A North Oakland (California) neighborhood spent years convincing the city to convert an old college building into a senior center, housing, a park, and an African American cultural center instead of replacing it with a strip mall. Community strategies included publishing a monthly newsletter, attending meetings, replacing city politicians, and…

This paper examines the influence of community attachment on voluntary citizen participation in rural community improvement projects. We do so by modifying the original systemic model of community attachment (Kasarda and Janowitz 1974) and combining it with tenets of rational choice and social embeddedness theories. The modified model is then…

Research was conducted to define methods for creating jobs for urban youth through small business expansion, particularly in Chicago. This report presents recommendations derived from the research. The first section suggests ways of increasing the effectiveness of Chicago's small business/neighborhood economic development efforts. The second…

This report gives the background of the Neighborhood Study Project, conducted in Louisville, Kentucky, in the spring of 1968. The city at that time had lost the first round competition for the Model Cities Program, and although the morale of the target neighborhood residents had been damaged, some community leaders still were willing to support a…

This report deals with the elements of a neighborhood conservation program which will require the formulation of criteria for selecting a project area, the testing of those criteria in a particular location, and the definition of specific tasks within the project area. The projects described are intended to provide the Michigan State Housing…

This article describes how three neighborhoods in the city of New York, through vigorous citizen leadership and active volunteers, converted decayed and abandoned slum areas into attractive recreational centers. (JD)

Describes the efforts of two small, private institutions that have committed themselves to an innovative and sensitive plan for renewal which benefits the colleges and is designed to meet community needs. (Author/JN)

Considers (1) how judicious planning and administration of public parks in urban areas can act to bridge racial divisions; and (2) how park administrators can, by creating neighborhood parks, give new focus to neighborhoods and prevent their further deterioration. (Author/GC)

Redlining of many urban communities and discrimination against the poor and minorities are common in the insurance industry, and these practices contribute to the deterioration of those communities. The utilization of a structural/disinvestment approach by social scientists should provide additional information about the uneven development of…

Describes how the University of California San Diego (UCSD), the San Diego Housing Commission, and San Diego State University worked together through the UCSD Community Outreach Partnership Center to engage students in the design and implementation of an applied research project in City Heights, a low-income neighborhood in San Diego. (EV)

In the 'Our Town' project, 20 urban children designed and built an intervention in their neighborhood. The process involved extensive collaboration with the community at large and resulted in a park. This construction was developed in direct contrast to a more typical adult conception of a playground. Children's concerns in their design included…

The findings and recommendations of a study of potential opportunities to convert under-utilized space in multiple residential projects into play spaces for children are reported. On the basis of site visits, informal interviews and discussions with management from a selected and representative sample of 18 residential projects in the Toronto…

In many Canadian multi-family residential environments there is often a lack of sheltered space for recreation, other than the dwelling unit, where children can play in inclement weather and engage in those kinds of activities which usually cannot take place in the home. (Such activities include those that are too noisy, too messy, too large to…