Building an active citizenry: the role of neighborhood problems, readiness, and capacity for change

Abstract

Community-building initiatives strive to involve residents as the drivers of the change process, involving them in an array of activities including collective action efforts. Recent evaluations of many of these initiatives, however, suggest that developing the levels of resident involvement needed in such efforts is challenging. This study examines the neighborhood conditions that are related to whether and how much residents become involved in individual activism and collective action efforts. A random-digit-dial phone survey of 460 residents in 7 distressed neighborhoods suggested that while demographic variables were relatively unimportant, resident perceptions of neighborhood readiness (i.e., hope for the future and collective efficacy) and capacity for change (i.e., social ties and neighborhood leadership), and the level of neighborhood problems were strongly related to whether and how much residents were involved in individual and collective action efforts. Moreover, different elements of these neighborhood conditions were more or less important depending on the type and level of resident involvement. For example, while perceptions of neighborhood problems was the strongest predictor of whether an individual became involved at all, perceived strength of neighborhood leadership was the strongest predictor of an individual's level of activity. The implications of these findings for practitioners and scientists are discussed.

Neighborhood Social Ties and Shared Expectations for Informal Social Control: Do They Influence Informal Social Control Actions?

“…Our dependent variable was constructed as a measure of the concrete actions taken by people when a given problem is perceived as a big problem. While evidence suggests that viewing a problem as a 'big' problem is more likely to evoke action (see Foster-Fishman et al 2007;Marschall 2004;Perkins et al 1990;Swaroop and Morenoff 2006), if the problem is seen as too big, residents may feel too overwhelmed to respond or feel there is little they can do to resolve the issue. Therefore, it is possible that shared expectations for informal social control may have a threshold effect on resident action.…”

“…Problems included (1) drugs; (2) public drinking; (3) people loitering or hanging out; (4) people being attacked or harassed because of their skin color, ethnic origin, or religion; (5) vandalism and/or graffiti; (6) traffic problems like speeding or street racing; and (7) young people getting into trouble. As awareness of community problems is shown to influence residents' actions (see Foster-Fishman et al 2007), respondents acknowledging a particular 2 The total number of suburbs in the BSD as of the 2006 census was 429 with a residential population ranging from 15 to 21,001 per suburb. In the U.S., the average size of the census tract is approximately 4000 inhabitants with a minimum of around 1200 residents and a maximum of 8000 residents.…”

Social contextual factors contributing to child and adolescent labor: an ecological analysis

“…Nevertheless, individual-based social support could indicate the availability of community resources or vice-versa. 7 Community ties are recognized valuable resources to reduce social exclusion and improve access and provision of public services such as schools, childcare and health care. 17 Our results point out the relevance of further exploring these aspects of CAL.…”

How Do Community Planning Features Affect the Place Relationship of Residents? An Investigation of Place Attachment, Social Interaction, and Community Participation

“…In addition, high quality outdoor spaces and good community administration restraint residents toward community participation. In other words, perceived neighborhood problems that included planning factors of the physical environment have been shown to motivate residents into collective action [10,62,63]. In sum, the first canonical function suggests that outdoor space quality and community layout promote place relationships of the residents.…”