Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / The Butler-Tarkington Neighborhood Association (BTNA) is a community group organized in 1956 by a few concerned couples living in the Butler-Tarkington neighborhood on the north side of Indianapolis. These couples, both Black and white, witnessed a demographic change in their community as their white neighbors fled for the suburbs as the black population expanded. The BTNA, inspired to create an organization that would promote residential integration rather than continued segregation, worked to educate neighbors on the realities of integration, promote neighborhood conversation and comradery, and worked to influence the local and state governments on the impact of segregation that harmed their community. One of the first neighborhood organizations of its kind in the country, the BTNA still exists today, but little is known about their early history. This paper looks at the BTNA’s efforts to promote residential segregation in their community through activism, conversation, and legislative change. Additionally, this paper analyzes the BTNA success in its efforts to integrate the community during their first decade of existence.

For nearly 200 years, there has been a neighborhood in New Orleans, Louisiana named Milneburg, which has been constantly reimagined by its inhabitants and others. From its inception as a port of entry in 1832 until the 2011, it has been called a world-class resort, the poor-man's Riviera, a seedy red-light district, a cradle of jazz, a village, a swath of suburbia and a neighborhood. It has been destroyed eight times due to storms, fires, and civic or governmental neglect. Each time its residents have rebuilt it. In its last iteration as a post-Katrina neighborhood, the residents reestablished the Milneburg Neighborhood Association in order to define its boundaries, gain control of its redevelopment and restrict who lived there as well as what activities were permitted. This is a case study of the trajectory of Milneburg and the cultural adaptations of its residents to keep it distinct, vital and respectable.

Port-au-Prince, la ville la plus peuplée des Caraïbes est ceinturée de quartiers précaires connus sous l’appellation de bidonvilles. Ces quartiers construits généralement sur des terrains dangereux, envahis par une population en quête de logement, abritent la plus forte proportion des habitants de la ville. Ils constituent en même temps des lieux d’observation de l’inimaginable capacité des populations locales à garantir l’accès à certains services. À travers l’action d’une association locale évoluant à Village solidarité dans la zone métropolitaine de Port-au-Prince, nous avons étudié les apports et les limites des stratégies utilisées dans l’organisation de services publics d’électricité. L’analyse repose fondamentalement sur une approche de développement local reposant sur cinq notions complémentaires et interreliées qui sont les suivantes : le projet commun, l’appartenance et l’identité collective, les ressources, le leadership, l’opportunité politique. Les résultats de la recherche font état d’un projet commun aux contours assez flous qui reflète des insuffisances au niveau des modes de pensée, et au niveau des ressources matérielles et financières mises en jeu. Le style de leadership en place au sein de l’association est teinté de déterminisme religieux, pris au piège des manœuvres clientélistes des politiciens locaux et infantilisé par l’action des agences gouvernementales. A la fin de l’étude nous dégageons des pistes pour dynamiser les forces du milieu et réorienter l’action associative afin d’aller vers un projet collectif. Ces pistes reposent fondamentalement sur la transformation des modes de pensée influençant l’action et la transformation des pratiques organisationnelles. / Port-au-Prince, the biggest city of the Caribbean considering the size of its population, is mostly constituted in precarious neighborhoods generally named “bidonvilles”. Those neighborhoods generally built over dangerous fields, by a population that is looking for affordable housing are the place of living of the majority of the inhabitants of the city. At the same time, they represent the true places to observe the unthinkable imagination of the local populations to organize access to some basic services. Through the action of a local association in Village Solidarité in the metropolitan area of Port-au-Prince, we studied the contributions and the limits of the used strategies to organize public services of electricity. The overall analysis is conducted under a local development approach that is constructed around the concepts of common goal, belonging and collective identity, leadership, resource and political opportunity. A sample of association members and residents has participated in group focus and individual interviews during the field study. The results of the research are expressing an imprecise common goal and an insufficiency of the ideological instruments, and the material and financial resources. The leadership is prisoned by religious frame of thinking, local political tricks, and infantilized by the action of governmental actions. At the end, we propose paths to strengthen the power of the neighborhood toward a collective project. Those paths are constructed fundamentally over the transformation of the sets of thinking and organizational practices.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-29T13:30:45Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Moses Song.pdf: 519542 bytes, checksum: 6be0bc999673962e0dab639417f757cc (MD5) Previous issue date: 2010-10-18 / This work examines three community leaders who exercise the office of president of neighborhood association in three districts of the region of Ipiranga (SP, Brazil). Through the analysis of the speeches in individual interviews, this study aims to understand whether the type of work they perform favors strengthening and development of the local community. The goal is to bring an historic review of the popular movement of neighborhood, in the classic paradigm of social movement. From this, we will discuss the emergence and development of the theoretical framework of Community Social Psychology and their concepts of power and community empowerment, proposing a democratic leadership that promotes the participation of community members. We conclude that these leaders do not encourage community participation, because of internal contradictions in the dynamics of the associations which they manage and because they perform an intermediary role between the State interests and the community. Thus, this movement is characterized as non-politicized, clientelistic and paternalistic / Esta dissertação analisa três líderes comunitários que exercem o cargo de presidente de associação de bairros, de três bairros da região de Ipiranga, São Paulo, SP, que através das análises dos discursos das entrevistas individuais objetiva perceber se o tipo de trabalho desenvolvido por eles favorece o fortalecimento e desenvolvimento da comunidade local. Realizaremos uma revisão histórica do movimento popular de bairro, no paradigma clássico de movimento social, e a seguir discorreremos o surgimento e desenvolvimento do referencial teórico da Psicologia Social Comunitária (PSC). Os conceitos de poder e fortalecimento comunitário da PSC que propõe uma liderança democrática que promove a participação dos membros da comunidade. Concluímos que os líderes analisados, pelas contradições internas da dinâmica das associações que presidem, pelo exercício de um papel de intermediário dos interesses do Estado e a população não propiciam a participação da comunidade e se caracteriza como um movimento despolitizado, clientelístico e assistencialista

