action strategies for community dvl pmt

7/25/2019 Action Strategies for Community Dvl Pmt

1/38

Action Strategies forCommunity Development

In politics one hears where you stand,depends on where you sit. The same canbe said about strategies for neighborhooddevelopment. The answers to fundamentalquestions like: Where do we start?,What do we want to achieve? and Howdo we get there?, will be much differentdepending upon where one is sitting in thecommunity development process.

Our starting point is the neighborhoodorganization - and that makes all thedifference in building strong communities.

While the perspective of the book is

neighborhood residents and organizations,the approach is to create criticalpartnershipsamong the many individualsdedicated to community development.These include neighborhood residents volunteers and paid staff of community

organizations like neighborhoodgroups, local churches, and CommunityDevelopment Corporations

employees of area or region-widecommunity development organizationslike the local affordable housing builders

and the Enterprise Foundation the staff members of school districts,

city planning offices, social serviceagencies, health care providers,economic development organizations,and other similar groups.

Many people working together arenecessary based on a critical appreciationof the importance of neighborhoodorganizations and local residents.

The stepping off point comes from the

inspiring efforts of a low income communityin Boston called the Dudley StreetNeighborhood. Their story is in a book titledStreets of Hope. After many years of work,Dudley Street residents said their strongesttools were: the concept of the master planand the action of aggressive communityorganizing. (Medoff & Sklar, p.265)

This chapter will cover why this is so andwhat it means in terms of neighborhoodplanning.

What Is Covered In This Chapter?

The following topics will be addressedbelow: Lessons from a short history of

neighborhood planning. A definition of social capital and why

social capital is of critical importance toneighborhoods.

Values that underlie communitydevelopment work.

Three different planning models forcommunity development: RationalPlanning, Assets Based Community

Development, and CommunityOrganizing. We will talk about whatthey are, how they work, and in whichsituations they are used.

Some long-term guidelines forneighborhood development activity.

Roles of planners and roles oforganizers.

Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative

The needed critical partnership forcommunity development involvesconvergence of the work of many,coming together from neighborhoodhomes, businesses and churches; localschool rooms and offices, governmentagencies; banks and developers offices;and many others. This coming togetherrequires an unwavering dedication toneighborhood improvement, social capital,


2/38

and empowerment. It also requiresan understanding and sympathy forthe bureaucratic requirements of jobdescriptions, demands, and hierarchies. Itmeans creatively engaging the programs oflarge organizations like local governments

and school systems that reach out tocommunities, such as Community OrientedPolicing and Community Schools.

The approach is about openness,communication, creativity, empathy,patience, and flexibility. It is always withones eyes on the prize of safe, enjoyable,and well-functioning neighborhoods.

A Short History of Planning, orWhat Is Past Is Prologue

The field of urban planning began asneighborhood planning and had its roots inthe teeming tenement districts of New Yorkin the 19thCentury. The city was a sleepy,mostly rural place in 1800 with only 60,000residents. As New York changed from amerchant and finance center to an industrialone, it expanded rapidly. There were oncefarms and cottages in the upper part ofManhattan. By 1860, the population grewto 814,000 and the city entered the 20th

century with 1,850,000 residents. (Ford,Slums & Housing, pp. 72-79, 140)

Confronted by this rising tide of humanity,property owners greedy for quick wealthprevailed on the New York Commission tosubdivide the city into a grid block systemof 25 x 100 lots. This was the mostflexible and marketable subdivision of land(the most cheap to build) and few siteswere left for public facilities. Into thisdense grid were built the housing tenementbuildings often two buildings to a lot, each

rising four to seven stories. One floor ofthe tenement typically contained four smallapartments with two rooms (sometimes 12x 10 and 10 x 6 in size). Each room mightcontain as many as six persons. Ownerswere dividing the living spaces into thesmallest area capable of holding human life.By 1890, one section of New York had anaverage density of nearly 1,000 persons per

acre, about 30% greater than in Bombay,India at the time. Tenements often werepoorly built and dangerous. By 1900, morethan two-thirds of New Yorkers (2.4 millionindividuals) were living in tenements asdefined by law. (Ford, pp. 84, 187, 202)

Lower East Side of Manhattan

Compounding the press of sheer numberswas the virtual absence of sanitary sewerand water facilities. Privies were locatedin tenement basements and in small openareas between buildings on the small lots.By the close of the century, the City wasdescribed as one elongated cesspool.Regular epidemics of typhus, typhoid,yellow fever, cholera, dysentery, andsmallpox broke out. (Ford, p. 130)

In the midst of this squalor, urban planningemerged from the activities of theSettlement House workers. The first U.S.

Settlement House was University Settlementestablished by Stanton Coit in 1886 in theLower East Side of Manhattan. The firstSettlement workers were from the middleor wealthier classes, inspired by religioustenets of service, and lived among thepeople whose lives they worked to improve.(Coit in Pacey, Readings in the Developmentof Settlement Work)


3/38

Their goals and circumstances in theseneighborhoods drew them into a wide rangeof community improvement efforts. (Lurie,Encyclopedia of Social Work, p. 690) Theseincluded: availability of regular education,

kindergarten, pre-school, and after-school programs; recreation, parks and playgrounds; sanitation, potable water, and garbage

collection; libraries; public safety; legal aid; social services for the elderly, homeless,

and the disabled; health care; job training; and, above all, housing reform.

The settlement house workers focused onthe neighborhood as a whole, attemptingto create a harmonious whole bystrengthening the family and residentsworking cooperatively to eliminate localproblems. In the course of their work, manySettlement workers recruited and trainedlocal leaders. (Alden in Pacey, p. 56)

Tammany Hall politicians had their handsin the profits of the tenements. Theycontrolled the Department of Buildings,

appointment of judges, real estatetransactions, and public works projects.While they garnered the political support oftenement residents through small favors,the reformers of the era knew that thesepoliticians sell out their own people andcause the troubles they relieve. (Steffens,Shame of the Cities, pp. 211-212)

Housing reformers focused on the obviousneed for effective, government regulations.Scores of studies between 1800 and 1900by State legislative committees, mayorscommittees, charitable and religiousorganizations, professional associations, andother governmental agencies underscoredthe abhorrent tenement conditions.Tenement Housing laws were drafted in1867, 1879, 1887, and 1895, but evenwhen adopted they did little more thanprevent conditions from worsening. Modeltenements projects were built by reformers

but had little impact on over-all conditionsbecause a handful of good dwelling werebuilt while tens of thousands of slum unitswere raised. (Ford, p. 202) Some of thecommentaries seemed to place blame onimmigrants for their condition: congregated

armies of foreigners .... They bring withthem destitution, misery, and too oftendisease. (DeForest & Veiller, The TenementHousing Problem, p. 72)

It was not until an effective politicalforce coalesced between 1884 and 1901,uniting the housing reformers, SettlementHouse workers, social service groups,community and religious leaders, thatprogress was made. Jacob Riis had writtenlocal newspaper articles about the plightof tenement residents for 20 years,

culminating in the book How the OtherHalf Lives (1890). A series of widelypublicized public meetings were organizedby the Tenement Housing Committeein 1900 attended by more than 10,000people. After 15 years of effort to educatethe public, the housing reform movementin New York gathered enough strengthto break through the obstructions ofpoliticians, bureaucrats, and tenementowners and enact the first truly effectiveset of regulations, the Housing Reform Actof 1901. (DeForest & Veiller, pp. 110-115,

Ford, pp. 123-124)

The description of inhumane conditionsand a sound program for improvementwere finally joined with a moral and ethicalposition and effective political organizingto overcome economically and politicallyentrenched interests. Nearly 100 years offacts and moral suasion had been ineffectiveabsent an organized political force.Virtually all the leaders in the housingreform movement had Settlement Housebackgrounds. These workers understoodthat it was not contrivances [schemes,technological or otherwise] but personswho will save society. (MacMahon in Pacey,p. 108)

The preceding section described thebroad scope of the Settlement Houseworkers activity. Their methodology verynearly defines neighborhood planning


4/38

for community development today. Theapproach looks for results . . . to theneighborhood as a whole. Its first businessis to survey its field, to find out whatneeds to be done. Then it seeks to makecontactsto get in touch with all the

elements that go to make up the sociallife of the neighborhood, to organize andcorrelate the neighborhood forces for good,that conditions may be improved for all.(White in Pacey, p. 92)

In 1909, Benjamin Marsh, the formerleader of the Committee on Congestion ofPopulation in New York, published one ofthe first planning texts, An Introductionto City Planning. The book stronglyemphasized the need for a community planand government regulation to achieve the

plans objectives. (Marsh, An Introductionto City Planning, New York: Committee onCongestion, 1909)

Marsh, An Introduction to City Planning

The first National Conference on CityPlanning, also held in 1909, was organized

primarily by leaders of the SettlementHouse movement. At its modernemergence in the U.S., planning wasequated with neighborhood planning andaddressed a wide range of issues includingschools, housing reform, public health,

transportation, expansion of parks andrecreation, and more effective publicservices. (Proceedings of the First NationalConference on City Planning, 1909) Overtime, this comprehensive approachbecame more and more fragmented intohundreds of specialties in land use planning,architecture, social services, housing,economic development, and so on. Theapproach here of neighborhood planningfor community development strategicallypulls together these threads within theboundaries of the neighborhood and

reclaims what was lost nearly 100 yearsago.

