THE CDC MODEL OF URBAN

REDEVELOPMENT:
A Critique and an Alternative
RANDY STOECKER*
University of Toledo

ABSTRACT This paper questions the viability of an urban redevelopment model that

relies on small communiry development corporations (CDCs)and proposes an alternative. Because most CDCs are severely undercapitalized, they can not keep up with
accelerating decay. Their existence, and the emphasis placed on their supposed successes, allow elites to blame poor neighborhood CDCs rather than external conditions
for redevelopment failure. The model also emphasizes that CDCs be community-based,
but because their resource base is controlled from outside the neighborhood there is
really very little community control over CDCs. CDCs may even delegitimize more
empowerment-focused community organizing attempts by making them appear radical.
Consequently, the CDC development process m y actually disorganize poor communities by creating internal competition or disrupting social networks. An alternative
model of neighborhood redevelopment is proposed which emphasizes community organizing, community-controlled planning, and high-capacity multi-local CDCs held
accountable through a strong community organizing process.

THE CDC DEBATE

F o r over a decade I have followed and worked with community development corporations (CDCs). Characterized by an IRS 501(c)(3) nonprofit tax-exempt status, a volunteer
board, and an emphasis on physical redevelopment, CDCs have taken on the heroic task of

* Direct all correspondence to: Randy Stoecker, Department of Sociology, Anthropology, Social Work, University
of Toledo, Toledo, OH 43606.
JOURNAL OF URBAN AFFAIRS, Volume 19, Number 1, pages 1-22
Copyright 0 1997 by JAI Press Inc.
All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.
ISSN: 0735-2166.

2 I JOURNAL OF URBAN AFFAIRS I Vol. 19/No. ID997

trying to rebuild communities devastated by capitalist disinvestment. Recently, they have

been popularized by public television, private press reports, and special set-aside funding
in the 1990 federal Housing Act. I have become increasingly distressed, however, by their
lack of impact and by our fading memory of why CDCs exist. This paper analyzes the role
of the CDC in the urban political economy, exploring what purposes it serves and what
impacts it can have. It also proposes an alternative model of urban redevelopment that
emphasizes community organizing, community-based planning, and high capacity multilocal CDCs.
The CDC can be traced to Robert Kennedys 1966 tour of Bedford-Stuyvesant and the
subsequent Special Impact Amendment to the Economic Opportunity Act (Bratt, 1989)
which led to CDCs such as the Bed-Stuy Restoration Corporation. There were fewer than
100 of these first generation CDCs (Peirce & Steinbach, 1990; Zdenek, 1987) and their primary mission was job creation (Kelly, 1977). Between 500 and 1000 second wave CDCs
were fonned during the 1970s (Peirce & Steinbach, 1990; Zdenek, 1987) from groups protesting redlining and displacement-based urban renewal (Vidal, 1992). These second wave
CDCs shifted away from economic development toward housing development (Peirce &
Steinbach, 1990; Vidal, 1992). With them came private philanthropy such as the Ford
Foundations Grey Areas Program (Peirce & Steinbach, 1990; Bratt, 1989), support
groups, intermediaries, and funding from Title VII of the 1974 Community Services Act.
Federal funding for CDCs between 1966 and 1980 rose to over $500 million. In the 1980s
the number of CDCs expanded to as many as 2,000 (Zdenek, 1987; Vidal, 1992) as debtweary governments at all levels withdrew from the pressing problem of urban poverty.
It is unclear, however, how much CDCs have accomplished. They are touted as having
produced thousands of housing units in Boston, New York, Chicago, and San Francisco
(Peirce & Steinbach, 1990). Vidal(l992) puts a CDCs median annual housing at 21 units,
compared to for-profits 25 units per year. The National Congress for Community Economic Development estimated in 1991 that CDCs had created 320,000 units of housing,
(Vidal, 1992), with another 80,000 units added since (National Congress for Community
Economic Development, NCCED, 1995). While somewhere between one-third and onehalf of CDCs are involved in business development (Vidal, 1992; NCCED, 1989), housing
is the biggest emphasis and the most carefully tracked (Gittell, Gross & Newman, 1994;
Vidal, 1992). The success cases are also heavily promoted, such as Fr. William Linders
New Community Corporation in Newark (Lemann, 1994). Vidal (1992) concludes that
2 1% of CDC housing and business development programs, and 3 1 % of CDC commercial
property programs have substantially impacted their neighborhoods.
Those numbers hide some uncomfortable realities. On either side of that 21 unit median
is wide variability that is not randomly distributed. In cities where there is one strong CDC
there tend to be others, but other cities show little to no CDC housing production (Goetz,
1992). Research in Toledo, Ohio, for example, showed that no CDC produced 21 units of
housing in a year (Stoeker, 1989), though recently CDCs have planned more activity. It is
also unclear how much of the planned productivity actually comes to fruition. Berndt
(1977) found that the ABT Associates study of first wave CDCs listed his CDC as having
planned or completed 172 units even though none were ever produced. Likewise, some
Toledo CDC directors exaggerated their budgets and productivity in initial evaluation
research (Stoeker, 1989). In the 1970s, evaluations ranked one-third of CDCs as highly

