Ways of contending : community organizing and development in neighborhood context

This thesis explores community organizing by Community Development Corporations (CDCs), the different outcomes achieved by organizing campaigns, and the factors that contribute to their successes and failures. Among organizing outcomes, I focus not only on policy victories and physical or economic improvements to communities, but also on the ways that collective action produces changes in local political institutions. Using rich qualitative and extensive quantitative data from organizing campaigns by ten CDCs, I show how claims about the role of racial and ethnic difference in community, and about the need for conflict in creating community change, find acceptance or resistance from political institutions. While institutional resistance to a campaign's claims about community makes it more difficult for campaigns to succeed, this resistance also indicates the possibility that successful organizing will enact changes to local institutions. I find that CDCs won campaigns (and with success, enacted some type of impact on political institutions) by coordinating mobilization throughout their activities and departments, and by including activists in governance and decision-making.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2004

Author dc:creator

• Greenberg, David Micah, 1972-

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Langley C. Keyes.

• Urban Studies and Planning.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

en_US

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/28787

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/28787