There is a strong line of connectionbetween the Settlement workers activetoward the end of the 19th century andthe Dudley Street activists in Boston nearly100 years later. It always has been theconcept of the master plan and the actionof aggressive community organizing thatmade the difference.

Social Capital: What It Is and WhyIt Is Important.

We are all aware of financial capital wages, wealth, property. But we seldomthink of something that is more importantthan financial capital the concept of socialcapital. Social capital is more importantto neighborhoods than financial capital,physical capital, and even human capital,and this section discusses why.

A visitor to the United States in its earlyyears, Alexis de Tocqueville, observed that akey quality of our country was the tendencyof people in communities here to gettogether to solve common problems. Thisaction is what we have come to mean bysocial capital. (de Tocqueville, Democracyin America)


5/38

Social capital is: Located in neighborhood places. A broad and dense network of personal

relationships based on families,friendships, and acquaintances.

A large number of formal and informal

associations and neighborhoodinstitutions. Rooted in family life. A high level of involvement in

community life. Community norms of behavior and

values. Feelings of trust among neighborhood

residents. A process of communicating acceptable

behavior and values, monitoring actions,and taking action when the norms areviolated.

A shared belief in the neighborhoodscapacity to organize itself to take actionin relation to needs.

Connections among neighborhoodbusinesses, churches, schools, andorganizations.

Linkages to extra-neighborhood assetssuch as teachers, business owners,bankers, elected officials, social serviceofficials, police, court officials, andreligious leaders.

Effective neighborhood action. (Seeesp. Sampson in Ferguson & Dickens,

pp. 253-265)

Social capital is no more complicated thanthe ordinary actions of neighbors to knowone another, help each other, and work toimprove the neighborhood.

It all seems obvious, but the vast arrayof governmental officials, bureaucrats,business and development leaders, andschool administrators and teachers oftenact, either consciously or not, to marginalizeneighborhood residents ability to improvetheir own communities.

The following sections illustrate ways thatsocial capital has been found to improveneighborhoods and peoples lives, as well ashow its absence frequently has disastrousconsequences.

Public Safety

People studying crime and public safetyhave different views about its causes.Some believe that high rates of crimeand fear are based on the break-down

of primary institutions (family, church,kinship, neighborhood) and social bonds.Others think that crime and disorder isbased on differing values of certain people(subcultures, e.g. gangs). This is relatedto the concept of a culture of poverty.(Lewis, Working Papers, pp. 3-11) (Recentstudies found, however, that lower incomeAfrican-Americans and Latinos in high crimeareas actually are less tolerant of crime anddeviance than Whites.) (Sampson, p. 254)

Some studies linked crime, delinquency, and

disorder with poverty, high mobility, single-parent households, divorce, race, domesticviolence, immigration, and neighborhooddiversity. These do not look beyond thesimple associations to understand theways by which these conditions have led toproblems.

When other studies look at how socialcapital affects crime and disorder, theyfound something very interesting. Inneighborhoods with characteristicsapparently related to public safety

problems (e.g. low incomes, single-parenthouseholds, high immigration, etc.), buthigh social capital, the connection wasgreatly reduced or disappeared. (Sampson,pp. 259-261) In other words, social capitalintervened in and reduced the connectionbetween a number of social and economicproblems and crime, delinquency anddisorder. An important key for action wasfound.

This perspective also points to somethingelse: that crime and fear of crime reducesocial capital by making people fearful,isolating them in their houses, causing themto be distrustful of one another, and makingit more difficult to work together.


6/38

Social Capital and Public Safety

This view provides the foundation forCommunity Oriented Policing (COPs) andother techniques to forge partnerships

between neighborhood residents and thepolice in insuring safety. These partnershipsattempt to build and strengthenneighborhood social capital. (Trojanowicz& Bucqueroux, Community Policing: How toGet Started and Skogan, On the Beat)

Schools

Over time education has been increasinglyprofessionalized (teachers are serviceproviders, and students and parents are

passive clients). Responsibility has beendelegated by parents and communitiesto educators, resulting in standardizationof what is learned, and separation ofschools (physically and socially) fromneighborhoods.

Sixty years ago, a perceptive teacher noted:Many schools are like little islands set apartfrom the mainland of life by a deep moat ofconvention and tradition. (Carr in Minzey &LeTarte, Reforming Public Schools, p. 63)

In many schools, low achievement,disorder, and high failure rates are thenorm. The parents and residents ofthese neighborhoods are seen by someteachers and school administrators aslacking assets and motivation, perhapseven as threatening to the schools and thestudents. Schools are kept in isolation fromthe community. This reinforces negative

stereotypes of low-income people especially,fueling their sense of powerlessness andfrustration. In such schools, neighborhoodsocial capital is actually broken down.

Studies of the relationship between

community involvement and studentsuccess show that many schools are missingimportant opportunities for success. AnneHenderson has been publicizing this linkagefor more than 20 years. (Henderson, A NewWave of Evidence, 2002) Her work showsthat parental involvement in education haspositive outcomes on student achievement.Involvement has been shown to improveattendance, discipline, achievement, self-esteem, graduation and continuation topostsecondary education, and reduceparent-staff conflict. When schools address

the needs of students in a family context,students also do better in school

Hendersons work also shows that the moreparents are involved in schools, the morethey attempt to improve other communityconditions, also enhancing studentachievement. Her work underscores theimportance of social capital in improving thelives of students, parents, and communities.

In the world of education, this partnershiphas been called Community Education.Community Education is the concept ofservice to the entire neighborhood byproviding for all the educational needs ofall its members. Local schools serve as thecatalyst for engaging community resourcesto address community problems. (Minzey &LeTarte, pp. 52-59)


7/38

The Texas Communities Organized forPublic Services (COPS) found that themost common strategies for accumulatingsocial capital did not develop within the . .. schools but rather in . . . neighborhoods.(Shirley, Community Organizing for Urban

School Reform, p. 253)

Human Services

The same story can be told about theprofessionalization of human services.Settlement House workers, now claimedas their own by the social work field, wereactive in the late 19th Century when littledistinction was made between the physicaland the human condition of neighborhoods.Afterwards, community service becameinstitutionalized in federal, state, and

local agencies especially during theGreat Depression. As early as 1922, oneSettlement worker wrote: when the idea[service program], explored and developed .. . by individuals, has made good, the Statecomes along, appropriates it, and makes itpart of its own machine. Voluntary efforthas . . . triumphed all along the line whenit finds itself extinguished by the State.(Carruthers in Pacey, p. 151)

Over time, humans became categorized

and translated into an almost bewilderingnumber of needs. Helping one anotherbecame a job. Neighbors were reducedto statistics and categorized as clients.Social services now are fragmented, crisisoriented, suffering from insufficient funding,and their effectiveness is frequentlyquestioned. John McKnight, one of theleaders in social change, wrote: The powerto label people deficient and declare them

in need is the basic tool of . . . oppression.(McKnight, p. 16)

Just as in the fields of public safety andeducation, those in human services beganto realize the importance of social capital

and to see people as part of place-basedcommunities. Studies showed that family,friends, and neighbors were the primarysources for those seeking and receivinghelp. (Froland, etc., Helping Networks,p. 17) These informal care-givers werefound to be as helpful, or more helpful, thanprofessionals. Informal helping is voluntary,spontaneous, based on the individual,sensitive to personal preferences, flexible,based on self-reliance, reciprocal, andsimply perceived as part of every day life.(Froland, pp. 21-26, 35)

The most effective informal helping occurredin social networks that featured: diversity, quality, interconnectedness, formal and informal organizations supportive, communicated, and enforced

traditions, norms of behavior, attitudes,and

neighborhood stability. (Froland, pp. 40-41, 137-149)

A distinct approach to human servicework grew up around informal helpingnetworks and what are called ecosystemapproaches. (Meyer & Mattaini, in Mattaini,


8/38

The Foundations of Social Work Practice,1999, pp. 3-19) The more traditional goalsof individual and family well being wereexpanded to community development.The main task for human service workersbecame to identify and foster community

helping networks, working with them,supporting and strengthening them.