I Urban Political Economy: Community Redevelopment I 3

successful and one-third as in the low successful range (Kelly, 1977). Numerous analysts,
including CDC advocates, cannot find evidence that CDCs have enough impact to reverse
neighborhood decline (Rubin, 1994; Giloth, Orlebeke, Tickell & Wright, 1992; Berndt,
1977; Peirce & Steinbach, 1990) or that the development they produce would not have happened anyway (Marquez, 1993). CDCs do better than local housing authorities at providing
housing, but it is a drop in an ocean of need. (Twelvetrees, 1989, p.155), only .07% of the
United States annual housing total (NCCED, 1989; in Adams, 1990). We could easily say,
using Vidals (1992) research, that only 21% of housing and business development programs and only 3 1% of commercial property programs have substantially impacted their
neighborhoods. Twelvetrees (1989) reviews a large literature showing the overall failure
rate of CDCs. He argues that if CDCs are to be rated according to three levels of success
(staying in existence, achieving their major objectives, and achieving those objectives efficiently), then only the largest CDCs show success beyond the first level. Indicators of
community development such as quality of life, community stability, resident health and
happiness, and personal empowerment are rarely cited (Taub, 1990). Vidal (1989) notes
that only 25% of CDCs say they have sparked major increases in community pride, and
half say they have made some progress in strengthening community leadership. Keating,
Rasey, & Krumholz (1990, p.2 13) conclude that CDCs fail to achieve the broader goals of
political and economic independence and self-sufficiency.
These questions about success have led some to wonder if CDCs are a case of social
movement co-optation (Gittell, 1980). Chicago CDCs resisted the notion that they should
redevelop neighborhoods in such a way they would no longer need CDCs (Giloth, et al.,
1992). Many neighborhood association members see CDCs as having lost their grassroots
mentality (Goetz & Sidney, 1994). Gittell (1980) showed that lower class voluntary organizations were more likely than middle class organizations to shift from advocacy to
service because of problems maintaining long-term organizing efforts and financial support. Consequently, critics charge, CDCs have become another developer following a
supply-side free market approach to redevelopment (Lenz, 1988; Taub, 1990) rather than
fighting for the social change necessary to support sustainable communities. Lemann
(1994, p.30) charges that Ghetto revitalization projects often have the word corporation
in their name in order to enhance their appeal to business contributors. Taub (1990, p.2)
relates that The CDC world is filled with tales of ruthless screening, fast evictions, and
strict enforcement of behavioral standards. Lenz (1988, p.25) decries the terrible paradox
of thriving organizations and dying communities.
CDC advocates respond passionately. Like other service providers (Tracy & Stoecker,
1993), they see their work as at least a necessary Band-Aid. We should not expect high productivity from CDCs, they say, because they operate in weak markets, precisely why forprofit developers avoid those neighborhoods. Without CDCs, they argue, there would be
no development in urban Americas most deteriorated neighborhoods (Hamilton, 1992;
Bratt, 1989; Vidal, 1992; Zdenek, 1987). Further, CDCs are more likely to meets the needs
of the poor and even raise expectations that will lead to political pressure for social change
(Hamilton, 1992; Bratt, 1989; Rubin, 1995; 1994b). Additionally, CDC adherents argue
that the community organizing model (a more confrontational, conflict-oriented political
approach to addressing poverty) is no longer appropriate because neighborhood structure
has changed, the targets are hidden, and there are fewer local vital organizations. They also

4 I JOURNAL OF URBAN AFFAIRS I Vol. 19/No. 1/1997

critique organizing as manipulative and unrepresentative (Giloth, 1985; Goetz & Sidney,
1993).
Missing in this debate is a theoretical understanding of the CDC. How does the CDC
interact with the contradictions of urban capitalism? What are the political-economic
forces impinging on the CDC, potentially hindering effectiveness? To understand these
questions, we must look at urban political economy and how the CDC model of urban redevelopment interacts with it.

