Self and Society: Neighborhood and Place

It has long been understood in the field of Sociology that individuals are shaped by their environment just as much as they shape their environment. In arguably one of the most important and well-known books in Sociology, The Sociological Imagination, author C. Wright Mills discusses the sociological imagination, which explores the relationship between self and society. Mills believed that sociologists and ordinary people should employ the sociological imagination by situating individuals in their larger historical and social context. He writes, “…What ordinary men are directly aware of and what they try to do are bounded by the private orbits in which they live; their visions and their powers are limited to the close-up scenes of job, family, neighborhood…” (Mills 2). The role of the environment is clearly significant for the development, aspirations, and outcome of an individual, rendering institutions like, family, geography, and government major dimensions of the relationship between self and society. Neighborhood and place are where interactions between individuals, interactions between individuals and institutions, and interactions between institutions occur on the daily. These individuals can take shape their own environments, becoming active members of their community by using their interactions with others and with institutions to created shared public spaces that influence their outcomes. As defined by Project for Public Spaces, a leader in Placemaking advocacy, “Strengthening the connection between people and the places they share, Placemaking refers to a collaborative process by which we can shape our public realm in order to maximize shared value” (Project for Public Spaces).

Levels of Citizen Participation

Arnstein describes the different levels of power in citizen participation in forming these outcomes. In “A Ladder of Citizen Participation,” she categorizes levels of citizen participation into a hierarchy of power. She creates 8 rungs of the ladder, which she puts into three umbrella categories, to represent differing levels of citizen power in determining the end result. From bottom to top, these categories are nonparticipation (manipulation and therapy), tokenism (informing, consultation, placation), and citizen power (partnership, delegated power, and citizen control). She explains that both the powerless citizens and the powerholders have “significant roadblocks to achieving genuine levels of citizen participation” (Arnstein 5). The powerholders may face “racism, paternalism, and resistance to power distribution,” while the citizens face an inadequate political socioeconomic infrastructure for the poor as well as difficulties in organizing a representative, accountable group (Arnstein 6). The top rung of the ladder, citizen control, offers the highest level of power in the citizen participation model. She best describes this rung as a level of power in which “guarantees that participants or residents can govern a program or an institution, be in charge of policy and managerial aspects, and be able to negotiate the conditions under which ‘outsiders’ may change them” (16). She notes that the most commonly advocated model of citizen control is the absence of intermediaries between a neighborhood and its sources of funds (16). She cites several examples of federal government-funded community control programs in U.S. cities led by citizen stakeholders in mostly poor black communities, who have historically been excluded from systems of power (Arnstein 16-17). Arnstein argues that that residents have amassed “a significant degree of power” in the Model Cities programs, action plans will include the creation of entirely resident-governed community institutions who will work with a set budget given to them (17). These programs “might begin to demonstrate how to counteract the various corrosive political and socioeconomic forces that plague the poor,” Arnstein writes (17). She says that the success of these programs and future citizen participation programs depend largely on the city governments’ willingness to allocate more resources to the poor, which would reverse the “gross imbalances of the past” (17). Creative Placemaking is a process that sits near the top of Arnstein’s citizen participation ladder within the category of citizen power, but not at the top rung of citizen control.

Citizen Empowerment

Sociologist John Gaventa expands upon Arnstein’s and Saxena’s ideas in “Towards Participatory Local Governance,” making six propositions on “the meanings of citizenship and of participation,” “the role and relevance of ‘the local,’” and “the problem of governance itself” (253). His first three propositions are most relevant to individuals’ participation in their communities. Gaventa’s first proposition is “relating people and institutions.” He cites the Voices of the Poor report in the World Development Report 2000/2001, which concludes that poor people around the world consider large institutions, specifically state institutions, to be unaccountable to them and unresponsive to their needs (254). Other studies echo these conclusions, finding that citizens have distrust in their governments due to corruption, unresponsiveness to the needs of the poor, and the lack of connection and participation with its citizens (254). By this line of reasoning, large institutions and specifically state institutions must come up with policy solutions that encourage participation from its people and restore trust in the government. State institutions and the people can engage in partnerships to properly address the needs of the community.

In his second proposition, Gaventa examines the methods of deepening democratic governance. He starts with the focus on strengthening citizen participation, which he describes as “the ways in which poor people exercise voice through new forms of inclusion, consultation, and/or mobilization designed to inform and to influence large institutions and policies” (255). Th other method was on strengthening institutions’ and policies’ accountability and responsiveness by changing the design of the institutions itself. He argues that these two methods must go hand and hand to create effective citizen participation (255). The third proposition is about reconceptualizing participation and citizenship. This is where Mill’s theory of sociological imagination should be applied, as it asks sociologists to think about the relationship between the self and society in another light. He gives the example of electoral politics being considered the end-all solution to people’s participation in government, as elected representatives’ jobs are to hold the state accountable. The individual, Gaventa argues, serves as the “periodic elector” of these elected officials, who act as intermediaries between the citizens and the state (Gaventa 256). The relationship between citizens and the state, however, must be based in participation and inclusion for citizen participation to effectively occur (qt. in Gaventa 256).

