Building strong relationships among the community's assets constitutes the second step down the community building path. The community becomes stronger and more self-reliant every time local residents, and particularly the "strangers" within, are linked with others for problem solving purposes; every time an association of citizens connects with a local school or park to take on tasks together; every time a local business builds ties with the youth of the community. Communities discover that a new set of expectations begins to take root in the neighborhood, that people come to believe that they are capable of acting as effective problem solvers, and that their community is filled with much greater capacity for self-direction than they had ever suspected. And gradually, as the web of ties among assets inside the community is rebuilt, and as the demonstrations of local competence multiply, residents cease to look first toward the outside for help in addressing the most important local concerns.
Each of these first two steps - mapping local assets and building strong ties for problem solving purposes - has been emphasized throughout the guide. It may be helpful here to bring together some of the approaches covered in earlier chapters, and to combine them in summary fashion. The following six-point "Community Asset Check List" will help both to provide a guide for the construction of inventories, or maps, and to summarize some of the major challenges involved in beginning to build relationships among a community's assets. Community builders can use this check list as a guide to building their own unique path toward regenerating an entire community.
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