94 Examples of Community Problems

John Spacey, June 24, 2021

Community problems are local issues that can only be solved by engaging the people in a place. Community problems can potentially be solved by communities themselves but often requires support such as funding by governments, corporate partners or nonprofits. Solving community problems may also require government support such as laws, regulations, policies, programs or citizen oversight. The following are common types of community problems.

Access to Education	Access to Products & Services
Access to Transportation	Addiction
Affordable Housing	Age Discrimination
Air Quality	Bullying
Capital Flight	Child Welfare
Childcare	Civic Engagement
Civility	Consumer Education
Cost of Living	Crime
Cultural Opportunities	Destruction of Ecosystems
Disability Rights	Disasters
Discrimination	Disease
Dispute Resolution	Domestic Violence
Economic Freedoms	Economic Problems
Emergency Services	Energy Infrastructure
Financial Security	Fire Safety
Food Security	Freedom of Association
Freedom of Movement	Freedom of Religion
Gender Discrimination	Green Space
Happiness	Health & Fitness
Healthcare	Homelessness
Housing Quality	Human Rights
Hunger & Nutrition	Infrastructure Decay
Lack of Opportunity	Land Degradation
Legal Rights	Loneliness & Isolation
Marketable Skills (job market)	Mental Health
Mismanagement of Resources	Modern Slavery
Noise	Obesity
Overcrowding	Overpolicing
Places for Recreation	Places to Play
Policing	Political Rights
Population Decline	Positive Role Models
Poverty	Preservation of Cultural Heritage
Privacy Rights	Public Space
Racism	Safety
Sanitation & Hygiene	School Dropout Rate
School Quality	Security
Service Disruptions (e.g. late trains)	Services for the Elderly
Small Business Failures	Social Opportunities
Social Stability	Social Support (i.e. people to turn to with a problem)
Socialization	Substance Abuse
Technology Infrastructure	Traffic Jams
Transportation Safety	Unemployment
Voter Turnout	Wages
Walkability	Waste Management
Water Infrastructure	Water Pollution
Water Security	Working Conditions
Youth Activities	Youth Unemployment

Solutions

Solutions to community problems have two major flavors: political action and direct action. Political action is the process of pushing governments and firms to address a problem. For example, pushing state government to help phase out air pollution in a city. Direct action is the process of directly working to solve a problem as a community. For example, a neighborhood that repurposes a roadway as green infrastructure with capacities such as cycling paths, play areas, green space and food production. Political action generally involves the production of creative tension. Direct action benefits from entrepreneurial approaches such as design thinking, systems thinking, worse is better and fail well.