In order for there to be an educated citizenry, individual citizens must have the knowledge and tools to engage with their community directly rather than simply act as the “periodic electors” of elected intermediaries to the state. In “Spaces for Change? The Politics of Participation in New Democratic Arenas,” Cornwall and Coelho argue that there cannot be substantive participation unless the people recognize themselves as citizens rather than beneficiaries or clients (8). They write, “Acquiring the means to participate equally demands processes of popular education and mobilization that can enhance the skills and confidence of marginalized and excluded groups, enabling them to enter and engage in participatory arenas” (Cornwall and Coelho 8). Cornwall and Coelho also write about concerns that mobilization alone will not equip marginalized or excluded actors with the skills to effectively communicate with one another (13). Unless these concerns are directly addressed in models of citizen participation, marginalized and excluded groups will not have the resources necessary to enter into participatory arenas. For marginalized people to participate, they must first consider themselves citizens of their communities.

N.C. Saxena similarly argues for the expansion of people’s roles in their communities. He defines what people’s participation should look like in his article “What is Meant by People’s Participation,” stating, “Participation should include the notions of contribution, influencing, sharing, or redistributing power and control, resources, benefits, knowledge, and skills to be gained through beneficiary involvement in decision-making” (Saxena 31). He believed people’s participation was when all people, including those of marginalized communities, were in a position to influence or directly control the very decisions that affect them (Saxena 31). In order to carry out participatory action, people must be able to organize themselves and be able to identify their own needs. Saxena lists three outcomes of participation—learning how to best solve societal problems, empowerment through leadership, self-initiation, and mobilization of resources, and organization-building by supporting and strengthening local organizations (32-33). In contrast to Cornwall and Coelho, who argue that learning, empowerment, and organization-building must happen before participation, Saxena characterizes these three as outcomes after participation. Cornwall’s and Coelho’s as well as Saxena’s frameworks for people’s participation can be applied specifically to citizen participation in placemaking processes. Placemaking encapsulates learning, empowerment, and organization-building from beginning to finish.

Origins of Placemaking

The placemaking movement had its influence from activist Jane Jacobs, who is considered one of the early pioneers of placemaking. In her widely influential book The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Jacobs writes about her bottom-up approach to urban planning, arguing that great cities must have characteristics like primary mixed uses, “eyes on the street” on sidewalks, and most importantly, a transfer of power to residents from powerful politicians and urban planners. She writes, “They have to fight it out with each other, and with officials, on the plane where the effective decisions are made, because this is what counts in winning” (Jacobs 126). She argues that “‘decision-making’ motions with hierarchies and boards at ineffectual levels where no responsible government powers of decision reside, vitiates political life, citizen effectiveness and self-government” is a play at self-government rather than the real thing (Jacobs 126). In other words, Jacobs characterizes ‘decision-making’ processes within a hierarchical power system as non-participation, at the bottom of Arnstein’s citizen participation ladder.

Public Spaces: Who Benefits?

In Capital City: Gentrification and the Real Estate State, Samuel Stein writes about the political force of real estate and its implications for gentrification in cities. Stein claims that the planner’s worldview was “to imagine what doesn’t yet exist while figuring out how to get there; to care about systems and processes, the way things work and the way they ought to” (7). Urban planners, too, adhere to the sociological imagination, constantly thinking about the ways in which urban residents’ interactions shaped the city and also how the city shaped people’s interactions. Urban planners, however, are increasingly being run by real estate interests, focused on maximizing profit to benefit the wealthy few who have land capital. Stein posits, “Until land is socially controlled, those who possess property, capital and access to power will shape planning priorities” (10). In our current state of private-public partnerships, people’s spaces will always be turned into profit. Through campaigns like “City Beautiful” across the U.S., new residential buildings were built for safety and aesthetics, which drove up property values and forced poor families and people of color out of the neighborhoods to live in unsafe conditions (19). Through practices like zoning and redlining, people of color, particularly black people, were displaced from working class neighborhoods, which were replaced with high-end residential and office towers (22). Stein argues that planners alone cannot separate real estate from politics. He calls for an “organized people: mass movements to remake our cities from the ground up, and gain control over our homes and lives” (Stein 12). Advocacy planners rose to combat the displacement of black people by rejecting the top-down approach of planners viewing the city from up high and instead advocating for community-based plans created by neighborhoods (Stein 23). He notes the paradox that “Public improvements become private investment opportunities as those who own the land reap the benefits of beautiful urban design and improved infrastructure” (39). Even when public improvements are made in a community, they only benefit potential investors and drive out the very people they were supposed to serve. Advocacy planning thus provides an alternative that separates urban planners from the pressures of real estate investors and puts the power and money into the hands of the community members who are most vulnerable of getting displaced. Placemaking is an example of advocacy planning.

In “Strengthening Community Sense of Place through Placemaking,” authors Ellery and Ellery summarize findings about placemaking, concluding that placemaking may be effective in strengthening the ties between members of the community with the places they reside in, empowering them to take a more active stance in planning their communities. Author Cara Courage, in her TEDxIndianapolis presentation “Placemaking and Community,” affirms Ellery and Ellery’s findings, also seeing placemaking processes as tools that put the community “at the front and center” of change. This change happens through a social horticulture that allows them to have conversations about and become experts in the shared spaces of their community, a main goal of placemaking processes.