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THE CASE FOR COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT
Jane Shull, 1977
I. Neighborhood Organizing
Neighborhood based community development activities are
housing, employment, and business programs that are controlled by
the neighborhood in which they are located. During the past ten
years community development of the inner city and middle class
neighborhoods has been a priority of most community and neighbor-
hood based organizations. This interest has taken many forms,
including multi-million dollar development corporations,
agitation to redirect federal dollars into specific
neighborhoods, and small local initiatives like housing rehabili-
tation and construction. In this book we will be focusing on
community development activities that can be controlled in one
neighborhood. This means that in the early stages they should
require relatively little investment in money (but a lot in
time). It means that as many people in the community as possible
should participate in decisions about what to do. It will often
mean that the activities will be labor-intensive, and use
small-scale technology in their development and operation. Most
important, it means that these activities will take place within
a framework that values the preservation of the neighborhood
as a permanent home for the people who live there, that values
democratic control over decisions that are made, and that accepts
the right and the authority of the neighborhood collectively to
determine its own future.
Recently a flurry of activity has centered on saving the
neighborhoods. And many people who live in neighborhoods have
become quite active in their behalf. But much of this activity,
on the part of professional planners and bureaucrats, and on the
part of ordinary citizens, has been defensive. It is as if we
fear that unless the neighborhoods are saved, the cities will
degenerate into chaos. For that reason alone, city planners are
retreating somewhat reluctantly from a twenty year strategy of
saving centers of cities and are beginning to concern themselves
with saving the neighborhoods on the periphery. While this is
happening in inner city neighborhoods, a different process has
started in ethnic neighborhoods. Ethnic neighborhoods are seen as
beginning to crumble at the edges as "outsiders" move in. If
something isn't done, the feeling goes, then the ethnic
neighborhoods will go the way of inner city neighborhoods as the
residents flee.
What these cries of doom lack is any sense of the positive
value of neighborhoods. Most of the people outside of the
neighborhoods do not understand what it is that people value
about neighborhoods, and, when asked about the importance of
preserving their neighborhoods, residents respond in terms of de-
fending what little they hive, rather than speaking of the
positive value of a community.
These responses are not surprising. The American dream is
presented to us in school, through the mass media, and through
the encouragement of many of the people around us, sees mobility
as the solution to all our problems. You can escape, the dream
goes, you can make money and go live in the suburbs. You can move
out of the old, stifling neighborhood--you can become free of it.
Freedom itself, an idea which originated in this country as the
freedom to do what is right, has become the pursuit of happiness
through isolation from all real connection with people. There is
little to value in a neighborhood community from this
perspective. In fact, the only people who seem to have any-
thing to gain from a neighborhood asre those with almost nothing
else going for them, such as the very poor.
But while not surprising, this response is wrong. Anyone who
examines the figures on income distribution, unemployment, crime,
and so on, can see that private salvation has not worked for
many, many people. In addition, we believe that the growth of fad
therapies, cult religions, the divorce rate, and other social
indicators shows that while people can become richer and move to
the suburbs, they cannot escape their problems along the way.
We have lost a sense of meaning, a sense that anything
ultimately matters. Meaning is disappearing in American life as
three institutions break down. These are the family, religion,
and communities. The work of the Institute for the Study of Civic
Values is to find specific ways in which we can restore the
meaning of community to the proper place in our lives.
As a positive force, community can restore a sense of
belonging and roots, a sense of sharing our lives with others,
and, if local communities were to become politically powerful, a
sense of control over our lives.
In a modern urban industrial society the neighborhood is,
for most people, the most logical place to try again to find that
positive sense of community--to come home.
In order for a neighborhood to become more than a location
where people happen to live, those who live in the neighborhood
must find out what they share. All people in all neighborhoods
share some common needs. These are the need for mutual security
and safety, the need for reciprocity or to know what is expected
of neighbors and institutions, the need for fellowship or the
feeling of belonging to the community, and the need for a common
standard of justice against which to measure behavior and ideas.
Most neighborhoods have not achieved these four standards. In
most neighborhoods many people are afraid to venture ^ut of their
houses; they are constantly annoyed by the behavior of the
neighbors and angered by the behavior of institutions like banks;
they feel isolated and alone rather than part of the community;
and the idea of justice within the neighborhood is far from their
minds.
Yet most efforts to improve life in the neighborhoods have
centered on one of these four ideas.
Security is the area in which this is easiest to see. Block
organizations and organizations like CLASP (Citizens' Local
Alliance for a Safer Philadelphia), are organized for the
explicit purpose of making neighborhoods safer. Other groups
organize for changes in the criminal justice system; to support
the police or to oppose police brutality; to aid ex-offenders or
to prevent a drug treatment center from moving in. Groups
organized around security often disagree with each other about
the causes and solutions of crime, and even groups who agree
about causes and solutions may take different strategic ap-
proaches. sut all are united in their conviction that security
problems are the ones that must be solved.
Reciprocity organizations work for more equitable
distribution of dollars and services. These organizations are
also common. Outside of Philadelphia this appears to be the most
usual form of organization. Reciprocity organizations work to get
some outside institution or the goverment to give the com-
munity what it believes is due it. Reciprocity organizations
demand concessions, and usually engage in conflict to achieve
these concessions. In Philadelphia the outstanding example of a
reciprocity organization is COACT, a colition of groups in Logan,
West Oak Lane, and other areas, whose first united action was to
force HUD to rehabilitate and sell hundreds of abandoned houses.
