COMMUNITY ACTIVISM IN OAK PARK: COMPETING AGENDAS ...

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Chapter 6 ANALYSIS In Oak Park, a number of community groups are working to improve the quality of life for residents and improve the quality of the neighborhood through various means. They are implementing revitalization projects, creating grassroots projects for women and children, and organizing the poor. Similarly, non-profit organizations are undertaking their own efforts to serve the poor, by providing long-term and emergency services for needy residents. The agendas of these groups vary, but revitalization projects, which focus on ridding the neighborhood of “blight” and community “problems,” are gaining the most momentum and attracting participation of residents in the community. But, while many residents believe these projects will have positive outcomes for the neighborhood, certain dilemmas have been exposed through community activism. These “dilemmas of activism” center on: 1) who will actually benefit from these improvement projects and 2) how to alleviate the negative effects on lower-income residents in the neighborhood. Rights to the City Harrington and Merry (1988:713) claim that, “symbols of community participation, represented by concepts such as neighborhood justice and community justice, are not merely masks for state power but are expressions of it.” Thus, neighborhood justice and efforts of community activism work to merely mask the social inequality that exists between residents in gentrifying neighborhoods such as Oak Park. These dilemmas of activism expose the inequality of residents and reveal that some 108
esidents have “rights to the city,” while others do not. Rights to the city are manifested in neighborhood activism and are revealed in the public discourse of neighborhood revitalization projects that are implemented to improve the quality of life for some residents. While some residents participate in revitalization projects and have the power to approve projects, other residents do not. Diverging perspectives about how to improve the quality of life for residents also creates social conflict among the middle-class and lower-income residents in the neighborhood. Social conflict occurs as a result of the residents’ different perspectives on how community “problems” are defined and of how to address these social problems in the neighborhood. Middle-class residents, participating in Neighborhood Association meetings, support increased police surveillance, revitalization projects to “beautify” the neighborhood, the closure of liquor stores through eminent domain, increased development, historic preservation projects, and increased business growth in the neighborhood. Their powerful “revitalization politics” have gained momentum and increased resident participation in revitalization projects. In addition, women working to create grassroots projects focus their efforts to help improve the lives of women and children, labor activists argue that the poor will only be able to acquire social mobility through policy changes, and non-profit organizations coordinate programs to provide basic needs to the poor. But middle-class community activists inevitably exercise “rights to the city” and get to decide who else has rights to public space in their community. They illustrate those rights through “upscaling” Oak Park through development projects, which causes 109
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COMMUNITY ACTIVISM IN OAK PARK: COM
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COMMUNITY ACTIVISM IN OAK PARK: COM
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Abstract of COMMUNITY ACTIVISM IN O
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DEDICATION For my parents Joe and I
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I would also like to thank Joyce Bi
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Neighborhood Association ..........
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Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION: STUDYING TH
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different from themselves, they dis
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known about the residents who are l
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contested racialized images of thei
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Although the anthropological litera
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Research Focus The research site of
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Association was also gaining attent
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in city environments is exposed in
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Moffat (1992:217) states, “if man
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Choldin and Hanson (1981:562) defin
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neighborhood. The neighborhood thus
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the various definitions of “commu
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The City Chapter 3 SETTING The city
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stratified, selective, and distance
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people living outside the neighborh
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studies have demonstrated that reli
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In 1889, the Oak Park Association s
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edevelopment projects elsewhere in
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een lured to Arts and Crafts style
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ig black sunglasses, khakis, and a
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poverty. They and their comrades wo
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undesirable consequences; it can pr
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aiding in the dilapidation of the c
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Different types of social change in
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groups that are political and produ
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problems, events, and initiatives.
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Pertinent to the Neighborhood Assoc
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were to be the main participants in
Page 69 and 70: members, students, and sympathetic
Page 71 and 72: evitalization projects in the commu
Page 73 and 74: 1990:138). Likewise, “The mission
Page 75 and 76: eports of residents marching down t
Page 77 and 78: Altheide and Michalowski (1999:476)
Page 79 and 80: organizations is part of a broader
Page 81 and 82: hours of the day and night and resi
Page 83 and 84: At a particular Neighborhood Associ
Page 85 and 86: I think the city is trying to make
Page 87 and 88: community they began an onslaught o
Page 89 and 90: Rehabilitation programs would do a
Page 91 and 92: “neighborhood” as one where the
Page 93 and 94: were being made by middle-class res
Page 95 and 96: efreshments and appetizers and maki
Page 97 and 98: For three months I performed a vari
Page 99 and 100: and spent their time trying to recr
Page 101 and 102: Convention Center in downtown Sacra
Page 103 and 104: more than two decades we have oppos
Page 105 and 106: The surveys for the Women’s Needs
Page 107 and 108: these residents were also affected
Page 109 and 110: professor, who was also a Neighborh
Page 111 and 112: twenty other residents in May to ma
Page 113 and 114: Most community members felt the sch
Page 115 and 116: coordinated with community revitali
Page 117 and 118: you sure you want to live here? Jus
Page 119: the community but are able to view
Page 123 and 124: are activists and non-activists in
Page 125 and 126: Ethnic entrepreneurs in American so
Page 127 and 128: such as milk, eggs, and toiletries,
Page 129 and 130: presence that would produce long-te
Page 131 and 132: eneficial to one group may not be b
Page 133 and 134: organizations conflict and tried to
Page 135 and 136: social stratification in the commun
Page 137 and 138: class does not view the lifeways of
Page 139 and 140: them. And the middle-class don’t
Page 141 and 142: in low-income neighborhoods. Among
Page 143 and 144: improve the quality of life for res
Page 145 and 146: NOTES 1 Neighborhood “revitalizat
Page 147 and 148: 20 The National Labor Federation (1
Page 149 and 150: Altheide, L. David and Michalowski,
Page 151 and 152: Boyd, Michelle Bridge, Gary 2005.
Page 153 and 154: Ertll, J. Randy 2008. “Celebratin
Page 155 and 156: Gupta, Akhil and Ferguson, James 19
Page 157 and 158: Jenkins, Timothy 1994. “Fieldwork
Page 159 and 160: Lee, A. Barrett, Spain, Daphne, and
Page 161 and 162: Marwell, P. Nicole 2004. “Privati
Page 163 and 164: Nylund, Katarina Oropesa, S. R 2001
Page 165 and 166: Rosenhall, Laurel 2005. “Charter
Page 167 and 168: Simpson, M.A. Lee 2004. Images of A
Page 169 and 170: Thacher, David 2001. “Conflicting
Page 171:
Wolch, R. Jennifer 1980. “Residen
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