Kretzman and McKnight take a differentapproach that arrives at this place from adifferent starting point - the neighborhood.Their Assets Based CommunityDevelopment (ABCD) approach startedwith community residents, identifying theirindividual and organizational resources, andbuilding from there. This method is coveredbelow in this chapter and in the chapter onneighborhood based human services.

Economic Development

The United States went through a massiveeconomic restructuring starting in about1970. While more than 40% of all jobsat the start of the 1970s were lost duringthat decade, the economy grew fromabout 70 million jobs to 90 million in thesame period. (USDOL, Office of Secy, TheNew Economy, http://www.dol.gov/asp/programs/flsa/report-neweconomy) Oldercities like Baltimore, New York, Philadelphia,

and St. Louis lost more than half of theirmanufacturing jobs during the past threedecades and employment shifted from citiesto suburbs.

Incomes of the bottom 1/5th of householdshave fallen while those of the top 1/5thhave increased rapidly. The wages of non-supervisory workers dropped nearly 20%between from 1970 to 1990. (SpiralingDown: The Decline of Real Wages, Dollarsand Sense, April 1992) The percentageof year-round workers paid low wagesincreased by 50%, to nearly 20% of allworkers, just from 1979 to 1990. Thepercentage of families with children inpoverty increased by more than 30% duringthis period. (US Bureau of the Census,Workers with Low Wages: 1964 to 1990,1992; US Bureau of the Census, Trendsin Relative Income: 1964 to 1989, 1991;Medoff & Sklar, p. 192)

In all, the U.S. workforce has become morepolarized by income and resources. Jobswith the greatest growth in total numbersare those paid the lowest wages andwith the least claim to benefits serviceworkers, retail sales, cashiers, clerks,

janitors and cleaning people, nursing aides,food counter workers. (Florida, The Rise ofthe Creative Class, p. 71)

The Creative Class of high-tech workers,business managers, financiers, engineers,lawyers, analysts, designers and so on, hasdoubled in size and has prospered. (Florida,pp. 68-70, 72-77)

In the course of the massive socialdislocation produced by economic change,social capital has been pulled apart,left in shambles in many low income

neighborhoods, and sometimes rebuilt inother places.

In this context, some economists haveconcluded that by asking people toconsider the economic landscape froma social perspective, new appreciationof market power and opportunities . . .emerge. (Gittell & Thompson, in Saegert,etc., Social Capital and Poor Communities,p. 120)

Social capital can been found to foster

neighborhood economic development inmany ways. These include: securing financing; hiring, retaining, and training good

employees; identifying markets; finding suitable and affordable facilities; obtaining technical assistance related

to accounting, business law, analysis,marketing, and management; and


9/38

gaining support from local governmentincluding public safety, city services,and infrastructure. (Gittel & Thompsonin Saegert, pp. 115-135; Dickens inFerguson and Dickens, esp. pp. 404-423)

By the last tally, there were morethan 3,000 Community DevelopmentCorporations (CDC) in the U.S. (Natl. Cong.For Com Ec. Dev., Coming of Age, 1999)These organizations are producing housesand jobs and providing social services inan evolving comprehensive approach toneighborhood development. CDCs providegood examples of how social capital can bedrawn upon and built up by neighborhood

economic development activities.

In summary, social capital has been found to: create and sustain neighborhood public

safety, foster educational success, meet human service needs, and foster economic development.

Neighborhood planning focused onbuilding social capital shows how theseefforts can be pulled together in a place;provides a foundation for neighborhoodplanning by identifying the startingpoint of community development;illuminates how neighborhoods can makethoughtful decisions about approachingcommunity development; describes whereneighborhoods begin these efforts; and how

articulates how planners and other agencystaff members may help neighborhoodefforts.

Back to Basics: Values and Vision

Personal values and the communitysvision are the bedrock upon which allneighborhood development is built, guidingstrategies and programs. They are thefundamental litmus test against whichactions should be reviewed.

Without leadership that embodies personalvalues that are consistent with communitydevelopment, programs are destined tolose their way. What are these values? Anall-inclusive list is not possible, but these

values that are shared by different religiouscommunities Muslim, Christian, Jew,Hindu, Buddhist. They are held by peoplewho do not have theistic convictions suchas those in the Society for Ethical Culture.Quite simply, they include humility, love,service (good works), selflessness, respectfor community, reverence for life, andinclude living ones life according to theseprinciples.

Contemporary community development isrooted in scriptural values. Notably, theseinclude the Interfaith coalitions supportedby Industrial Areas Foundation and GamelialFoundation organizers. Base EcclesialCommunity (BEC) organizing is mostly seenin Latin America but is being used in Latinoneighborhoods in the U.S. presently. (Hannaand Robinson, pp. 172-177)

The second critical foundation of communitydevelopment is long term vision for thefuture. A vision statement is a descriptionof what the community will be like in the

long-term (such as 20 to 25 years), whenthe community has been successful in itsefforts. The vision is comprehensive inscope and covers topics such as youngpeoples lives, education, housing, peoplewho are challenged by drug and alcoholdependency, senior citizens, and so on.Each of the parts should be a clear andcompelling expression of the communityslove and respect for one another and its


10/38

hopes for the future. As a whole, it is ashining expression of faith and a compassthat directs activities.

The Means of Community

Development

Our values and vision guide us forward.The end product of what should be created,supported, expanded is neighborhood socialcapital. The examples above related toPublic Safety, Education, Human Services,and Economic Development all point to thecritical importance of good social capital tocommunity development.

This effort is not so simple, becauseunderlying all the efforts to improve

schools, build affordable housing, providealternatives to gangs and drugs for youngpeople, and so on, is the matter of power.Individuals, groups, and agencies that sharethe same objectives often fight over whohas the authority to undertake the work.Social capital is power and it should reside,in large measure, within the neighborhood.


11/38

Three Paths of Action

The approaches to improving theneighborhood can be reduced to thefollowing approaches: Rationale Planning,

Asset Based Community Development(ABCD), and Community Organizing.

The table below summarizes the keydifferences among these.

Rational Planning, by and large, assumesthat external resources will be used toimprove the community and control overthe process and programs is outside the

neighborhood.

Assets Based Community Development,in contrast, emphasizes mobilizing localresources to improve the community,carrying out this work locally.

Community Organizing takes a different

approach: the process is controlled within theneighborhood, but it is focused on bringingexternal resources to bear on communityproblems.

Community organizations and plannersshould be familiar with all of theseapproaches. Each can be, and should be,used depending on the circumstances, aswill be addressed below. Lets move now toa review of each community developmentapproaches: their natures, assumptions,strengths and shortcomings.


12/38

Rational Planning Model

Rational planning is the de-facto standardfor government agencies. The uses towhich this approach is applied are quitelarge. All the following types of plans use

the basic elements of Rational Planning andshare many of the underlying assumptions: neighborhood, comprehensive, corridor and center, transportation, human service, housing, educational plans and so on.

Modifications of the Rational Planning modelto address some of its shortcomings arecalled equity planning and consensus

building, also discussed below.

It is unfortunate that this approach is calledrational or scientific planning becauseit implies that those who disagree withits outcomes are irrational or unscientific.Rational findings and recommendations canbe quite different, for example, for rentalproperty owners and for their tenants.

There are several potential biases inherentin Rational Planning that must be addressedfor it to achieve legitimacy. In the most

basic way, the plan process assumesthat everyone affected by the plan, thestakeholders brought into the planningprocess, are equally equipped in the toolsof rational analysis: verbal expression,literacy, facility using socio-economic dataand maps, and so on. It is unethical to limitcertain peoples participation in the planningprocess based on these preconditions anddoing so short-changes the educationalfunction of neighborhood planning.

The mere effort, the mere intention toplan, is liberating individually and for theneighborhood. Withholding the opportunityto plan for the neighborhood may be thegreatest way for those in power to sustainpowerlessness, inequality, and poorconditions.

A plan sometimes, however, can beworse than no plan at all if it embodies,legitimates, and sustains the status quoof inequality and unacceptable human andphysical conditions. The Rational Planningled to this outcome in center city urbanrenewal of the 1950s and 1960s and inmany of Robert Moses projects in New YorkCity. This section includes preconditionssuggested for neighborhood organizationsto meet when participating in a Rational

Planning process.

Elements of Rational Planning

The handbook of planning, The Practice ofLocal Government Planning, contains thefollowing chart of the Rational Planningprocess. (Hoch in So, pp. 23-24) Thisoutline is from the State of Californiaand therefore contains greater emphasison environmental review than othergovernments might include.