COACT demanded this concession--they picketed, arranged
explosive confrontations with government officials, and used
other tactics designed to increase the anger of neighborhood
residents while increasing the nervousness of government
officials. Another reciprocity organization in Philadelphia is
the Tenant Action Group. This group believes that while te-
nants owe some things to landlords (rent, proper care of
property) landlords owe certain things to tenants as well. This
group is therefore working for laws that will increase tenants'
rights until they are equal to those of the landlords--in other
words to get reciprocity for tenants.
The great limitation of reciprocity organizations is that
people don't like conflict. Long periods of war are uncomfortable
and unpleasant to people, demanding total commitment which many
are not prepared to give. And the victory often appears hollow
after it was won. Dozens of people marched on HUD over and over
again in 1975 and 1976 and won a significant victory. HUD
repaired and sold hundreds of vacant homes. Yet, how much changed
is those people's lives as a result? Very little.
This is the difficulty faced by the reciprocity organization
that aims to create conflict. No community organization has the
power, through deliberately generated conflict, to win victories
over the major issues that oppress people in neighborhoods today.
These issues are economic: they are unemployment, industry moving
away from the city, inflation, the breakdown of public services,
and the collapse of the urban public schools. We cannot simply de
mand that unemployment be stopped. Of whom can the demand be
made? In a free enterprise economy, we cannot demand that jobs
remain in the Northeast when companies move to Phoenix or
Singapore. As a result, when groups do march to City Hall, they
ask for what they might be able to get, such as community de-
velopment funds, or a bit and a piece of the capital budget. Even
in these limited cases, we usually lose. But even if we win, a
few more houses may be rehabilitated, or a new recreation center
built, but most people's lives remain essentially the same.
It is for this reason also that we believe many neighborhood
residents have been reluctant to engage in the kind of constant
warfare advocated by the conflict organizations. Most people in
neighborhoods have many pressures on their time, and must work
for a living. They set priorities. Given what they believe can be
accomplished, they may feel relaxation after work is more
important than the constant round of meetings, marches, and
confrontations that most organizing entails. In fact, those who
are active in their communities base their activity on a
conviction that political activity is important for its own sake,
rather than on a belief that anything will actually be won.
Thus, while organizing around security and reciprocity are
necessary first, more is needed. We will argue that neighborhood
based economic development activity, including housing
development, economic development, credit unions,
cottage industry, food crops, and similar initiatives are the
next logical step in the organizing communities.
II. Neighborhood Based Community Development
Neighborhood community development focuses on fellowship.
When reciprocity is at issue, citizens are willing to put out to
the extent that they get back They feel institutions should do
the same. sut fellowship takes the process further. It assumes an
emotional or spiritual bond with others in the group. It assumes
that people might be willing to do something for somebody else
because they care about them and the community, not because they
will get something back. As such it moves people toward the kind
of positive vision of community with which we began.
A person investing in a credit union, for instance, must
understand that the interest earned may be lower than bank
interest in the early years. Patrons of a food coop or customers
of a neighborhood store must be willing to trust the quality of
produce or other goods even when they are not packaged in the
expensive wrappings we have all come to expect. And in all cases,
citizens must be willing to undergo a certain amount of
inconvenience in order to make these projects succeed. This may
be as minor as adjusting shopping hours, or as major as being
willing to spend volunteer hours at various tasks. The common
bond, which must be present to some degree before this kind of
process can start, will be strengthened by the process itself
until enough people understand the importance and necessity of
cooperation and active participation.
As the foregoing has implied, not every neighborhood is
ready to undertake a community development project. Neighborhoods
that are completely fragmented, where no one knows anyone else,
are bound to fail in the attempt. The reason is simple: if no
loyalty to the neighborhood exists, then individuals will simply
make rational economic decisions (reciprocity decisions) about
how to relate to the economic development activities. They will
not feel any special obligation to patronize neighborhood
businesses, let alone help set one up. They will not regard the
search for new homeowners in the community as important when a
community rehabilitates housing; they may not help guard emp-
ty houses against vandalism. After all, their immediate economic
interest will not be served in the early stages, unless they
happen to be employed by the enterprise.
A neighborhood is ready to undertake community development
activity when certain pre-conditions exist. The community should
have formal or informal networks of communication; people should
know each other. Most people in the neighborhood .ould know which
neighborhood they life in, and what its boundaries are. People
should have worked together in the past on some activity like
block organizing, negotiation with the City, or at a minimum,
social events. All of these things should have built up a
commitment to the neighborhood on the part of a substantial
number of residents. One easy way to tell whether this is true or
not is to try to decide how your neighbors would answer this
question: "Would you move if you could afford to?" If everyone
would answer "yes," more work needs to be done before you can be-
gin a high risk activity like community development. But if the
community has people who are determined to stay and make the
neighborhood a better place to live; who know they cannot solve
their problems by escaping to another neighborhood, then
community development activities can work.
When there is a feeling of fellowship in a neighborhood, the
rewards are more than simply material. People get a sense of
belonging, and a sense of meaning about their life in the
community. This is very important because otherwise people lack
the experience of casual day-to-day contact and occasional
friendship that are the texture of a community. People living
this kind of life find that activities that bring them together
can be tremendously rewarding.
Ccgmunity development activities directly attack the real
economic injustices that afflict communities. Low income
communities lack jobs. Community development corporations
generate jobs. Low income communities lack neighborhood
businesses. Community development corporations start neighbor-
hood businesses. Low income communities lack credit. Credit
Unions provide credit. Community development activities, and
particularly credit unions, work by capturing the wealth that
flows through a neighborhood. Common sense will tell you that
even the poorest neighborhood has millions of dollars floating
through it every month. Most that flows in, flows right out
again--in purchases, loan payments, etc. But if the neighborhood
controlled its own businesses, and its own credit, then those
same dollars would flow into the neighborhood and work for the
community again Thus, community development activities work to
redistribute wealth within the neighborhood.
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