Participatory Governance and the Spatial Representation of Neighborhood Issues

Abstract

In democratic theory, community-representing organizations play a critical role in mediating between citizens and elites. While proponents argue that neighborhood governance can improve efficacy and responsiveness of urban governance, critics warn that socioeconomic bias privileges the parochial interests of higher-income residents. There is limited knowledge, however, concerning the specific types of activities community-representing organizations undertake. This study illuminates the community mediation process through an analysis of the agenda orientation of community-representing organizations. An analysis of actual meeting agendas from Los Angeles neighborhood councils demonstrates that these community-representing organizations engage with varied issues including community improvement and other types of service needs or preferences in addition to land use. The findings suggest a more complex relationship between income and agenda orientation than is generally acknowledged. In particular, lower-income communities focus heavily on internal maintenance and capacity development activities that may displace engagement with more substantive issues. In contrast to the conventional wisdom that these organizations are likely to channel middle-class NIMBYism, the analysis reveals a U-shaped relationship between income and land-use emphasis, evidence that engagement in land use is also emphasized in lower-income communities that historically have been the target of locally undesirable land uses.

Reassessing “City Limits” in Urban Public Policy

“…In particular, work at the neighborhood level examining the multilevel effects of economic and demographic conditions hold some potential for more precisely depicting the mechanisms contributing to stratification. Jun (), for instance, finds municipal‐level factors such as racial/ethnic homogeneity in mid‐sized cities are positively associated with better neighborhood economic conditions, although the causal implications of the findings are just as disturbing as they are unclear.…”

Grassroots Expertise at a New York City Community Board

“…During subsequent decades, city governments continued to create neighborhood council schemes in an effort to connect citizens with government and improve declining public trust (Cooper, Bryer, and Meek 2006;Jun and Musso 2013). Similar elite-facilitated deliberation projects have also proliferated far beyond the urban neighborhood context, and they are often deployed in efforts to construct a consensus for British examples see Jones 2003 andTaylor 2007).…”

The Views of Neighbourhood Associations on Collaborative Urban Governance in Tallinn, Estonia

“…For example, inner-city neighbourhoods undergoing gentrification attract younger, more active, and often economically better established social groups like young entrepreneurs. These citizens have obtained certain socio-economic status and may be more willing to invest their time in neighbourhood development as well (Jun and Musso, 2013). However, if the neighbourhoods are socially diverse, because the 'old' not-so-active residents still live here as well, but the NAs rather deal with topics important for newcomers, the question whether these NAs are able to represent the whole neighbourhood should be addressed.…”

“…NAs as mediators for citizens' voices (Weare et al, 2009;Jun and Musso, 2013) aim to reveal public interests and communicate them efficiently to an administrative authority (Ansell and Gash, 2008). Such grassroots initiatives, valuable partners for public bodies, have sometimes been nurtured by specific support mechanisms (Jun and Musso, 2013).…”