Couldnt peoplesee what hehad done? Whywerent theygrateful?

Caro on RobertMoses in ThePower Broker


13/38

Rational Planning Process

Step1. At the very start, the planningprocess needs to be framed broadly. Whatare the concerns that led to beginning the

plan and brought people together to workon it? What are the starting ideas abouthow the conditions have been changingover time, why this is happening, and whatwill result if the trend continues? Whatcan be done to improve the situation?What are the staffing and organizationalcommitments, both within and outsidethe planning process, to improve thecommunity? What are the ground rules ofthe planning process?

Step 2. At this step, the planning group

identifies the first set of long-terms goalsto be achieved through the planningprocess and its implementation. A goalis a description of the desired conditionof the community when the efforts havebeen successful. Setting goals can be quiteconfusing because people often confuse theactions needed to achieve a good result,with the result itself. It is important to keeppeople focused on the goal as an outcome.

Step 3. In this step, plan participantsfirst identify the actual conditions in thecommunity in relation to the goals first.(What are the barriers to overcome? Whatare the communitys strengths?) Theinformation to be collected is informed

by the goals. Only after this backgrounddata has been collected and discussed doparticipants consider why the unacceptableconditions exist (cause and effect).

Step 4. As result of the steps above,people are better informed about both theircommunity, the important local trends, andwhat might be causing the problems. Itis helpful at this point to revisit the goals,state them more clearly, drop some, andadd others. The planning efforts also needto be more specific, going beyond the

general goals to what specifically is intendedto be accomplished as objectives of theplan. Objectives are written in relation toeach of the goals.

Steps 5 and 6. Planning groups tend tomove between these two steps until theyreach a final agreement. The goals andobjectives are translated here into sets ofactions, or strategies, to reach them. Thekey questions to be answered at this stageare: What broadly stated set of actions willbe taken? Who will take the action? Whom

or what will be affected? Usually there willbe alternative approaches. In fact, a varietyof suggestions is encouraged. Once theplanning group is satisfied that they havesurfaced, a reasonably complete number ofgood ideas, it moves on to the next task.For each of the goals and related objectives,the different strategies are reviewed andevaluated critically. As a result of thisprocess, the list of action strategies isnarrowed and polished to identify thosemost likely to be effective. This set ofstrategies and objectives and the record ofthe work conducted to this point becomesthe plan.

Step 7. At this point, the strategies inthe adopted plan are translated intospecific programs and projects that beginto be implemented. It is a good idea tokeep implementation as a step in theplanning process. Normally, the agency


14/38

responsible for planning, lets say thePlanning Department, has only limitedauthority for carrying out plan strategies,generally just those involving land useand zoning. Implementation can breakdown at this stage unless the group

responsible for the plan continues its workthrough the implementation phase thatnecessarily involves different agencies andorganizations.

Step 8. All good Rational Planning modelsloop back on themselves by monitoring andevaluating implementation activities andadjusting the course if need be. A numberof options are available to the planninggroup. The strategies and programs can besound, but the implementation weak. Thisleads to possible changes in management

efforts, staffing, or placement of theprogram in the governmental structure.Sometimes the program does not workwell and another approach is needed.Sometimes the general strategy needs to bereconsidered. The planning group shouldbe open to all of these possibilities. Onoccasion the changes needed rise to theimportance of amending the plan itself.

Strengths and Weaknesses of the RationalPlanning Method;or the Faith Can MoveMountains Problem

It is very important for neighborhoodassociations to be careful in terms oftheir involvement in the Rational Planningapproach. Some beginning thoughts relatedto its possible good and bad qualitiesand condition-setting for involvement arecritical. Lets start with the possible snaresfor community groups.

Inherent bias. A serious considerationis that the Rational Planning approach,in and of its nature, favors a participantmore comfortable with speakingin public, writing and reading, andanalyzing data. In other words, it favorsthose with a higher level of education,background in the planning subject, andgreater comfort with the public processof planning. It was necessary for myfather to stop his formal educationafter 5th grade and work to support

the family. Was he a bright andcompetent individual? Yes. Would hebe comfortable in a Rational Planninggroup? Not unless the group was runin a particularly sensitive way, which isvery unlikely to occur

If carried out in the usual fashion,the Rational Planning process canmarginalize some of its participants andeven reinforce participants sense ofpowerlessness and lack of self-worth. Ithappens over and over, that the groupwhich begins the planning process getssmaller over time, as those who areuncomfortable with the approach loseinterest and withdraw. Those stillstanding at the end of the process havea great deal more control over the plan

than the group which began.

Who is in the room? A critical issue atthe very start is which organizations /groups have been invited to participate,how many representatives for thedifferent points of view are included,and whether or not residents ofthe neighborhood have sufficientrepresentation to ensure that theirconcerns and suggestions will bereflected in the final plan. At the startof every Rational Planning process,

someone decides who will be invited intothe room. Often these decisions aremade consciously to control the outcomeof the planning effort. Neighborhoodorganizations must ensure that theirinterests are protected through the verycomposition of the planning group.

How will decisions be made? Thebeginning rules about whetherdecisions will be made through majorityvotes or through consensus, or nearconsensus, also are important. Whenthere is a strong difference of opinionwith a planning group and decisionsare made by majority vote, adoptionof the plan does not resolve thedifferences and conflict is moved intothe implementation phase. On the otherhand, requiring consensus when theremay be strong differences of interestmeans that important concerns are


15/38

compromised away or simply droppedand the resulting plan may be limited ineffectiveness.

The Rational Planning approach ofconsensus building attempts to

address these concerns by (a) ensuringthat all interests are representedin the planning process, (b) all areinformed, equally empowered in theprocess, with truthful communicationencouraged, and (c) common groundis sought among people with differentinterests. This approach improves theRational Planning model but does notovercome situations where groups andinterests are fundamentally at odds.

Types of citizen participation. Arnstein

carefully examined the ways thatgovernment involved neighborhoodresidents in the Model Cities programs.She produced the following informativeladder of citizen participation.(Arnstein, A ladder of citizenparticipation in JAPA, July 1969, pp.216-224)

Ladder of Citizen Participation

The bottom two rungs, Therapy andManipulation, are classified by Arnsteinas non-participation. Citizens are askedto be involved in order to gain legitimacyfor what the government or other vestedinterests want to do, make them feelbetter about the situation that theyhave not actually affected. The next

two levels - Informing and Consultation involve one way communicationfrom the professional staff to theresidents, passive data collection bythe professionals, and participation inthe process without true access to staff

resources to empower citizens.

Placation involves small improvementsor concessions by the sponsoringagency. While certainly not ideal,placation is better than nothing at all.

The last three ladder levels, Partnership,Decentralization, and Citizen Control,contain true citizen participation. Poweris shared between government agenciesand neighborhood organizations. Todiffering degrees, the power to control

a local program is either extended ina conditional and legalistic way or elseheld by the community organization.This tends to occur when theorganization has an independent sourceof power (e.g. membership, resources,land).

While community involvement inthe middle rungs of the ladder isacceptable, the formation of socialcapital most readily occurs at the toplevels of engagement. Neighborhood

organizations need to be aware ofthe Rational Planning process roleprovided for them in the ladder of citizenparticipation.

Does rational planning truly reflect

the way change takes place? Thisintellectual approach of Goal Plan Program Evaluation makes somebasic assumptions that can be calledinto question. It assumes that membersof the planning group, especially theprofessional staff leading the effort,have the technical expertise to know therealistic range of possible actions thatcan be taken to solve the problems. Italso assumes that resources, usuallyeither financial or staff, that can be usedto correct a problem are known andlikely to be available.


16/38

Often this is not the situation,unfortunately, what I call the CanFaith Move Mountains? problem.Frequently, within a government agency,the individuals who are best-informedabout governmental activities and the

availability of resources simply arenot involved in the planning process.Possibilities are constrained by theknowledge of the professional staffmembers guiding the process.

On a more fundamental level, one maynot know whether something is possibleuntil it is tried. New approachesare as much a product of faith andcommitment as they are of rationaldecision making, and sometimes rationaldecision-making stands in the way of

progress. The actual effort to try anew program creates the circumstancesthat affect whether it will be successful,unsuccessful, or somewhere in between.This decision making framework isevolutionary, process-oriented, andessentially different than RationalPlanning. How many good ideas havenever been tried because the RationalPlanning method has little room for faithto move mountains?

