Virginia Commonwealth University VCU Scholars Compass Theses and Dissertations Graduate School 2018 Learning Together in Highland Park to Build Civic Capacity Grace Leonard Virginia Commonwealth University Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarscompass.edu/etd Part of the Urban Studies and Planning Commons © The Author Downloaded from https://scholarscompass.edu/etd/5371 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at VCU Scholars Compass. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of VCU Scholars Compass. For more information, please contact libcompass@vcu. Learning Together in Highland Park to Build Civic Capacity A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Urban and Regional Planning at Virginia Commonwealth University by Grace Leonard, Master of Urban and Regional Planning Director: Dr.
Meghan Gough, Associate Professor & Program Chair L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs Virginia Commonwealth University Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia May 2018 Acknowledgements As I finish this paper I am months away from the ten-year anniversary of my move to Richmond, and this work builds on a decade of learning in, and engaging with, a place. Richmond is the city that I will forever see as the community where I found my own footing. As I learned to find language for the city’s assets, and needs, I began to find language for my assets and needs.
Thanks to the VCU Master of Urban and Regional Planning program for providing a curriculum that gives attention to both the processes and outcomes my project describes. My advisor Dr. Meghan Gough has been a wonderful teacher and mentor. It is amazing this semester has especially revealed kind of clarity and complexity of my work.
This new landscape is demonstrative of what I have learned that I did not previously understand, and I’m thankful for an advisor who guided me through the things I could not have seen myself. Thanks to Dr. Ben Teresa for providing insights and guidance in research methods, through a research project last summer, and on this project. Thanks to Dr.
Sarah Raskin for her feedback and committee participation throughout the year. Thanks to Ryan Rinn and Ebony Walden for welcoming research of the 6 PIC initiative and its history. Storefront’s work has been insightful for me throughout my time in Richmond and have helped me to ask better questions about how community engagement work happens and what my role in it is. The Bonner Center for Civic Engagement helped me answer the question “why?” as a student and as a professional during my first seven years here.
I would not be nearly as focused on community context and collaborative learning without the bold and imaginative work I was a part of at the CCE. I have so much admiration and respect for my first supervisor, Cassie Price. Her joy, tenacity and standard of excellence in maintaining nonprofit partnerships in Highland Park taught me much about relational community work. The CCE’s “data labs” have been on my mind throughout the writing process and continue to influence my thinking around evaluation, inclusion, and collaborative learning.
Thanks to my family for embracing my curiosity, demonstrating love, and entertaining the question, “why?” Thanks to Scott for being a supportive and enthusiastic partner throughout the process, I am grateful to be journeying with you. Boulevard United Methodist Church and the PACE Center have provided spaces for my own reflection and community throughout this research, and I am thankful for these communities and the way they embrace the work of being with one another in the world. Thank you for working to provide spaces that are reflective of the kind of world you hope for. I have been so lucky to be on this journey with an amazing cohort of fellow MURPS.
They are wise, fun, and thoughtful, and they’ve both challenged me to do my best and embraced me as I am. There are other friends and mentors who have played a role in supporting this work, and I’m so glad to have written this research in Richmond, which has become home. ii Table of Contents Chapter I: Introduction & Problem Statement. 2 The Role of Civic Capacity in Revitalization.
2 Civic Capacity in Highland Park. 7 Recent Nonprofit Work in Highland Park. 11 Key Revitalization Efforts in Highland Park, 2011-2017. 13 Chapter II: Literature Review.
18 Outcomes in Community Work. 20 Processes in Community Work. 34 Chapter III: Methodology. 39 Reflective Practice & Reflexivity.
40 Identifying Data for the Case. 41 Semi-Structured Interviews & Site Analysis Meetings. 42 Content Analysis & Observation. 44 Data Analysis & Precedents.
45 Chapter IV: Data Analysis. 47 Relating data to the literature model. 47 Strategies for Building Civic Capacity in Highland Park. 63 Developing Civic Capacity in Highland Park.
71 Chapter V: Discussion & Conclusion. 80 Limitations & Future Research. 86 iii ABSTRACT LEARNING TOGETHER IN HIGHLAND PARK TO BUILD CIVIC CAPACITY By: Grace Leonard, Master of Urban and Regional Planning A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Urban and Regional Planning at Virginia Commonwealth University Virginia Commonwealth University, 2018 Director: Dr. Meghan Gough, Associate Professor & Program Chair, Urban and Regional Planning This thesis examines the work of nonprofit organizations collaborating with communities to build civic capacity in North Highland Park, a neighborhood in Richmond, Virginia.
Place-focused planning strategies during the twentieth century led to disinvestment and racial discrimination which diminished civic capacity in the community and fostered isolation. Today, collaborative community work in Highland Park is incorporating the assets, resources and knowledge held in the community into strategies to improve quality of life using collaborative learning. A case study approach closely analyzes community engagement and revitalization processes in North Highland Park between 2011 and 2017. Nonprofit organizations mobilized and led a group of community-based collaborators, including nonprofit staff members, government officials, nonprofit funders, and residents.
