Working in areas of deprivation.......begging the questions?

My previous post on working in areas of deprivation has led me to ask the following questions:

• Why do it? 
• Is it worth it?
• Why do we open community centres in areas of deprivation?

Not many years ago I was an enthusiastic adherent and promoter of community development.  Also, I was heavily involved in a major community centre capital project. Now I am much more cynical, or should that be realistic?

What has brought about this change in my attitude?  Below I summarise some of the factors. I intend to develop my thoughts in future posts.

• The theory is optimistic, the reality a disappointment. It is as though the people writing the manuals on community development and engagement have no understanding of the reality.
• Experience in the field of the difficulties involved in achieving anything meaningful and lasting.
• Under-utilisation of community centres.

However, over and above all this is the realisation that much of the work in communities is tackling symptoms but failing to deal with the causes of deprivation.  I have put in the caveat 'much' as there are exceptions where it is important to deal with symptoms, but these should be used as  stepping - stones to tackling causes.

My concern is that far far too many community development/engagement initiatives are only about making the status quo more bearable.  To put it bluntly: this is not what we should be doing.  We should be finding and implementing solutions to the underlying problems.  So far we have failed  to achieve this and wasted a lot of money along the way.