THE CDC MODEL

The continuing critiques of CDCs across three decades suggest that more is at issue than
imperfect practice. My argument is not that CDCs have been doing bad things, or operate
with evil intent. Indeed, my own work has shown the crucial role of the CDC in producing
affordable housing (Stoecker, 1994). As Lenz (1988, p.25) notes, CDC practitioners are
good people with bad theory. Many CDC directors hold dearly to the goals of community
empowerment and political activism (Rubin, 1994b, 1997). Some CDCs succeed at avoiding the problems discussed later (Rubin, 1997), but those exceptions only serve to
emphasize that it is not the CDCs, but the model we hold up for CDCs to meet and the US
political economy that are the problems.
From the beginning CDCs were to accomplish bottom-up, comprehensive redevelopment (Lemann, 1994; Kelly, 1977; Peirce & Steinbach, 1990; Bratt, 1989; Rubin, 1993a,
1993b; 1994, 1994b; Zdenek, 1987; Twelvetrees, 1989; Keating, et al., 1990; Marquez,
1993). While some CDCs have been trying to focus their efforts, the popular imagination,
analysts (Keating, et al., 1990; Gittell, Newman & Ortega-Bustamente, 1995), major foundation sponsored programs such as the Ford Foundations Neighborhood and Family
initiative (Anglin, 1994), and federal programs such as Empowerment ZoneEnterprise
Community program have put even more pressure on CDCs to follow this model (see also
Halpern, 1995:195-217). The bottom-up approach is supposed to help the community
determine how to conduct redevelopment and produce more homes and businesses owned
by community members. Some CDC directors emphatically assert that We are a community-controlled developer, not simply a not-for-profit developer building in a low-income
community (Rubin, 1994b, p.408). The second ideal is to empower whole communities
through comprehensive treatment of social and physical conditions (Marquez, 1993), measuring success in terms of physical redevelopment and community regeneration,
participation, and empowerment (Rubin, 1994a).
As Kelly (1977, p.18) says, this model is socialistic-sounding but the socialistic
aspect is more apparent than real. For the third part of the CDC model is an acceptance of
supply-side economic models and free market philosophy. The CDC model originally
attempted to correct three market failures: (1) the inability of potential investors to see
opportunities in the neighborhood, (2) profit maximization that prevented socially conscious investing, (3) and sociaVlega1 restrictions on investment such as zoning laws.
However, as government finances disappeared, CDCs had to give up even this moderate
directed capitalism and accommodate themselves to, rather than redirect, the course of
the free market (Marquez, 1993, p.289). Their goal is not to transform society but to
extend the benefits of the American economic mainstream.. .to [those] that are left out

I Urban Political Economy: Community Redevelopment I 5

(Peirce & Steinbach, 1990, p.33, emphasis added). Supply-side approaches of attracting
capital are emphasized over demand-side approaches and political action (Kane & Sand,
1988; Lenz, 1988; Taub, 1990). At best, poor neighborhoods are seen as weak markets
(Vidal, 1992) requiring reinvestment rather than as oppressed communities requiring
mobilization, leading CDCs to work within the existing economic rules (Madison, 1995).
Individual analysts may promote ideas such as social ownership of housing (Stone, 1993)
but it is the rare CDC that pursues such an anticapitalist route.
It is important to understand that this model can work only by assuming that capital (in
the form of for-profit corporations) and poor communities have complementary interests.
As Bemdt (1977, p.126) noted, CDCs have accepted the rationale of the corporation
within capitalist society. Some analysts lump together neighborhood residents and absentee business owners as embodiments of community-based membership on CDC boards
(Vidal, 1992), a distinction that even state funding programs maintain (Stoecker, 1994).
CDCs have come to operate more and more like businesses (Taub, 1990; Vidal, 1992). narrowing their activities to physical development (Twelvetrees, 1989:31). Many CDCs
impose rules on tenants that are no different from any other landlord rather than empowering residents to govern themselves (Taub, 1990; Bratt, 1994; Rubin, 1997).

