Community - Understanding Community, Policy and Power.
This was written as part of my Master's Thesis in Community Development in 2015.
Community
“A Community involves a limited number of people in a somewhat restricted social space or network held together by shared understandings and sense of obligation.” Bender, 1978 p7. In as much, it is interesting to look at the structure and composition of communities to see how they react to different external conditions due to the makeup of the inhabitants. It is my contention that because of shared understanding, many of our communities help to perpetrate the inequality of the larger macro-economy. Rarely do you find people of different socio-economic position in our smaller rural and suburban towns and boroughs. Neighborhoods are inhabited by those who have similar religions,
ages, wealth, occupation, and cultural tastes. Industries agglomerate in areas where economically beneficial. Those who are wealthy and can afford and qualify for mortgages tend to be upper middle and middle class wage earners and professional, while those relegated to the inner cities tend to be seniors on fixed incomes, single parent households, and low wage earners. Educational attainment and profession often define the structure of what the American community looks like. Although it is not impossible to find wealthy residents living in the same communities as those less wealthy, the degree that neighbor’s incomes vary is less a factor than why some community resources are more beneficial to its inhabitants than in others. For this reason as Coleman points out, “Many communities have been split down the middle by economic issues.” P7. In less affluent towns issues of resource allocation often focuses on the basic needs of the residents such as employment, housing and possibly recreation where as in wealthier communities, economic development revolves around improvements to infrastructure that is not as dependent on the basic needs of its residents. Adaptability to conditions of unemployment and tax increases is easier and economically viable for communities where residents can transfer skills and experience to areas where they are able to attain other employment or relocate to areas where taxes are not a factor. Shuman makes point of this analogy when he writes, “Without redistribution, the best that free trade offers is the destruction of some communities for the benefit of others. It means that people thrown out of work, many of them poor single parents must choose between going on unemployment and welfare or packing up their bags and moving to the winning communities.” P42
The city of Chester, once a community of middle income wage earners enjoyed a robust economic, social and cultural climate until its manufacturing base was destroyed by the inability to compete in the global market. The conditions from this manufacturing loss resulted in “white flight”, curtailed public services, a poor educational system, a high crime rate, and an inability to attract new investment. Those residents who were either unable to relocate or who held personal and family bonds to the city and stayed became trapped in a city that became heavily reliant on government for sustenance. Economically and socially the city became a hollow shell, yet those who remained continued to have shared understanding and pushed for revitalization and restoration. Without the wealth of resources it once enjoyed, the population has declined from an all time high of 66,000 resident in 1963 to about 36,00 in 2010. “Civic ties are undoubtedly valuable for economic development. But without a viable economic base, even a strong civil society faces only three options: migrate, rebel, or collapse.” Shuman, P36 Place Matter
Chester’s economic development has centered more on inducing new business, new industry, and new residents while neglecting to provide adequate participation by the local community in the policy, planning, and decision making process.
PolicyMaking
Policy making decisions in Chester and in DelawareCounty is largely a matter of the Political Party that is in power. In most public policy making decisions the conflict that has arisen between experts and ordinary citizens is of note. Policy decisions are handled by experts whose decisions are based on choices that are commonly out of the understanding of local residents. Fisher writes, “Many factors explain the wane of the citizens’ role. Among the most important is the social and technical complexity of modern societies. What are the possibilities, many ask, of the ordinary (that is non-expert) citizen deliberating intelligently on the policy issues confronting the decision makers of such societies”. px. The case for a lack of participation in policy making by ordinary citizens can be made. Most citizens do not possess those advanced skills, however non-participation by groups may also be the result of not even being asked to participate in the decision making process. Keeney points out,”For important public policy decisions, you can never obtain values from all concerned members of the public. The relevant issue is what collection of people can provide values that represent those of the public.” p.3. Much of the economic development projects in Chester; Harrah’s Casino and Racetrack and the PPL Park Professional Soccer Stadium were policy decisions that were planned, designed, and constructed with but little input or concern of the local public. For more than 20 years, the local residents had been trying to bring a supermarket to the city to serve its 37,000 residents, yet their voice; their opinion had been largely ignored. Keeney favors an approach that should be used to further stir future economic development, by carefully planning future projects to include more local participation. A policy decision to widen one of the local roads into a four lane highway was seen as a tool that would link the two newest economic projects in the planned waterfront revitalization project. The displacement of many local residents was not met with much enthusiasm by those being displaced, even though the project promised to bring jobs to the community and also relieve major congestion through local streets. Since they, however had not been a part of the decision making process they had no choice but to accept the minimal buyouts for land that is three times more valuable now that it had been before. Much is written from the readings about the methods of obtaining values to institute the decision making process, but when decisions are being made and projects are being developed without local or citizen participation, the end result do not always provide a sense of well being for the community as a whole. Taylor makes the point in her book, Public Policy in the Community when she writes, “Essentially the problem was defined in two ways: there was something deficient in individuals or groups(social pathology) or in the ways institutions responded to their needs(institutional deficiency).”
Because politics drive all decisions many of the techniques written about in the readings don’t apply in Chester. The local government and the county government, through their network of contractors, real estate developers, bankers and local politicians are firmly in control of what gets developed and who develops it.
Power
The perception of power in the community differs from policy making power in that there are people in the community that represent power, but are not necessarily those responsible for making decisions. Lyon, p 191 describes two types of leaders that are relevant in the community. He says, “Namely, the reputational leaders tend to be more concealed, more economically based, and possibly more important. Conversely, decisional leaders were more visible, more political based and probably more symbolic.”
In “Community Power, Lyon points out that “Democracy was not working well, if at all, on the local level, and political scientists, by studying local politicians were missing the true leaders and focusing, rather, on lower-level henchmen.” P186. In many instances local politicians are making decisions that are really the decisions of powerful businessmen and institutions. The power broker in Chester is not the mayor or the local legislator, but its base is to be found in two institutions; WidenerUniversity and Crozer-Chester MedicalCenter. Most development in the city, with the exception of development on the waterfront and several housing developments has been undertaken specifically to improve the position of these two institutions. Widener University pays the salary of the Executive Director of the city’s Economic Development agency and thereby indirectly has the power to influence the city’s economic development program.
The state senator who represents the city is a generational power broker whose roots in law and real estate have afforded him and friends virtual control of practically all development in the county. These people have the power to make appointments on practically every public board, committee, and focus group. These people are the unseen face of real power in the community. Local power is distributed among ministers, small business owners and grass roots organizations and garners support from local residents, yet hardly is representative of the people who actually control local economic development.
