COMMUNITY ACTIVISM IN OAK PARK: COMPETING AGENDAS ...

different from themselves, they distance themselves from others. Thus, “social
polarization increases fear of violence, requiring ‘pacification’” (Smart and Smart
2003:273). And although many neighborhood residents have become proactive and are
attempting to control and shape their own destinies through collective organization and
social action when they are faced with neighborhood change (Login and Rabrenovich
1990), the fact that neighborhood organizations engage in change-driven social action
does not always mean they will have the ability to solve local problems” (Mesch and
Schwirian 1996:467).
As poverty increases worldwide and the gap between rich and poor becomes more
evident, the poor have become invisible, marginalized, or excluded from public view
(Susser 1996:411). Poor residents are, in hindsight, often left underrepresented and
unheard in neighborhood politics. A decline in basic urban services has occurred from
fiscal crises experienced by city and federal governments facilitated by changes in the
economy. The decline in related social services is threatening the ability of poor and
working-class populations to sustain themselves (Jones et al.1992:99).
In the late 1980s, after years of neglect of the central cities, poverty and
unemployment became too widespread to ignore, and neighborhood participation
programs and revitalization projects began to emerge. In recent decades, numerous urban
development and anti-poverty initiatives have attempted to address the problems of
residents living in disadvantaged neighborhoods. Residents of these neighborhoods
exhibit a diversity of interests in the neighborhood based on varying meanings of
gentrification, which are in turn informed by those very interests. The diversity of
3