POLITICAL ECONOMY OF THE CDC MODEL

Understanding the problems with the CDC model requires understanding the relationship between capital and community. New urban sociology theorists and others argue that
the relationship between capital and community is at least potentially contradictory (Stoecker, 1994; Feagin & Parker, 1990; Logan & Molotch, 1987; Mollenkopf, 1981; capek &
Gilderbloom, 1992; Swanstrom, 1993; Bluestone & Harrison, 1982). Communitys tendency is to preserve neighborhood space as a use value for the service of community
members, while capitals tendency is to convert neighborhood space into exchange values
that can be speculated on for a profit. This sets up an antagonistic relationship. Capitals
conversion of neighborhood space into exchange values drives up rents, destroys green
space, eliminates neighborhood-based commerce, and disrupts neighboring patterns. Capital is less willing to invest in neighborhood redevelopment that maintains neighborhood
spaces as use values because that would prevent speculation and limit profit accumulation.
Either through destructive investment or disinvestment community suffers.
Further antagonistic relationships exist in the city between workers and employers, and
between renters and rentiers (Gottdiener & Feagin, 1988). Most important to the dynamics
of this struggle, however,,are those who are neither clearly workers nor owners, renters nor
rentiers. Those in the middle (the middle class of professionals, managers, and small business owners living in mortgaged housing) occupy contradictory locations between the
haves and have nots (Davis, 1991; Saunders, 1978; Wright, 1985). The members of this
vast middle are part owner, and part proletariat. They also control their own housing, but
still pay rent in the form of a mortgage. As a consequence, they are pulled in two directions
at once. They resent the banker who controls their mortgage and the renter who lives in the
duplex next door. They resent the company president and the employees they manage. The
middle class, because of their contradictory location between the antagonistic class posi-

6 I JOURNAL OF URBAN AFFAIRS I Vol. 19/No. 7/7997

tions of haves and have nots in their work lives and their consumer lives, are culturally
unpredictable and politically constrained.
It is this insecure and unpredictable middle location that CDCs occupy. CDCs manage
capital like capitalists, but d o not invest it for a profit. They manage projects but within the
constraints set by their funders. They try to be community oriented while their purse strings
are held by outsiders. They are pressured by capital to produce exchange values in the form
of capitalist business spaces and rental housing. They are pressured by communities to produce use values in the form of services, home ownership, and green spaces. This is more
than a double bottom-line (Bratt, Keyes, Schwartz & Vidal, 1994). It is the internalization of the capital-community contradiction and it leads to trouble. If there were no
contradiction between capital and community, these would not be problems. But because
that contradiction lies in the background, presenting itself at every eviction, every housing
protest, every strike, every layoff, every foreclosure, every bankruptcy, and every development deal, the CDC is caught between worlds. The result is three problems besetting the
CDC model: (1) the limits to comprehensiveness, (2) the myth of community control, and
(3) the development of disorganization.

Limits to Comprehensiveness
CDC work requires expertise ranging from finance, insurance, and real estate to architecture to zoning laws, along with a vast amount of capital. The things that can make CDCs
community-based (their smallness and neighborhood roots) inhibit access to the capital
and the experts that comprehensiveness demands. The community-based ideology in the
CDC model promotes amateurism and volunteerism (Adams, 1990), isolating CDCs from
prominent capital actors and experts (Stoecker, 1990). Evaluations of CDCs show that they
needed training and overall capacity enhancement in the 1970s and the 1990s (Vidal, 1992;
Kelly; 1974). The median CDC core annual operating budget is only about $200,000 to
begin with (Vidal, 1992) and there is a clear relationship between budget and success.
Kelly (1977) found that two-thirds of the most successful CDCs had $2 million plus budgets, but only one-quarter of the least and moderately successful had that much. In Toledo,
only CDCs with administrative budgets over $100,000 accomplished any redevelopment
(Stoecker, 1989). Many CDCs, propelled by the greater availability of project money compared to operating support (Goetz, 1992), take on more than they can handle (Rubin,
1993b; Twelvetrees, 1989). Berndt (1977) disclosed that, of all the economic development
projects begun by the Union Sarah Economic Development Corporation, only one was still
functioning by the time his book was written. Among all subsidized housing developed in
1970s, the foreclosure rate for nonprofit developers was four times that of for-profits
(Bratt, 1994). Every failed project makes the next project more likely to fail (Vidal, 1992).
The ideology of the CDC as community-based also leads to a belief that the CDC is an
alternative to government programs (Adams, 1990) and only about half of CDC operating
budget needs are met through government sources (Goetz, 1993). The public sector is
reluctant to commit funds to CDCs because of the lack of CDC productivity (Rubin,
1993b) caused by inadequate funding. Also, because CDCs purport to be community controlled, public administrators rationalize that their funding should come from the
community as well. The impossibility of that occurring is ignored (Adams, 1990) and was
only reinforced by the minuscule set-asides for CDCs written into the 1990 National

