Blog Archives

The role of citizen participation and action research principles in Main Street revitalization: An analysis of a local planning project

This article examines the use of citizen participation techniques during the planning process for neighborhood revitalization in the Village of Depew which is an industrial suburb of Buffalo, New York. The article focuses on how action research principles can inform and enhance traditional approaches to citizen participation. In particular, we discuss our role as university-based consultants in the local planning process and how drawing from action research principles helped us remain focused on advocating for broad-based citizen participation. Our analysis was based on the application of action research principles and participant observation techniques. During the time that each of us was involved in the planning process for Depew’s neighborhood revitalization, reflexive field notes and other data were collected. The article critiques how citizen participation was used to plan for neighborhood revitalization in Depew, and discusses the degree to which action research principles can be applied to future citizen participation efforts.

Using Capitalism to Save Socialism: International Tourism in Havana, Cuba

Following the fall of the Soviet Bloc in 1989, a somber Fidel Castro informed the Cuban
people that their Revolution hovered on the brink of disaster. Faced with an
unprecedented economic crisis and few options, the Cuban government, reluctantly
returned to international tourism as the foundation for economic salvation. Since then
international tourism has multiplied fifteen-fold. While reintroducing tourism may have
saved Cuba from a political and economic catastrophe – foreign tourists, mostly from
capitalist countries, have enabled Cuba and the Revolution to survive – this use of
capitalism to save socialism has also produced formidable challenges. In particular, the
emergence of a consumer culture and the subsequent ‘‘dollarization’’ of the economy, pose
a grave threat to Cuban society as products are increasingly evaluated, purchased, and
consumed on the basis of their symbolic content and meaning for social status.
Nonetheless, it will be argued in this paper that since Cuban society remains anchored by
highly functional, stable, well-organized neighborhoods and a flourishing, innovative
informal economy, embedded values of cooperation may serve as a counteractive force to
the rise of a culture of consumerism and materialism. Based on this premise, the paper
concludes with an examination of three possible scenarios for the future of tourism in
Cuba.

The connection: schooling, youth development, and community building-The Futures Academy case.

Universities, because of their vast human and fiscal resources, can play the central role in assisting in the development of school-centered community development programs that make youth development their top priority. The Futures Academy, a K-8 public school in the Fruit Belt, an inner-city neighborhood in Buffalo, New York, offers a useful model of community development in partnership with the Center for Urban Studies at the State University of New York at Buffalo. The goal of the project is to create opportunities for students to apply the knowledge and skills they learn in the classroom to the goal of working with others to make the neighborhood a better place to live. The efforts seek to realize in practice the Dewey dictum that individuals learn best when they have “a real motive behind and a real outcome ahead.”

Reflections of an Activist Scholar

Reflections of an Activist Scholar: Henry Louis Taylor Jr. on The Planners Network‘s online page. The Planners Network is an association of professionals, activists, academics, and students involved in physical, social, economic, and environmental planning in urban and rural areas, who promote fundamental change in our political and economic systems.

The University, Neighborhood Revitalization, and Civic Engagement: Toward Civic Engagement

This essay analyzes and syntheses key theories and concepts on neighborhood change from the literature on anchor institutions, university engagement, gentrification, neighborhood effects, Cold War, Black liberation studies, urban political economy, and city building. To deepen understanding of the Columbia University experience, we complemented the literature analysis with an examination of the New York Times and Amsterdam newspapers from 1950 to 1970. The study argues that higher education’s approach to neighborhood revitalization during the urban renewal age, as well as in the post-1990 period, produced undesirable results and failed to spawn either social transformation or build the neighborly community espoused by Lee Benson and Ira Harkavy. The essay explains the reasons why and concludes with a section on a more robust strategy higher education can pursue in the quest to bring about desirable change in the university neighborhood.

Including Voices of the Excluded: Lessons from Buffalo, NY

This chapter examines two community development case studies related to social inclusion and exclusion in the public participation process. Each focuses on dimensions of public participation in community development organizations and processes. The first case study examines the role of public participation in the governance of community-based housing organizations in Buffalo, NY. Here, public participation is examined in relation to organizational autonomy, patronage politics and bureaucratic structures. This case study illustrates how grassroots control of community-based housing organizations is reduced by institutional constraints placed on community development activities. The second case study examines a neighborhood planning project in Depew, NY (an industrial suburb of Buffalo). The scope and impact of public participation is explored in the context of planning techniques applied to neighborhood revitalization efforts in Depew. Competing interests among residents, business and local government are explored. This case study focuses on the manner in which university-based consultants working on community development projects approach resident empowerment. Constraints on achieving full participation due to limited capacity in the public sector are discussed. Combined, the two case studies highlight the barriers to expanding the voice of disenfranchised groups in the governance of grassroots organizations and the planning of neighborhood development projects. Lessons are drawn from these case studies to outline strategies for expanding the scope of public participation in community development activities, particularly in relation to the role of disadvantaged groups in grassroots decision-making.