Economic development and the local community: Neighborhood associations and local development corporations in two African-American neighborhoods.

摘要

This dissertation examines the ways in which differences in neighborhood development needs have affected the ways in which neighborhood economic development organizations provide economic development and the impact that neighborhood economic development activities have had on neighborhood associations in two African-American neighborhoods. Specifically, a neighborhood with significant development needs has produced a set of neighborhood economic development organizations that is owned and controlled by a group of institutions from the larger society, that has an interracial staff consisting of skilled professionals, that pursues a liberal, integrative philosophy of development that calls for mobilizing resources from the larger society to provide development, and that provides high levels of economic development. Conversely, a neighborhood with considerably fewer development needs has produced a set of economic development organizations that is owned and controlled by local African-American businessmen, that has an African-American staff that relies on considerable volunteer labor, that pursues a conservative, nationalistic philosophy of development that calls for using resources from within the racial group, and that provides limited levels of economic development activity. In terms of the impact of economic development on the neighborhood associations, in the neighborhood with significant development needs, economic development from outside the racial community is relatively attractive. The support for development this engenders, in combination the neighborhood economic development organization's greater reliance on resources from the larger society, its greater level of resources, its greater level of activity, and its greater autonomy, produces conflict between more and less nationalistic persons that undermines the neighborhood association's productivity and hegemony. Conversely, in the neighborhood with fewer development needs, economic development from outside the racial community is relatively unattractive. This low support for development, combined with the low level of activity and development philosophy of the neighborhood economic development organization, results in consensus among more and less nationalistic persons around issues of economic development that enables the association to remain productive and hegemonic in the neighborhood.