I Urban Political Economy: Community Redevelopment I 7

Affordable Housing Act (Center for Community Change, 1991) that forces CDCs to
expand even further beyond their capacity in order to have any hope of getting more money
as compared to the billions of dollars in tax breaks for corporations to participate in the E U
EC program (Lemann, 1994). As Piven and Cloward (1993) argue for antipoverty spending
in general, government funding of CDCs may be most useful for maintaining social order.
Enough money is provided to stave off social unrest, but not enough to threaten the unequal
balance of power. Conservative government celebrates CDCs while providing just enough
money to help them fail, leading some to charge that government and corporations are systematically hostile to empowering community development (Madison, 1995).
The consequence is victim blaming. CDCs that stay small either by choice or by failure
in the funding competition are forced to live a hand-to-mouth existence and miss fleeting
opportunities because the grant will not come until next year and the opportunity will pass
next week (Twelvetrees, 1989:lOl; Rubin, 1993b). The matching grants game delays and
even destroys projects (Rubin, 1993b). Developers are believed to fail or succeed based on
their skills, not their circumstances, so project failure is attributed to the CDC (and thus the
community) doing a bad job. The reality, however, is that CDCs are grotesquely underfunded organizations working in disinvested communities requiring massive capital
infusion. Self-help is unrealistic under such conditions (Barton, 1977) and may worsen
problems in neighborhoods that require more, not fewer, resources.. ..An emphasis on selfhelp should not be used to divert attention from the context. (Checkoway, 1985, p.482)
The role of the CDC has become that of a means to divert our attention from the context.
The media celebrate a single small initiative in a sea of decay which is at serious risk of
failure because the CDC cannot keep up with the overall pace of capitalist disinvestment.
The public sees small CDC accomplishments portrayed as big victories and comes to
believe there is little need for their taxes or their donations. Then they blame CDCs and
their associated communities when redevelopment fails. In Toledo, CDC directors have
been pressured to resign for not producing in organizations that could not produce with
the insignificant funding that Toledo foundations and government trickle down (Stoecker,
1990, 1997). The CDC in Cedar-Riverside was blamed for failure to purchase commercial
buildings it could not afford because capitalist, not community, considerations set the selling prices (Stoecker, 1994).
Analysts sometimes play into this victim blaming. Rubin (1 993b, p.431) says Once
trust has been earned through the completion of successful projects, those in the community-based movement then can work to educate public officials to understand their ethos
toward community renewal. This is a Catch-22 because most CDCs will not show success
without enormous external funding and expertise up front. Bratt (1989) notes that CDCs do
not have to shift the perception of responsibility off government. However, it is precisely
because the issue is perceiving (rather than documenting) responsibility that CDC failure
leads to victim blaming. Poor communities are shut out of access to media that can help
them present the real culprits: corporate disinvestment and government neglect.
Of course, the way to get beyond the problem of smallness and the failure associated
with it is to access massive resources. That, however, carries its own burden and leads to
the next problem.

