setting ability. The power structure is frequently
able to prevent a particular problem from reaching the level of public discussion
or, in other cases, to prevent certain technically feasible solutions to a publicly
defined problem from being considered as a realistic option.
An illustration of how politics and the technical assistance approach relate to
one another is in industrial recruitment. Successful growth machines are able to
define industrial recruitment as an essential economic development objective, espe-
cially in communities experiencing a loss of services or population. This is done by
identifying industrial recruitment as the only technically feasible alternative for
classes. By focusing on the assets of the local people rather than their deficiencies,
new investments in the area began to pay off.Source: Sarah Rubin. 2001. Rural Colleges as Catalysts for Community Change: The RCCI
Experience. Rural America 16(2): 12–19. Also available online: http://www.ers.usda.gov/publi-
cations/ruralamerica/ra162/ra162d.pdf; accessed 16 April 2003.