For over a century, researchers have studied methods for revitalizing urban communities. Many studies show that entrepreneurship plays a vital role in sustaining valuable resources that are necessary for community development. The current study adds to previous research by identifying factors that are related to self-reliance and lower crime. I analyze data from the 1991 National Race and Politics Study, which explored attitudes on various issues related to community development and politics. My findings indicate that jobs, more say in government decisions, and hard work are significantly related to self-reliance, while small business, neighborhood organizations, care for the homeless and job training are significantly related to lower crime. These results support the work of previous researchers by showing that crime and neighborhood organizations play important roles in community development. The study goes a step further to identify additional attitudinal variables that are related to self-reliance and lower crime. These results should assist policy makers in determining what factors may help revitalize urban communities that suffer from high levels of unemployment and crime. / text

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / Communities are currently being shaped and influenced by larger neoliberal social policies, which has resulted in decreased funding from public sources, which therefore creates greater competition among neighborhood organizations for limited resources. In this thesis, I analyze how larger neoliberal currents have created conflict within the local policy subsystem of rezoning in the Crooked Creek neighborhood in Indianapolis. My analysis spotlights the consequences of devolution one of which is the shift from government to neighborhood governance; I examine these issues by mapping out the causes and consequences of three separate rezoning cases. I compare the conflicting perspectives among local influential organizations, including the Community Development Corporation (CDC) and a number of state registered neighborhood groups. I frame this conflict through the Advocacy Coalition Framework (Sabatier 2007) in order to map out the connections between neoliberal social policies and local level conflict.

In order to better understand the effects of condominium conversions, this study explores the nature and extent of the conversion trend, and its social impacts on the Vieux Carré neighborhood. The increasing number of conversions in the Vieux Carré, also known as the French Quarter, has been the focus of recent controversy and has been perceived by many residents as a threat to the viability of the historic district as a neighborhood. Long-term Vieux Carré residents and neighborhood organizations have expressed fears that the converted rental units are being used as short-term rentals to tourists or second homes, which may be contributing to the decline of the neighborhood's residential base. As a framework for understanding the social impacts of condominium conversions in the Vieux Carré neighborhood, this study includes a review of the literature on neighborhood change, neighborhood health, and neighborhood attachment. Since the issue of condominiums is intertwined with the ongoing research on tourism in this historic district, a review of the literature on condominium conversion, tourism impacts and the Vieux Carré also is included. In addition, this study contains the results of a mail survey of occupants of converted condominium units in the Vieux Carré. While survey respondents report formal and informal participation in the neighborhood, only half of the occupants (53%) of the converted units consider the Vieux Carré as their primary residence or are registered to vote in New Orleans. Although many condominium residents do exhibit a sense of neighborhood attachment, half are not present in the neighborhood on a full-time basis; therefore, they have limited opportunities to participate politically on behalf of the neighborhood. The findings of the survey suggest the social impacts of the condominium conversion in the Vieux Carré are likely to contribute to the decline of the neighborhood.

Partnerships between government and community-based actors and organizations are considered the hallmark of contemporary governance arrangements for the revitalization and gentrification of economically distressed, inner city areas. This dissertation uses historical, narrative analysis and ethnographic methods to examine the formation, evolution and operation of community-based governance partnerships in the production of gentrifable urban space in the Wynwood neighborhood of Miami, FL between 1970 and 2010. This research is based on more than four years of participant observation, 60 in-depth interviews with respondents recruited through a purposive snowball sample, review of secondary and archival sources, and descriptive, statistical and GIS analysis. This study examines how different organizations formed in the neighborhood since the 1970s have facilitated the recent gentrification of Wynwood. It reveals specifically how partnerships between neighborhood-based government agencies, nonprofit organizations and real estate developers were constructed to be exclusionary and lead to inequitable economic development outcomes for Wynwood residents. The key factors conditioning these inequalities include both the rationalities of action of the organizations involved and the historical contexts in which their leaders’ thinking and actions were shaped. The historical contexts included the ethnic politics of organizational funding in the 1970s and the “entrepreneurial” turn of community-based economic development and Miami urban politics since the 1980s. Over time neighborhood organizations adopted highly pragmatic rationalities and repertoires of action. By the 2000s when Wynwood experienced unprecedented investment and redevelopment, the pragmatism of community-based organizations led them to become junior partners in governance arrangements and neighborhood activists were unable to directly challenge the inequitable processes and outcomes of gentrification.

The Bonton and Ideal neighborhoods in Dallas Texas, developed in the early 1900s, experienced physical and social decay throughout the 1980s. Neighborhood organizations and resident activism were vital to the rebirth of the community in the 1990s. Current revitalization efforts taking place there have been a source of contention as the neighborhood continues to overcome inequalities created by decades of racialized city planning initiatives. This thesis focuses on how the structuring structure of whiteness has historically affected, and continues to affect, the neighborhoods of Ideal and Bonton, as well as acts to identify how black residents have navigated their landscape and increased their collective capital through neighborhood activism.