COMMUNITY ACTIVISM IN OAK PARK: COMPETING AGENDAS ...

coordinated with community revitalization efforts, the maximum
result cannot be achieved. You cannot have one without the other,
and the young people from inner cities must realize the importance
of these two complimentary goals. [Johnson 2006]
In sum, inner city growth, in the form of new business, homes, and schools is
spread across the neighborhood of Oak Park. St. HOPE development projects have been
furthered by an elite group of African-Americans who had the desire and capacity to
revitalize their community. In doing so, they gained momentum and enthusiasts in the
neighborhood who wanted to support the efforts facilitated by African-Americans who
were “giving back to the neighborhood.” Gentrification, as furthered by ethnic groups, is
becoming more common and is viewed as having more positive effects on communities,
than negative ones. Boyd (2005) in her analysis of “African-American gentrification”
explains that, “the reliance on individual investment as the answer to African-Americans’
problems is part of a broader ideological current that suggests that individual class
mobility is the answer to racial inequality” and
Where they once identified gentrification as one of the primary
causes of black urban poverty and struggled against its harmful
effects, black neighborhood activists now regard it as one solution
to disinvestment—when, that is, the middle-class residents
involved are African-American. But black gentrification, like any
other kind, threatens to displace the neighborhood’s long-time
residents. [Boyd 2005:66]
Non-Participants
In contrast to the middle-class residents who participate in Neighborhood
Association meetings, there are many middle-class residents that do not participate in
community-based organizations in Oak Park. These residents choose to live in the
neighborhood because they enjoy the affordable housing and convenient location of the
103