James DeFilippis starts the first chapter off by explaining that communities shouldn’t exist today. This is because according to social theorists, capital urbanization disrupts smaller-scaled, interdependent relations that communities are made of. Over time, cities would become so complex that there would be no need for these smaller-scale units, or communities. However, communities undeniably exist and do matter because even in big cities, people act collectively – as a community – to battle things that threaten them. He explains that communities are important because they produce the labor power that capitalism needs to survive. Community is the realms for which workers take care of the health needs and childrearing that are necessary to keep the workforce alive. At a more basic level, communities are the places we live in. Even if there are billions of possibilities that are accessible via the Internet or social networks, communities are were people eat and go to school.
In the next chapter, Alice O’Connor points out that there is no concrete definition of community development. It seems that it is made of programs that keep failing and reappearing without learning from past mistakes. There is little that community development can do to tackle problems because they keeps repeating itself. She introduces the idea of policy contradictions between small-scale interventions and large-scale public policies. Today, this is seen in the way community-based interventions have been undermined by neoliberal policies. She criticizes the government for their policies that encourage the decline of poor communities, their inadequate efforts to save them and their cluelessness as to way they fail so often. Despite numerous place-based strategies, there is little effect because our nation generally looks at economic norms, not particular communities. It takes too much time and money to try to improve these communities that won’t provide them any profit.
Since the ghetto uprisings 1960’s the government has provided aid for poor neighborhoods as an easy way to mitigate any tensions. However, this is just a quick fix that doesn’t solve anything. This tendency to look at norms and take issues on at a surface level relates to last week’s Samuel Stein article about inclusionary zoning. The government thinks that because housing is priced below or around an Area Median Income (that does not actually target the area they are trying to redevelop), communities will somehow be better off.
The last trend that she tackles is that of race. Race is an issue in community development policy. Although these policies do not explicitly target certain races, it is obvious that they will harm poorer communities, thus harming minorities. Yet the government is blind to such problems and in the ever-progressive America. Today, we can clearly see this through the neighborhoods of Harlem that are being targeted for redevelopment.
Discussion Question: If there are trends throughout history that stunt community development, why do we keep following them? Is there a clear way to define community development so that instead of conflicting interests, there will be progress?
