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