Another way to view this is considering

planning as education. Planning canbe a way for neighborhood residentsto learn more about their community,about the problems they face, and aboutthe actions that can be taken to improvetheir lives. This type of educationevolves, builds on itself, and is informedby action. Empowerment and self-worthunderlie a process that is especiallyuseful to those who have more to gainthrough empowerment, yet one wonderswhether the constraints of the RationalPlanning approach discourage thisprocess from unfolding.

Government fragmentation. RationalPlanning assumes that once the plan hasbeen adopted, governmental resources,regulations, and staff activities will beemployed to carry it out. In fact, thetypical fragmentation in the structure ofgovernment makes this uncertain. The

agency producing the plan may not bethe agency responsible for the programsto implement it. Those who are askedto implement may not be responsible tothe agency conducting the plan and theymay be unwilling to do so. Individuals

at a higher organization level who cancompel action may be too busy ortoo disinterested to cause it to takeplace, or they may actually oppose itsimplementation.

In Albuquerque, the district planningprocess was set up so that the CityCouncilors would participate in itand help ensure the plans adoptionand implementation. The ChiefAdministrative Officer, however, whowas appointed by the Mayor, opposed

the plans simply because they were lessdependent on the mayor to implementthem. This led to a very bumpy roadand resulted in the ultimate demise ofthe program.

Objectivity. Another set of assumptionsin the Rational Planning approach is thatthe professional planner managing theprocess brings expertise to bear on theproblem and operates in a detachedand objective manner. The objectivityof the professional planner has come

under question however. Davidoff saidthat all planners come from certain classbackgrounds, all decisions have politicalmeaning, and that it would be betterto articulate values rather than assumethat planners are value-neutral.

What is the true purpose of communityplanning? The end product of theRational Planning process is theachievement of consensus-basedoutcomes, such as additional units ofaffordable housing, more individualswith jobs, a greater number of businessstart-ups, and so on.

In a more fundamental way, the realway to evaluate the planning effort isnot so much the affordable housingunits or the jobs, but the impactson neighborhood social capital. Theproducts of planning should be


17/38

understood as means toward this end.When thought of in this way, one canquestion whether the planner as thekey actor in the process is appropriate.One can ask, whether social capital wasincreased by relying upon government

agencies to achieve the plansobjectives? Some other appropriatequestions include the following.Did the process result in better-informed residents and their increasedcapability to make life better? Did theRational Planning process strengthenorganizations within the neighborhood?Did it increase local organizationseffectiveness in solving local problems?Did it produce local organizations thatwere better connected to key public andprivate sector decision makers?

Reasons to participate in the RationalPlanning process.

The discussion above seems to weigh inheavily in terms of the problems of RationalPlanning. There are a number of reasonswhy Rational Planning is helpful and shouldnot be dismissed out of hand.

First and foremost, in general what is worsethan Rational Planning is no planning. Thetrue goal of disempowering neighborhoods

is most blatantly seen in the desire by someto totally eliminate neighborhood-level and,in fact, all planning. Those with positionand economic power often operate at easebehind closed doors. Despite the caveatspresented above, the Rational Planningprocess does assume that all stakeholders,including neighborhood residents andlocal businesses, have a legitimate role incharting the future.

Second, when Rational Planning adopts theequity planning approach it addressesissues of adequate housing, health andhuman services, economic well-being, andso on from the viewpoint of enlarging theopportunities of those with few resources.(Krumholz & Forester, Making EquityPlanning Work) Improving the materialcondition of those with little is a laudablegoal in spite of the fact that it does notgo far enough in terms of building socialcapital.

Preconditions for Rational Planning:

Neighborhood organizations arestable, have sound leadership,and a reasonably large and activemembership.

Neighborhood organization hasindependent access to technicalassistance. This function may beperformed by the organizations staff,students and faculty members from alocal university, or capable volunteers.

From the onset, the Rational Planningprocess adopts the equity planningapproach, intending to improve thelives and conditions of those with fewresources in the neighborhood.

Groups and individuals invitedto participate in the process and

the decision-making rules arecarefully considered to address theneighborhoods legitimate concerns andsuggestions, and ensure their inclusionin the final plan.

The neighborhood organization iscommitted to meet independentlyto monitor the planning process anddevelop strategies for participating inthe effort.

The plan should has integrity in theform of recognized legitimacy by

elected and appointed officials at thetop levels of government.

The planning process engagesgovernment agencies that controlprograms important to neighborhoodresidents. These agencies arecommitted to implement the plan.

The planning process coversimplementation, issues such as howrecommendations will be delegatedto different agencies. Members ofthe planning group stay involved inmonitoring how the plan is carried out.

The neighborhood organization iscommitted to building local socialcapital through the Rational Planningprocess. Neighborhood involvement isnever at the bottom of Arnstein ladderof citizen participation.

The planning process is usedconsciously as a way for residents tolearn and to be empowered.


18/38

Third, the model reflects the realitythat improving neighborhood conditionssometimes involves participating in acomplicated technical/political process togain access to resources external to theneighborhood.

Decision-making for access to theresources of local government requiresknowledge of the legislative, budgetary,and implementation processes. The meansof expressing program reform is cast intechnical terms by government. Identifyingplan strategies and programs entailsknowledge of a variety of similar projects inother places with objectives in mind. Theprofessional planner in the Rational Planningprocess, even with limited knowledge andauthority, can help neighborhood residents

negotiate this unfamiliar and challengingpath.

Lastly, an adopted plan that reflects theinterest of neighborhood residents is itselfa touch stone for future decisions. Whenthe governing body is asked to reviewa development decision, neighborhoodresidents can point to the plan and seeka result that is compatible with it. Whena city or county department is crafting itsannual budget, the plan can be used tosupport funding to implement the plans

recommendations. A good plan can guidedecisions to improve the neighborhood.

In the final analysis, should neighborhoodassociations participate in Rational Planningprocesses? The answer is yes, under well-considered conditions. The sidebar laysout issues the neighborhood organizationshould consider in making this decision.The neighborhood should use the RationalPlanning process, rather than be used by it.

Perhaps the best way to end the discussionof Rational Planning, and to put theapproach in perspective, is simply to quotefrom Streets of Hopethat The heart is farmore important than the head. (Medoff &Sklar, p. 249)


19/38

Assets Based CommunityDevelopment

Assets Based Community Development,or ABCD, is at the opposite end of thespectrum from Rational Planning. It

focuses, first and foremost, on thecapacitiesof neighborhood residents,businesses, and groups. The frame forneighborhood planning shifts from theagency to the community and its residentsbecome the agents of action.

There is a clear voice of outrage in thewritings of ABCDs originators, JohnKretzman and John McKnight, regardingtreatment of low income people by theprofessional care-givers. This voice is heardclearly in McKnights The Careless Society:

The Community and Its Counterfeits(1995)and it contains a message about RationalPlanning, not directly but by inference.

McKnight believes that one of thecentral problems in our society is thatsocial capital has been damaged by theprofessionalization of caring in planningand service systems. Neighborhoods andtheir residents are defined as in need,deficient, and problems to be solved.He offers the following monologue bythe professional helper: As youare the

problem, the assumption is that I, theprofessional servicer, am the answer. Youare not the answer. Your peersare notthe answer. The political, social, andeconomic environment is not the answer.(McKnight, p. 46). The survival of theprofessional helper depends upon thecontinuance of need and deficiency. Theascendance of professional problem-solvingundermines the capacities of the primarystructures of society: family, neighborhood,church/synagogue, ethnic groups, (and)

voluntary association. (McKnight, p. 20)McKnight says that: The most significantdevelopment transforming America sinceWorld War II has been the growth of apowerful service economy and its pervasiveserving institutions. (McKnight, p. x)

McKnights voice has an almost biblicalanger about the dehumanization inherent inthe transformation of a fully formed person

into client, but this also his weakness. Hepays little attention to the economic andpolitical conditions underlying the greatsocial disruption of Americas cities from thewar to the present. The service economyneither createdthese conditions, nor formed

itselfin relation to them.

It is better to explore a different perspectiveon the dynamics of our private economy.The great dynamic engine of U.S. capitalismexpands, transforms, and casts aside.Although the private economy is a socialconstruction, the human consequences ofits functions, positive and negative, arelargely by-products. The great economictransformations occur in a particular placeand are husbanded by an apparatus ofinterlocking pro-growth associations and

governmental units called a growthmachine. (Logan & Molotch, UrbanFortunes, p. 32) This affiliation acts toshift the cost of growth to other areas andto other individuals in their own locations,while capturing as much of the gain aspossible. The authors write that thisactivity results in exploiting virtually everyinstitution in our political, economic, andcultural systems, and through its actions,disenfranchises others (Logan & Molotch,pp. 34, 63).