8 I JOURNAL OF URBAN AFFAIRS I Vol. 79/No. 117997

The Myth of Community Control

The assumption in the model that CDCs are independent community-based solutions to
urban decay mystifies the reality of external control. While some argue that the degree of
CDC capitulation to outside elites is overstated (Rubin, 1994a), others (Medoff & Sklar,
1994, p.260) note that CDCs are based in communities, but they are not communitybased. Many activists see big CDCs as just a branch of city government, or a front for
various corporate funding schemes (White, 1993). The PBS documentary of CDCs (Vanguard Films, 1992), in its coverage of the Woodlawn Organization, never mentioned its
militant civil rights movement and community organizing roots.
The problem of maintaining community control is rooted in the fact that poor communities do not have enough community controlled capital and must woo outside capital
(Bemdt, 1977) whose tendency is to transform use values into exchange values. The role of
funders in subverting social change efforts has been well established generally (Roelofs,
1987; Jenkins, 1985) and in regard to CDCs (Kelly, 1977). The Local Initiatives Support
Corporation (LISC), the single most lauded funder of CDCs (Lenz, 1988; Peirce & Steinbach, 1990; Bratt, 1989) at the local level, is controlled by elites who often view
redevelopment from an exchange value perspective rather than a use value perspective.
A Toledo coalition of CDCs, government, and funders was tom apart as one faction
dominated by LISC and city hall, and another, dominated by small CDCs and organizing
groups, struggled over who would control a federal funding windfall and how it would be
used (Stoecker, 1997). The Chicago LISC has been hesitant to support community, as
opposed to real estate, development (Giloth et al., 1992). Other large foundation supporters
of CDCs are little different, evaluating CDC proposals for their economic acceptability
rather than their ability to serve community needs. While CDCs may be able to use those
funds without technically being co-opted, the funds still impose limitations because they
embody the profit principle (Stoecker, 1995b; Marquez, 1993), especially after government funding plummeted in the 1980s and was replaced by comparatively minuscule
private sector funding (Keating, et al., 1990).
This sets up a secondary contradiction between affordability and control. Outside capital
resists supporting redevelopment that maintains community control. Government, bowing
to market ideology, follows similar rules. Affordable housing, for example, is created by
subsidizing the landlord rather than the tenant. Additionally, CDCs often must choose
between acting quickly enough to take advantage of fleeting funding opportunities and
practicing more cumbersome democracy (Twelvetrees, 1989). When fiscally stressed city
governments pressured community organizing groups to do their own housing redevelopment, some activists chafed at the changes, recognizing that many groups were losing the
steady input and direction from neighborhood residents (White, 1993, p. 10). Thus, redevelopment that maintains community control is expensive and redevelopment that is
affordable requires giving up control to outside funders. The Cedar-Riverside neighborhood in Minneapolis built and rehabbed 550 units of housing, over half controlled through
lease-hold cooperatives and the remainder controlled through a management cooperative.
They found that, to keep the housing affordable, they had to accept subsidies that would
force residents to move if their incomes rose too high. On the other hand, townhouses built
with less subsidy were also less affordable (Stoecker, 1994). In the Los Angeles Route 2
corridor redevelopment process, residents did not want outside experts involved and espe-

I Urban Political Economy: Community Redevelopment I 9

cially did not want Section 8 subsidized units because of the bureaucracy required, but they
could not get funds otherwise (Heskin, 1991).
In addition, as funding becomes more scarce, CDCs package more complex, time consuming, costly, and hard to manage projects (Twelvetrees, 1989; Blakely & Aparicio,
1990; Vidal, 1992; Giloth, et al., 1992; Keating, et al., 1990). Cedar-Riverside activists had
to determine how many families of varying sizes were in the project and then had to match
families to houses, adding and subtracting bedrooms in units (and consequently driving up
rehab costs) to get each home subsidized (Stoecker, 1994). CDCs often have more complex
organizational structures than comparable for-profits, with three quarters having at least
one subsidiary (Vidal, 1992). Chicanos Por La Causa had 110 different sources of funding
by 1991 (Marquez, 1993). The Cedar-Riverside CDC had numerous sub-corporations,
each with its own financial statement, and most board members were unable to follow
which subcorporation was being discussed by staff at monthly meetings (Stoecker, 1994).
This increasing complexity removes even more control from the community. Control
devolves to staff, who often live outside the community (Lenz, 1988; Vidal, 1992; Berndt,
1977; Kelly, 1974; 1977; Giloth, et al., 1992) and are more likely to emphasize the technical details of development over community empowerment (Rubin, 1994a). CDC boards, at
most, provide broad guidance rather than direct decisionmaking (Marquez, 1993).
Even if the board maintains informed control, it may not represent the community (Taub,
1990). When organizations led by the lower classes shift from advocacy to service, they
move from internal to external dependency which includes dependency on staff and
imposed leadership (Gittel, 1980, p.44). The first Bed-Stuy Restoration Corporation
board was dominated by U.S. Senator Jacob Javits, Ethel Kennedy, the chairman of Mobil
Oil, and the president of Citibank (Berndt, 1977). Businesses often play a stronger role in
directing CDC policy than residents (Vidal, 1992). Board members are often appointed or
recruited (Kelly, 1977; Twelvetrees, 1989) and one-third (Vidal, 1992) to one-half (Kelly,
1977) live outside the CDC service area. Research on early CDCs showed the poor to be
underrepresented (Kelly, 1977; Berndt, 1977). Men have dominated CDC boards, leading
to even more of a business orientation in CDCs (Kelly, 1977; Gittell, et al., 1994). The fact
that board membership is neither glamorous nor exciting also hinders resident participation. Cedar-Riverside was a very politicized neighborhood, but the CDC resorted to a raffle
at each board meeting to maintain a quorum (Stoecker, 1994). This lack of participation
can lead to decisions that do not reflect the community and produce festering resentments
(Heslun, 1991). Twelvetrees (1989, p.141) argues that It is unrealistic to expect a CDC to
be a democratic community organization in the sense that it offers opportunities to participate in decision taking to large numbers of residents. Even CDC supporters such as Bratt
(1989, p.3 12) agree that CDCs do not necessarily aim for, nor result in, widespread participation by the affected tenants.
Regardless of how much those within CDCs think of themselves as having common
interests with the community, it is questionable that they do. Two-thirds of CDCs manage
the housing they develop (Vidal, 1992). Consequently, CDCs are landlords and as landlords have an interest in maintaining the financial solvency of the organization, even if they
are nicer about it than for-profit landlords (Bratt, 1989). Renters, however, have an interest
in maintaining the affordability of their housing (Bratt, 1994; Rubin, 1994a). This creates
a structural antagonism that divides the CDC from the community. Bratt (1989, pp.234-

