In this article, a layered conceptual framework for "place-based school reform" is presented as a way to link the concept of school reform and neighborhood development. Because many universities have been involved in community-school-university partnerships, the university community engagement literature will be connected to this…

Building on a long-term university/community research partnership, this article examines how different ways of conceptualizing, interpreting, and producing murals impacted how an urban community saw itself. Using a participatory action research design, university researchers worked alongside community researchers to ethnographically document the…

During the 1990s, the UK Learning City Network was a large and influential movement with government support, the most significant national body of its kind anywhere. Yet, less than a decade later, it was in decline and now no longer exists. But while few UK towns or cities any longer use the term "learning city", the notion lives on as…

This article discusses the notion of action and personal agency. The author discusses his experiences constructing an arts installation that supported a grassroots effort to revitalize Hunts Point, a community in the South Bronx that is home to 11,000 families, eighteen waste transfer stations, 40% of New York City's sewage, all of the Bronx's…

NIMBYism, the popular and short form for "Not In My Back Yard", describes the resistance and outright opposition by residents, either within a distinct place such as a neighbourhood, or, more broadly, in a larger civic area right up to a town or city level, against some planned nearby facility, service, or changed land use. NIMBYism is also about…

University faculty and outreach program directors have been called to deliver more effective, equitable, and sustainable ways in which neighborhood and university communities may creatively interact. The authors report on the case of the Pittsburgh Studio, an initiative that matches students and resident stakeholders in researching local issues…

In recent years, the process of social change through improvement of residences in decaying neighborhoods--gentrification--has itself changed. Traditional families (married with children) and a broader spectrum of the social class spectrum are more likely to be involved. The present research takes an ethnographic perspective and considers the…

Each year, more than 200 students at YouthBuild Philadelphia Charter School in Pennsylvania make a commitment to help improve Philadelphia's neighborhoods as they work toward their high school diplomas. Since YouthBuild Philadelphia's inception in 1992, students have provided a wide variety of volunteer services to families and organizations…

When it comes to college towns and neighborhoods near urban campuses, quaint will not cut it anymore. An increasing number of institutions are finding ways--directly or indirectly--to promote a mix of commercial and residential development just beyond their borders that they hope will lure students and faculty. This article discusses how…

At first glance, the seemingly impenetrable fence surrounding the urban campus of Rhodes College seems to represent the academic and social isolation of the liberal arts college. Inside the fence are manicured lawns, beautiful buildings of stone and stained glass and a student body comprised mostly of affluent White young men and women. Outside…

Explores Milwaukee, Wisconsin's use of community Geographic Information Systems (GIS) using long-term ethnographic research. Overall, the effects of GIS and other digital technologies are quite varied across different community organizations, influenced strongly by factors such as leadership quality, organizational capacity, and resourcefulness in…

Discusses the functions that residential areas fulfill for their inhabitants, particularly the issues of school integration and rehabilitation of distressed neighborhoods. (JOW)

Explores the gentrification of Washington, D.C.'s Anacostia watershed, tracing the projects of federal and local government to devitalize and demolish living black relationships and institutions while reifying lost, invented, or imagined communities. Explores connections among capital, community, culture, and state power. Examines problems in the…

Surveyed city officials and executive directors of nonprofit organizations nationwide regarding how community-based organizations (CBOs) and city governments collaborated to reduce poverty and revitalize neighborhoods. Although city-CBO collaboration was fairly widespread, in most communities the collaboration was rather "thin," and…

The effects of such demographic variables as the baby boom and childless marriages on the demand for urban housing are discussed. (RLV)