Kretzman and McKnight really are treadingonto the mechanism of power in society. Inlocalities, what passes as a debate aboutspecifics like whether and where a newroad will be built or the charges for newdevelopment, is actually a contest aboutpower that is far more important thanthe specific issue. Business leaders anddevelopers know this. Their narrow self-interest leads them to ameliorate some ofsocietys worst problems, but they resisttransferring power to community andneighborhood organizations because thisultimately infringes their scope of action.

Powerful business leaders penetrate politicsat national, state, and local levels throughtheir involvement with political campaignand continual monitoring and lobbyingof government decision-makers. Manyelected officials, in turn, adopt the growthmachines proprietary interest in power


20/38

and control and are reluctant to strengthenlocal organizations. This attitude pervadesthe planning and social service activitiesthat are responsible to elected officialsultimately.

The world, of course, is more complex.In our society personal power is apsychological defense against lossof position, status, and wealth. Thiscompounds the economic self-interestdiscussed above.

Why, though, are we increasingly removedfrom engagement in community and thesupport that comes from friendships andtrue caring? And why is it that plannersand social service professionals do notmove first to engage and empower local

citizens? To simply lay this at the feet ofsocial service and planning professionals isnot appropriate.

McKnight speaks movingly and expansivelyabout the necessity to engage in a newstruggle to reinvent America. . . .Wemust reallocate the power, authority,andlegitimacy that have been stolen by thegreat institutions of out society . . . thatthrive on the dependency of the Americanpeople. (McKnight0, p. 100)

The strength of Kretzman and McKnightsapproach is that it points us to what can bedone to rebuild neighborhood social capital.The remainder of this section introducestheir guidance for how this can be done.

Beginning Perspectives: Neighborhoods ofNeeds or Neighborhoods of Assets

The figure above right represents Kretzmanand McKnights depiction of neighborhoodsoften as seen by the professional planner orservice provider, as full of people in need.

The theory of ABCD uses as a starting point

the concept that the neighborhood, no matter

what its economic status, is full of assets, as

shown in the second figure at right, which can

be marshaled to improve community life.

Neighborhoods Viewed as Full of Problems

Neighborhoods as Full of Assets

The first step in the ABCD approach is toidentify and locate the neighborhoods localabilities, capacities, and assets. The idea isto cast a wide net in terms of neighborhoodcapabilities and is represented from thefollowing chart from their book,BuildingCommunities From the Inside Out.


21/38

Kretzman and McKnight define three typesof local assets: Residents of the neighborhood especially

including those who are ordinarily seenas in need rather than as valuablemembers of the community. Theseinclude young people, those withdisabilities, the elderly, low incomepeople, and those on welfare.

Local formal and informal organizations,associations, smaller groups, and small

businesses in the neighborhoods suchas churches, book clubs, sports teamsand recreational clubs,service organizations,self-help groups, andinformal child carecircles of friends.

The neighborhood-located facilities of city,state, and nationalorganizations such asmedical centers, bankbranches, libraries,

schools, universityfacilities, and parks,including public andprivate agencies, andnot-for-profit groups.

Identifying Neighborhood Residents Assets

The work starts with identifyingneighborhood residents capabilities inthe form of personal skills, communitywork, and entrepreneurial interests and

experience. This inventory is assembledthrough a local survey.

Through this organized effort, Assets BasedCommunity Development rebuilds realrelationships and celebrates the value ofeach neighborhood resident.

The checklist below represents a typicalform to use to collect informationabout personal skills and communityorganizational abilities.

The check list makes it clear that everyonehas capabilities they can offer others in thecommunity. These might include: caring for the elderly and sick; office work like typing, word processing,

or bookkeeping; home repairs and construction skills; routine building maintenance; food preparation; child care; security; teaching subjects like reading and math; transporting people; and

playing an instrument and singing even.

Example of Assets Inventory


22/38

Example of Assets Inventory

The above community skills inventorycovers past informal helping activities ingroup settings. The inventory calls to mind

past neighborhood engagement that couldform the basis of future activities if it werefacilitated locally.

At a third level, the personal inventoryfocuses on what skills and knowledge theindividual holds that might be translatedinto small scale economic activity. Micro-lending programs (see Chapter * oneconomic development) begin with just thispremise: that almost everyone has skillsand interests around which make it possibleto earn an income and build a business.

There are a number of examples offorms that can be used to collect suchinformation. Besides Building Communitiesfrom the Inside Out(shown in the insertsabove), other ABCD workbooks are useful,including: A Guide to Capacity Inventories:

Mobilizing the Community Skills of LocalResidents and

A Guide to Mapping and Mobilizing theEconomic Capacities of Local Residents.

The Assets Based Community Development

Institute listed at the end of this chapter

is a good source for a variety of helpful

publications and advice.

Experience of groups collecting the inventory

has shown that an exhaustive check-list,

trying to cover every possible asset, is

difficult to use. There is a trade-off between

the creativity that is fed by an expansive

approach and the difficulty of undertaking it. It

is a best to have some general ideas of where

the community development effort is heading

and let those ideas guide the creation of the

form. Approaching the survey in this way

makes it easier to put the information to good

use after it has been collected.

Kretzman and McKnight

How to conduct the inventory. There are

several ways that this information can beobtained, including the following. Passing out the form at meetings of

neighborhood groups after enlistingthe support of the leadership of theorganization for the effort.


23/38

Conducting the inventoryface-to-face (peer-to-peer) ata persons home. It may beimportant to have two peopleconduct the survey andhave a statement of support

from a known neighborhoodorganization or church group. Carrying out the inventory

at a public party held for thecommunity.

Collecting the informationin a telephone interview oron a self-completed form.A reverse directory oftelephone numbers by streetaddress can be helpful withthis approach, as it obtainingthe names and telephone

numbers of organizationmembers. These methodsare more impersonal and aretherefore less compatible withthe basic objective of makingpersonal connections.

There is no right answer to howthis should be done. It dependson what the organization isattempting to accomplish andthe extent of its personal andfinancial resources. Because

the process of conducting thisinventory is a critical part ofthe Asset Based Community Developmentprocess, it is important not to rely onvolunteers from the outside to collect theinformation. Often the first contact of localresident with the ABCD effort and a goodinitial impression is vital. The communitygroup should immerse itself in the processand the information obtained.

The attached graph provides arepresentative example of the connectionsidentified between young people and otherneighborhood residents, organizations, andinstitutions

Power of Youth: Reciprocal Relationships

Identifying Neighborhood Association Assets

Neighborhood formal and informalassociations, organizations, and clubs arean expression of social capital. Theseorganizations were formed to addresssome social, economic, political, self-help,

or recreational need. The Assets BasedCommunity Development Institute hasfound literally hundreds of such groups inlow-income neighborhoods, such as theLogan Square Neighborhood of Chicago.


24/38

These associations can beidentified through the followingsources: Neighborhood churches,

libraries, and parks thathost meetings of local

organizations. Community newspapersand newsletters oflocal organizations andneighborhood associations.

Telephone books eitherthe Yellow Pages underAssociations, Organizations,Fraternities or in reversedirectory listings for theneighborhood.

Key informants such asreligious or political leaders

or persons who can befound on almost every blockwho are well connected toneighborhood grapevine.

Each of these groups andassociations probably will alreadybe providing a community service,as shown in the accompanyingchart. There are literally thousands ofexamples of this service energy.

The ABCD effort is not limited to these

groups current activities. The role ofcommunity leadership is to identify as manyof these centers of change as possible andengage them in creating a new vision, plan,and programs for the future.

Tapping the Power of Local Institutions

At the third level of ABCD are theinstitutions located in, and possibly serving,the neighborhood that are parts of largerorganizations. Building Communities. . . identifies parks, libraries, schools,community colleges/universities, police,and hospitals, and this list can be expandedto fire stations, social service centers,recreation and community centers, banks,credit unions, other businesses located inthe neighborhood.

These organizations are likely to beproviding assistance to the community

already, sometimes in ways that go beyondtheir core mission. Even if they are not,

however, the local leaders task is to callon them, establish in each a sense ofresponsibility for the neighborhood, andenergize them to focus their considerableand varied resources to improve theneighborhoods in which they are based.

This is sometimes simply a matter ofexpressing what should be obvious: that wehave broad connections and responsibilitiesto the place where we live, work, and run abusiness. There may be is a convergence of

approaches, where a neighborhood orientedprogram within a governmental agency,such as Community Oriented Policing orCommunity Education, meets a communityeffort, such as in ABCD, to forge a newpartnership. In other cases, locally basedagencies and businesses are resistant toworking in consort with neighborhoods. Inthose situations, it is better under ABCDto build up the network of personal and

Connecting All Neighborhood Assets


25/38

organizational relationships before theseagencies are re-contacted to support thecommunity.

