Neighborhood Politics / Matthew A. Crenson.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Crenson, Matthew A., author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Neighborhood government--Maryland--Baltimore.

Neighborhood government.

Baltimore (Md.)--Politics and government.

Baltimore (Md.).

Physical Description:

1 online resource (344 pages) : illustrations

Edition:

Reprint 2014

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, MA : Harvard University Press, [2014]

Language Note:

English

Summary:

What makes an urban neighborhood tick? Why do some of a city's poorest neighborhoods have cleaner streets and less vandalism than many of its more affluent areas? The public services that make certain neighborhoods stand out are often provided by the local residents themselves -- but what makes them take action? The setting for Matthew Crenson's book is Baltimore. In this surprising, powerful work, he finds that such neighborhood action does not arise from a strong sense of neighborliness or community feeling. Instead, it is precisely when neighbors dislike one another that some features of informal self-organization emerge. Residents' efforts to maintain public order, health, and safety frequently spring from social chaos and discord rather than from homogeneity. In fact, Crenson discovers that in many cases community polities arise not from the cohesiveness of close-knit "urban villages" but from the social diversity, inequality, and conflict that are associated with urbanism itself. In an era when the inability of government institutions to solve the difficulties of city living is starkly apparent, understanding unofficial neighborhood government is critically important, and it can also clarify the foundations of political order itself Crenson's achievement is to redefine neighborhood problem -- solving as the true "grass roots" urban politics, and in doing so he reveals why Baltimore is one of the few big cities that really work in America today.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Preface

Contents

1. The Neighborhood as a Polity

2. Local Political Climates

3. Neighborhood Identity

4. Informal Governance

5. Community Organizations

6. Foreign Entanglements

Conclusion

Notes

Index

Notes:

Includes index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 23. Mai 2019)

ISBN:

0-674-18811-X

OCLC:

1024040522