COMMUNITY ACTIVISM IN OAK PARK: COMPETING AGENDAS ...

door, so I figured I must be observing a private party event. While walking away
from the gallery I heard a pianist outside in the courtyard playing John Lennon’s
“Imagine.” I stepped into my car and headed back to my apartment.
“The neighborhood is a type of social space” (Sills 2003:73) and the everyday
lives of people in a neighborhood are shaped, in part, by its distinct social context.
Neighborhoods are sites that give individuals a sense of membership and community;
they are places where acts of reciprocity are important to building relationships (Boyd
2005:277-278). “It is reasonable to assume that a ‘neighborhood’ is an important unit of
conceptual cognitive space; what is less clear is how person/neighborhood relations are
formed and maintained” (Aitken 1990:249). Aitken further explains:
“The social and physical environment is not an unchanging backdrop to which
urban residents simply learn to adapt. People are active participants, seeking out
and processing information on an environment that surrounds and envelops. In
addition, urban environments comprise constant disturbances, and people have
varying degrees of success coping with its variability.”
Studies have shown that people are committed and attached to their
neighborhoods for a variety of reasons but those residents also maintain linkages outside
of their community. “Within the neighborhood, people socialize with neighbors; use
neighborhood based institutions for a variety of purposes, including shopping, recreation,
socializing, and worship; and participate to some degree in neighborhood-based
organizations” (Ahlbrandt 1986:122). Some very poor residents in neighborhoods are not
regularly exposed to cultural and social space outside of their neighborhood. Ahlbrandt
(1986:122) further explains, “except for those individuals who are the most place-
bound—the oldest and the poorest—people maintain active social relationships with
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