In Highland Park, nonprofit organizations collaborate with communities, emphasizing shared ownership and collaborative learning, to build civic capacity in the community. Keywords: Civic capital, collaborative learning, revitalization, empowerment, nonprofit 1 Chapter I: Introduction & Problem Statement The Role of Civic Capacity in Revitalization Civic participation in the United States is a way for residents of a community to vote for elected leadership, advocate for particular kinds of governance, and gain trust and support from fellow community members. When a community does not have the civic capacity to provide leadership, ownership, or participation in community planning processes, external stakeholders make decisions for residents about the kind of change that is needed in the built environment and in related local policies (Stoeker 1997). Planning processes have often neglected the experiences and perspectives of residents in communities that do not have the capacity to participate in traditional engagement meetings, resulting in projects focused on physical interventions and not empowering people (Sandercock 2003, Innes & Booher 2004).
Nonprofit organizations are situated to collaborate with the community as they build civic capacity to own and lead aspects of community change work that will improve quality of life. Nonprofit associations have long been seen as democratic groups where people can address identified needs, congregate, build trust, and contribute to the improvement of the broader community (Anheier 2002, de Tocqueville 2003, Berry 2005). Nonprofits have the capabilities to mobilize residents around collective issues to improve conditions (Hawkins & Wang 2012, Kim 2015). These organizations, which are often founded with the intention to meet a particular social need, are inherently relational, flexible, and contextual in the ways they apply programs and strategies to the community environment (Kim 2015, Sites et al.
Nonprofit organizations provide pathways for residents to collaborate with residents and other community stakeholders. Revitalization initiatives in communities lacking civic capacity requires a people-centered approach. In particular, there has been debate about two different frameworks for building civic 2 capacity in under-resourced urban communities. Community building leverages community assets and resources to address community needs, while community organizing focuses on conflict between residents and institutions to develop community power (Chaskin 1990, Stoeker 1997, Saegert 2006).
Saegert has argued that both community organizing and community building strategies are needed: “the attainment of civic capacity requires the ability to form distinct interests and goals, to develop shared agendas, and to act collectively. It requires cultivating strong and weak ties, recognizing allies and enemies, and the changing cast of characters as contingencies shift” (Saegert 2006). When historically underrepresented populations are equipped with civic capital, their assets and resources are more readily be applied to community planning work (Howell 2016). Nonprofit organizations are situated to build networks through relational work that brings a variety of community stakeholders together.
Unlike the nonprofit sector, the public and private sectors often do not have adequate time or resources dedicated to civic capacity in communities where it is lacking. The public sector been critiqued for relying on ineffective community meetings to engage residents in urban planning revitalization processes that meet legal requirements but do little to reach a representative set of stakeholders (Sandercock 2003, Innes & Booher 2004). Likewise, the private sector has been critiqued for revitalization work favoring amenities, housing, and jobs that cater to middle and upper income people, which only perpetuates the lack of voice, representation, and opportunity of existing residents in a community lacking civic capacity (Zukin 2009). Strategies that are not responsive to community context cannot apply community assets to community needs in a way that leads to empowering and sustainable community solutions (Kruzman 1996, Saegert 2006, Dale & Newman 2008).
3 The need for revitalization anchored in engagement and capacity building is compounded in black communities. Black communities in American cities were disenfranchised and discriminated against by planning processes during the urban renewal era (Silver 1984, Lake 2006). A focus on improvement of the built environment by erasing blight and slum clearance was experienced by black residents as forced migration that erased neighborhoods and isolated communities from access to social and economic capital (Sutton 2010, Ashley 2015). An overt focus on improving the place neglected to examine how the strategy impacted people.
This neglect of knowledge, perspectives, and culture of black communities by the public and private sector calls for particular engagement strategies today (Sandercock 2003). Revitalization work requires a unique strategy in communities where there is not adequate civic capacity within the community to participate in planning and development work. When residents have learned not to trust those involved in planning efforts based on the negative experience of urban renewal, engagement efforts must be specifically interested in moving beyond a traditional community meeting to spend time with residents in the community on their own terms (Sandercock 2003, Walker 2014). In order to involve those who will benefit from revitalization, time-intensive and relational engagement processes must build trust and develop leadership within the community (Goodman, et al.
Historic lack of engagement of black communities in developing planning processes and outcomes calls for attention to people-focused revitalization strategies that leverage community assets and resources. Without people-focused collaborations, revitalization projects in communities lacking civic capacity can define quality of life for the community without input from the community and can design interventions that negatively impact opportunities for current residents through gentrification, economic development that aims to import cultural values and a new workforce into 4 the community and limiting attention to public transportation (Zukin 2009, Carr & Servon 2009). Place-focused revitalization has been criticized as a new kind of renewal that recreates the same kind of discrimination and displacement of black communities involved in urban renewal. This study proposes that in the twenty-first century, revitalization work requires a different approach than traditional community development.
Community-focused nonprofit organizations are collaboratively learning with a variety of community stakeholders across sectors to synchronize the development of civic capacity and the development of places for the community in adaptive and creative ways. These collaborations often involve community building and community organizing strategies.