10 I JOURNAL OF URBAN AFFAIRS I Vol. 79/No. 7/7997

235) implicitly distinguishes community-based group (apparently referring to CDCs)

and its constituency as if the concepts refer to different things. Keating and his associates
(1990, p.213), in evaluating CDC success, say no CDC has developed to the extent that it
entirely owns or controls the housing and land (emphasis added). Residents also miss the
contradiction. When redevelopment fails, they blame each other rather than targeting the
external causes. In Cedar-Riverside the control-affordability contradiction nearly tore the
community apart because the community organizing group blamed the CDC and the CDC
blamed the community organizing group for the loss of control over one redevelopment
project (Stoecker, 1994).
Ultimately, the control-affordability contradiction has created responsibility without
control.. . [and] transformed political questions for the political community into technical
questions more accessible to experts (Heskin, 1991, p.73). Under these conditions, the
CDC model is in danger of creating weaker rather than stronger communities.

The Development of Disorganization

Market processes are unpredictable, unstable, unaccountable, and disorganizing. They
allow the destruction of communities through speculative investment and disinvestment.
When CDCs behave as market-oriented organizations, they become part of the same disorganizing forces. CDCs often compete among themselves for funds (Rubin, 1993b) and are
pressured to support the capital side of the capital-community contradiction and put organizational profit ahead of community benefit (Twelvetrees, 1989; Berndt, 1977). Berndt, in
1977, charged that CDCs were joining local Chambers of Commerce and that the nationallevel CDC support organization, the National Congress for Community Economic Development (NCCED), joined the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), though
NCCED states it has no current relationship with NAM. Both the Chamber of Commerce
and NAM have consistently opposed legislation that protects the poor. CDCs, then, easily
become enmeshed in the networks that caused the problems and thus become limited to
development possibilities dictated by the market rather than directed by the people.
When the CDC fails, it contributes to neighborhood decline. When the CDC succeeds, it
may also lead to neighborhood decline by disorganizing the community. Community
development, when it emphasizes the physical over the social and remains limited to the
possibilities dictated by capital, may actually increase turnover, displacement, and otherwise disorganize a community (Taub, 1990). Local economic development, which
produces jobs without impacting other neighborhood problems, encourages those who
have the jobs to leave (Lemann, 1994; Marquez, 1993).
The market pressures CDCs to produce rental housing and they often acquiesce, producing 80% of their housing as rentals (Goetz & Sidney, 1994). This can disrupt community in
two ways. First, renters move more often than homeowners (Capek & Gilderbloom, 1992).
Second, homeowners adopt a community control or ideology of property position while
renters adopt an affordability position, which often leads to a struggle for control of neighborhood organizations, including CDCs (Goetz & Sidney, 1993). In Cedar-Riverside this
control-affordability contradiction took a bizarre twist. When the community organizing
group joined in a development partnership to take over the ailing high rise housing in its
midst, it opposed an expansion of the number of Section 8 apartments in the complex,
believing the complex was physically unsuitable for families. This brought the organiza-