This creative project outlines the process used in developing an action oriented and citizen based neighborhood plan for the Bloomingdale Neighborhood, located in Fort Wayne, Indiana. As a member of the City of Fort Wayne Planning Department, I was the lead staff person in the development of this plan. The plan was designed to identify and resolve neighborhood issues with manageable goals and specific action steps. Though the planning department initiated the process and took a leadership role in the plan's development, the neighborhood association ultimately determined the plan's focus and direction. This allowed the association to take ownership of the process and ultimately the plan. The techniques and methods used in the process for developing the Bloomingdale Plan will be incorporated in future neighborhood planning efforts in Fort Wayne. / Department of Urban Planning

This dissertation answers three research questions: "What differences and similarities exist among neighborhood associations in the United States, Japan, and Seoul, South Korea?," "What are the civic roles of neighborhood associations in apartment complexes in Seoul, South Korea?," and "What factors promote neighborhood associations to play civic roles in urban governance?" To answer the first question, this research analyzes the purposes, governance structures, roles, and legal substance of neighborhood associations by reviewing previous studies, public and legal documents, court cases in the U.S., and by conducting interviews. To answer the second and the third questions, a 2016 survey, "Understanding the Roles of Neighborhood Associations in Urban Governance" was conducted with 154 representatives of neighborhood associations in Seoul. Social capital theory, government failure theory, and third party government theory were used to create hypotheses that test proposed relationships about neighborhood interactions, community characteristics, and the civic roles played by neighborhood associations. The findings show that neighborhood associations have adopted several roles including service provider, partner in public service delivery for local government, and advocate for residents in urban governance. The findings also show that social capital created by neighborhood interactions and community characteristics facilitates neighborhood associations to play civic roles in urban governance.