Week 8 Readings

  • greater resident voice in community development programs stimulated by the negative effects of many urban renewal programs + the launch of war on poverty in the early 1960s

  • Arnstein defines citizen participation as a categorical term for citizen power

  • A good planning

    project should leave a community not just with more immediate

    “products”—for example, more housing—but also with an increased

    capacity to meet future needs. (Kennedy 2007: 25)

  • resident participation cant be without community development

  • maximize the influence poor and working-class ind. exerted within the planning process → arnstein used the ascending rungs of a ladder to show how formal resident participation processes result in real power


Arnstein highlights the centrality of resident involvement and underscores the importance of their voices not only being heard, but resulting in greater power sharing and improved policy outcomes.

  • ladder emphasizes the possibility to increased resident involvement

direct bottom up

  • Negotiation and mediation - resident group may negotiate with key power-holding stakeholders as a prelude to forming a mutually beneficial partnership

  • Participatory community planning - residents can collaborate with a university or with advocacy organization to develop a plan, independent of city hall that meets their needs

  • organizing - residents can also work through citizen organizations and public interest coalitions to create more nurturing environments in which local economic and community development can be pursued

  • activism and protest - oppositional campaigns that cause disruption of “business/politics as usual” have helped many communities influence local development policies


indirect bottom up

  • volunteering with a non-profit

  • writing/engagement in public interest campaign

  • voting/working on electoral campaign

  • running for/serving in public office


We end with two questions.


  • Can this new conceptualization of resident

participation provide us with insights and tools for tapping the extraordi-

nary grassroots organization so critical to the successful election of President

Obama, to undertake the often daunting task of community revitalization?


  • And, can this framework help educate policy-makers, government officials, and private stakeholders concerning the ways residents can play productive roles in community efforts?


Social movements


3 critical factors to social movements:

  • political opportunity

  • organizational capacity

  • framing ability

A popular theory was that activism came from sensing a gap between what a person felt he or she was entitled to and what he or she, in fact received.

The absence of cross-cutting solidarities

It is easier for a movement to grow in a population that is isolated or has weak ties to other groups in society. The feminist movement encountered a good deal of resistance from married women in the US, women who had a wide variety of social, and economic ties to men.