communitiesbut
CommunitiesBut is a term used in discussions of community development and collaborative design to describe the practical balancing of communal aims with constraints and trade-offs. It does not refer to a single, formal organization or standardized approach, but rather to a way of framing decisions in which the goals of communities are acknowledged alongside limiting factors.
The phrase draws attention to the “but” that accompanies many community decisions, such as “we want to
In practice, CommunitiesBut is used as a heuristic in planning, participatory design, and governance discussions to
Applications include urban planning meetings, nonprofit program design, and digital platforms that crowdsource local knowledge. By
Critics note that the term is informal and may oversimplify complexity, while proponents argue that it helps