Kretzman and McKnight talk about each ofthe possible institutional partners in terms

of resources of people, facilities, materialsand equipment, and economic power. Itis helpful to consider, as examples, howthe staffs of these organizations mighthelp develop communities. Here are somepossibilities. Parks. Coach and teach young people

athletics, arts, music, and drama. Libraries. Offer classes for people of

all ages in GED, literacy, and language;compile and write community histories;help research and write grant proposals.

Schools. Provide pre-school, and before

and after-school programs, counseling,tutoring, conflict resolution, AdultBasic Education, recreation, literatureappreciation, math and computerenrichment. Offer a wide range ofeducational programs for adults andseniors in the neighborhood and helplink young people to local businesses.

Colleges and Universities. Use well-trained faculty and staff in communitydevelopment (housing, businessdevelopment, youth and adulteducation, health care, research) to

provide valuable technical assistance toneighborhood organizations.

Police. Use police officer roles underCommunity Oriented Policing to forgepartnerships with neighborhoodresidents to understand and addressthe causes of crime and disorder. Usepolice officers act as governmentombudsman linking community residentsto local services especially related tocorrecting the physical signs of disorder(e.g. abandoned cars, building codeviolations, and illegal dumping).

Hospitals. Set up health clinics inlocal schools, teach health education,establish nursery schools, and counselvictims of sexual and domestic abuseusing hospital staff.

Building Communities from the Inside Outpoints out many ways that local institutionscan help community development effortsin terms of the use of facilities, equipment,investments, and other expenditures. Hereare some examples of the assets of these

institutions that can be put to good use. Facilities: meeting rooms, class rooms,theaters, auditoriums, gyms and othersports facilities, art studios, computerrooms, shops, health clinics, kitchensand cafeterias, and even display casesand bulletin boards.

Equipment: sports, audio-visual,wood-working, car repair, and printingequipment; computers; books and otherlearning materials; medical supplies andequipment; and copy machines.

Economic Development: purchase

goods and supplies locally; hire localresidents as para-professionals,teachers aides, outreach workers,crime prevention specialists, tutors,activity leaders, and so on; employneighborhood young people; invest inneighborhood housing and businesses;deposit funds to neighborhood creditunions and community developmentfinancial institutions.

How does this work in practice? ABCDworkbooks indicate there is no uniform

answer to this question (Guide to Mappingand Mobilizing, p. 31). In a general way,the initial community development goalsof the neighborhood organization need tobe translated into improvement strategiesand projects based on the resources andinterests identified by the community. TheABCD publications counsel paying attentionto both individual level and communitylevel approaches. Literally hundreds ofprojects are possible and, in general, ABCDencourages as broad and deep a nestingof community improvement activities aspossible.

Returning to our original focus of buildingand strengthening neighborhood socialcapital, the principal strength of ABCD isin the internal workings of social capital.ABCD focuses primarily on creating a denseand wide network of social relations among


26/38

neighborhood residents and organizations.It is through these connections, and sharedvalues of love and service, that communitydevelopment emerges.

Conclusions about ABCD

The ABCD approach encourages a greatdeal of excitement and a release ofcommunity energy. The workbooksdistributed by the ABCD Institute and theInstitutes internet list-serve are burstingwith wonderful examples of projectsfollowing this approach and carried out byneighborhood associations, libraries, parks,hospitals, religious organizations, economicdevelopment groups, service organizationsfor the developmentally disabled, alliancesfor youth, and so on. It is quite easyfor someone to tap into these sources ofinformation, dialogue, and training.

The strengths of ABCD are apparent but it isimportant to sound a cautionary note aboutsome community development issues thatare not well addressed by this approach.

First, more attention is needed to addressthe steps between the neighborhood assetsinventory and a community plan of action.Ideally, this would deal with the conceptsof strategies, objectives, and projectsand programs that are consistent with

the strategies to achieve the objectives.(See strategic planning Chapter * of thisworkbook.) It is essential to define whereto start, who to involve, what resources areneeded, how the strategies and programsfit together, and ultimate purpose of theaction.

Second, the organization carrying outall the activities in ABCD is a shadowypresence operating in the background ofthe picture, belying the importance of thelocal organizations. The foundation for is

building a power base and the means ofpower is organization. Focusing on buildingand strengthening organization throughcarrying out the community developmentprocess is very important.

Third, an effective organizer is criticallyimportant to establishing a strongcommunity group. The organizer isessential to start, build, and maintain thecommunity group. Understanding thenature of the role, and the qualities andfunctions of such a person is essential to the

success of the effort.

This chapter began with an observationfrom the Dudley Street Neighborhood thattheir strongest tools were: the conceptof the master plan and the action ofaggressive community organizing.

Lastly, crafting critical partnerships withpublic agencies such as school systems,social service agencies and policedepartments charged with communitydevelopment is necessary. The steps tobuild community from the inside-out atsome point must meet and collaborate withthe many external organizations chargedand funded for this mission. The chaptersin this workbook covering CommunityEducation (Chapter *), Community Policing(Chapter *), Housing (Chapter *), andHuman Services (Chapter *) addresshow progressive approaches within

How Does the Community Use Local

Assets and Build Social Capital?

There are three basic steps in the ABCD

approach to community building:

Identify the assets of neighborhoodresidents; local groups, organizations,

and clubs; and city-wide or larger public,

private and non-profit institutions with

facilities in the neighborhood.

Productively connect these people,

organizations, and institutions to one

another in ways that multiplies their

power and effectiveness for community

development. Create relationships that are mutually

beneficial and reciprocal. This work

begins with linking the neighborhood

residents to one another and to local

associations. Establishing links to

externally controlled institutions located

in the neighborhood occurs after the

locally-focused connections are made.


27/38

governmental agencies can work effectivelywith community organizations to build socialcapital. The extent of the challenge in someneighborhoods requires nothing less.

The most compelling spokesperson

and practitioner about the communitysrequirements of power and organizationhas been organizer Saul Alinsky. ReviewingAlinskys sage advice fills in many of thegaps in the ABCD approach.

His work is not without problems. Thefollowing discussion of Alinskys approachalso addresses some of the ways theIndustrial Areas Foundation and the relatedwork of the Interfaith coalitions haveimproved on Alinskys methods.

Complementing ABCD, which turns inwardto the neighborhood to build social capital,Community Organizing focuses on theaspects of social capital that involvelinkages and effective action relatedto governmental, business, and otherorganizations eternal to the neighborhood.Our focus on social capital helps to unifythese community development approachesand explain why each is important.


28/38

Community Organizing

Curiously enough, one of the icons ofcommunity organizing, Saul Alinsky, startedas a graduate student in criminology atthe University of Chicago in the 1930s.

He worked for the Institute for JuvenileResearch and collected life stories ofjuvenile delinquents in the neighborhoodswhere they lived and in correctionalfacilities. Through this perspective, Alinskyand others developed the theory that thebreakdown in family, church, and kinshipwithin neighborhoods undermines thetransfer of social norms from one generationto the next, producing crime, a view similarto social capital as previously discussed.

Alinsky worked for an Institute-based

community intervention called the ChicagoArea Project, located in the Back of theYards neighborhood, an immense slumlocated next to the giant Union Stockyard inChicago.

Chicago Back of the Yards Neighborhood

The setting of Upton Sinclairs expose,The Jungle, and near Jane Addams HullHouse settlement, it was a combustiblemix of Serbs, Croatians, Czechs, Slovaks,Poles and Lithuanians. Alinsky helpedform the Back of the Yards Council in1939 to improve local conditions throughthe mobilization of all the neighborhoodsexisting leaders and organizations.

Alinsky started with union organizingtactics applied within a neighborhoodwhich contained a more complex numberof interrelated issues. He always saw hisrole as working for the have nots, thosewithout money and power. Over time,

he devised a set of tactics to draw on thestrength of numbers and commitment,sometimes the only assets of the poor. Heformed the Industrial Areas Foundation asa training center and base for communityorganizing campaigns across the country.In 1946, he distilled his experiences in thebook Reveille for Radicals, a book that isstill in print and contains valuable insights.(Alinsky, Reveille)

In the 1950s he formed The WoodlawnOrganization in an African-American

neighborhood in Chicagos South Side. Inthe 1960s, together with lead organizerEd Chambers, he worked in another well-known community campaign focused onthe hiring practices of Eastman Kodak in anAfrican-American community in Rochester,New York. He worked regularly to improveconditions in low-income communities ofcolor.

Later in life Alinsky began to focus onmiddle class neighborhoods. He did thisnot only for pragmatic reasons, because

more than 75% of the population identifiedwith the middle class, but also becausethought they were trapped in the middle,threatened by all sides, and worried aboutunemployment, retirements, medical care,taxes, and beset by unfulfilled dreams.(Alinsky, Rules for Radicals, pp. 184, 187).Alinsky said that the radical was dedicatedto the destruction of the roots of all fears,frustration, and insecurity of man, whetherthey be material or spiritual. (Alinsky,Reveille, p. 16)

Shortly before his death at 63, Alinskypublished Rules for Radicals. His twosmall volumes should be on the shelves ofeveryone interested in social change andcommunity development. His approach tocommunity organizing still is appropriate,especially when there are intractabledifferences between neighborhood interests


29/38

and those controlling vital resources or withthose taking action in stark opposition tothe neighborhood.

Discussing Alinskys contribution tocommunity organizing does not fully

express the measure of the man. InReveille for Radical,he describes a radical,talking about himself in the same words.Radicals, he said, really liked people, lovedpeople, all people. They were the humantorches setting aflame the hearts of men sothat they passionately fought for the rightsof their fellow men, all men. They werehated, feared, and branded . . . . (Alinsky,Reveille, p. 9) He was steel willed andself-righteous: not the kind of person youwanted to cross, or if you were a businessexecutive or government official, not the

person you wanted to see in your waitingroom. He quoted Jehovah: I will rendervengeance unto my enemies, and those thathate me will I requite. (Alinsky, Rules, p.18). And he meant it.

Saul Alinsky

Power is the right word. (Alinsky, Rules, p.49)

Alinsky, shown in the preceding photo,believed it is critical for communityorganizations to possess, build, andutilize power. Power is the ability ofthe community to achieve that which it

intentionally sets out to do. Alinsky did notwant to use a different word for power, tominimize, to dilute the meaning . . . . thehate and love, the agony and the triumph. . . leaving an aseptic imitation of life. Infact, power is what allows the neighborhood

to obtain resources to rehabilitate homes,receive adequate police services, makesure that children are learning in the localschool, guarantee services like trash pick-upand street paving, have good quality parks,recreational equipment, services, and so on.

There is a reluctance to talk about theimportance of power. Too often powerhas led to arrogance, isolation, andabuse. But power can be a balm to thepowerless. Usually, the gathering of powerby a low-income community means that

there is a balance of power between theneighborhood and other forces affectingresidents lives. It seldom means the kindof unrestrained control that leads to abuse.

Powerlessness is, moreover, equallyconducive to abuse as unrestrainedpower. Self-destructive behavior, suchas drug addiction, crime, disorder, andschool failure, is more closely relatedto the absence of personal power andefficacy. A measure of power in low incomecommunities is quite likely to create better

partnerships with local governments,businesses, and developers. Research byRohe and Gates found that more than 80%of those interviewed who were directlyinvolved with neighborhood planning effortsbelieved that citizen-government relationshad improved as a result. (Rohe and Gates,Planning with Neighborhoods, pp. 117-119)

So what it power? Usually people saypower is the ability to act. The ability toact means that individuals or groups cantake effective action to reach their goalsand objectives. Power does not alwaysimply conflict. In fact, often it is best toachieve desired results without a gloves-offfight. Conflict engenders resistance, anger,and even long term opposition. It is a highrisk strategy. If one loses in a campaign,the organization is set back. Even winningrequires pulling back and reestablishingmore temperate day-to-day relationships.


30/38

The ability to act can be carried out throughnetworks of relationships, through simplecommunication, through participationin political or administrative processes,through using the human and organizationalassets in ones own neighborhood. Power

can be exercised in a whisper.

In the broadest sense, power is the sameas social capital as discussed here. Butsometimes considering things in thebroadest way does not give the neededspecifics to neighborhood organizations.In the section above on Assets BasedCommunity Development, we discussedhow social capital can be created throughneighborhood-based efforts drawing on localresidents and organizations. This is a partof developing neighborhood power. Power

also built and expressed through the abilityto obtain external resources. Many timesa public campaign is required to obtainrightful respect and achieve position in thepolitical arena.

One IAF organizer, Michael Gecan, explainsthis well when he says: when we arecalled by the neighborhood or religiousleaders of a city, we tell them that wewont come to solve a housing problemor an education problem or a low-wageproblem. No, we say well try to help them

solve a more fundamental problem apower problem. (Gecan, Going Public, p. 9)Quite fundamentally, the bottom line is notbetter housing, responsible police service,good schools, and so on; the fundamentalconcern is the power to achieve these goals.

Alinsky was the master of the form of powercreation associated with public campaigns.The following part of this section focuseson how he proposed this be done. Thisdiscussion will fold into Alinskys views therefinement of the approach by the IndustrialAreas Foundation (IAF) after his death in1972.

The importance of organization

For Alinsky and the IAF, the means to poweris a strong and durable organization. Hesaid: power and organization are one andthe same. (Alinsky, Rules, p. 113) Power

comes directly from the fundamental needof humans to improve their own lives(self-interest), to help ones neighbors,to improve local conditions, and to beeffective and self-actualizing in the world.This cannot be achieved in its fullness

by an isolated individual. Through anorganization, individuals realize that whatseems to be a personal problem actuallyis shared by the community. Through anorganization, people come realize thatproblems range through many aspects oflife and a program is needed to addressthem that is broad, deep, and all-inclusive.(Alinsky, Reveille, p. 56) They also see thatthe entire community needs to be mobilizedto improve its circumstances in a way thatmeets its residents hopes for the future.

Great circular relationships are beingdescribed here. The need for power,when locally directed, helps to createorganization; and the strength of theorganization expressed through actionreinforces its power. The motivationto improve local conditions leads toorganization, and the existence of apowerful organization provides themotivation to change and improve. Thismutually reinforcing pattern of action,motivation, and organization is key to theAlinsky and IAF approach.

There is no such animal as a disorganizedcommunity. (Alinsky, Rules, p. 115)

Just as the scope of the program for anAlinsky group is broad, all of the existinglocal organizations in the neighborhoodform the foundation of the group: all of thechurches, civic, social, athletic, recreational,labor, nationality, and service organizationsand many of the business-men of [the]community. (Alinsky, Reveille, p. 48) Aswith Alinskys approach, ABCD found thateven marginalized neighborhoods havehundreds of local organizations. Thisapproach assumes that the initial leadershipof the neighborhood organization comesfrom the leadership of the different groups,many of whom are completely unknownoutside the community (Alinsky, Reveille.p. 72).


31/38

Alinsky realized, however, that theexperience of living poor in a communitythat is mostly neglected by governmentagencies and businesses leads to feelingsof prejudice, despair, surrender, andapathy. Despite a structure of existing

organizations, many had atrophied inmembership, activities, and vision. As aresult, the IAF deliberately created neworganizations, not collaborations or alliancesof existing groups. (Gecan, p. 135)

The organizer is an active partner inbuilding this group. This process beginswith what is referred to as a Habit ofRelating. It involves countless individualand house meetings with communityresidents, pastors, leaders of otherorganizations, business owners, elected

officials, public employees, and others. Thissimple activity of making personal contactthrough face-to-face meetings does a greatdeal to overcome the sense of isolation andpowerlessness in our society. Just as theword for soul has its roots in breath,the personal dialogues are the threads ofthe IAF organizing method that weavescommunity back together. The communityemerges as a tapestry of individuals,families, wives, husbands, children, pastors,congregations, workers, and more.

This process calls for more than simplesociability because it requires people toconnect publicly and formally. (Gecan, p.21). As such, the personal relationshipshave purpose, discipline, and mutuallyagreed-upon norms. In other words, theserelationships gather dignity and honorthrough thoughtful progress toward the goalof community development.

In the course of the work, old leaders arestrengthened and new leaders emerge. TheIAF approach is to build leadership skills androles consciously and broadly among themembership.

Role of the organizer

The IAF calls building a strong and reliablebase the sponsoring committee phase.(Gecan, p. 12). Until the power base of thecommunity organization is established, no

major issues are confronted. This work isactivated by an organizer, a very importantrole for Alinsky and the IAF. Organizers are

essential to start and build an organizationand to it keep it going. (Alinsky, Rules, p.65) The organizer lives, dreams, eats,breathes, sleeps establishing a strongcommunity organization that can addresslocal issues. (Alinsky, Rules, p. 113)

The organizer must be invited into thecommunity by a significant proportion ofthe local organizations, clubs, churches, andpopulation. This invitati

action strategies for community dvl pmt

Documents