I Urban Political Economy: Community RedevelopmentI 11

tion, noted for its work in planning affordable housing in the neighborhood, head to head
with fair housing advocates (Stoecker, 1994).
Can CDCs develop community? Analysts and CDC members in the 1980s emphasized
that CDCs did projects(Mayer, 1983; Twelvetrees, 1989), but the continuing influence of
the comprehensive emphasis has led to talk about CDCs promoting community organizing
(White, 1993; Peirce & Steinbach, 1990; Gittell, et al., 1995; Rubin, 1997). It is unclear,
however, whether CDC advocates understand what community organizing is, would want
to do it if they knew, or could do it if they wanted to. The CDC model, as Traynor (1992,
p.9) aptly stated has confused the building of power with the building of structures.
The classic community organizing model does not appear to fit the CDC definition that
uses advocacy synonymously with organizing. Community organizers understand organizing as developing relationships so people can press their demands collectively and gain
power through that process (Alinsky, 1969; 1971; Delgado, 1994). Advocacy is an expert
speaking for a constituency, rather than helping them speak for themselves (Beckwith,
n.d.). Whether CDC supporters mean advocacy in this sense is unclear (Rubin, 1993a), but
the confusion over the usage is telling. Goetz (1993) finds that CDCs try to make up for
their lack of attention to community organizing by supporting other organizing efforts, but
describes those efforts as joining coalitions of other organizations and advocating around
housing issues. Vidal (1992) found that 80% of CDCs said their brokering and advocacy
work was as important as development. Rubin (1997) cites research saying one-half to onethird of CDCs do organizing but that does not appear to mean bringing neighborhood residents together to press for their needs collectively. Some analysts question whether CDCs
do any substantial organizing, seeing them as consciously apolitical (Keating, et al., 1990).
The tensions created by community organizing in three Toledo CDCs led to the firing of
one organizer and the resignations of others. Giloth (1985, p.39) sums up the problem by
citing that There is housing advocacy and development-but little squatting. In other
words, working within the rules, CDCs accept what trickles down rather than help people
mobilize to reclaim what has been taken away.
As a result of the confusion over terms, not only is organizing neglected, but the CDC
tries to be the neighborhood voice (Vidal, 1992). This is dangerous because we have
already seen that CDCs are not adequate representatives of neighborhood interests. The
CDC may compete for public attention with organizing groups, dividing the community
between CDC supporters and organizing group supporters (Stoecker, 1994, 1995a). The
CDC also may delegitimize the organizing group by making it appear more militant
because CDCs are less threatening to power holders than community action organizations
(Taub, 1990).
Even if the CDC understands community organizing as a true empowerment strategy, it
is unlikely the CDC is the best vehicle for conducting community organizing. Constrained
by their funding, CDCs cannot take the risks necessary to produce empowering community
organizing. Rubin (1997) cites examples of CDC coalition-based organizing, which better
protects the funding base of each member, but it is unclear how widespread that activity is
and the extent to which it involves grassroots organizing. Vidal (1992) implies that community groups should think twice about Community Reinvestment Act challenges because
they might hinder the CDCs ability to get loans. Additionally, organizing and even service
efforts take a back seat to development when financial or political pressures bear down

12 I JOURNAL OF URBAN AFFAIRS I Vol. 19/No. 7/7997

(Gittell, 1980; Kolodny, 1985; Hamilton, 1992; Blakely & Aparicio, 1990; Rubin, 1997;
Stoecker, 1995a). Rooted in the capital-community contradiction, development and organizing can become contradictory missions (Stoecker, 1994, 1995a).
The CDC model potentially increases internal community conflict, displacement, and
disempowerment when it fails and when it succeeds. While CDCs try to work where government left off, they depend on government; while they try to be community controlled,
they need to respond to outside schedules and funds, and while they are effective because
they are small, the problems are big (Twelvetrees, 1989). What is to be done? Many groups
got into development because they believed they were not getting enough out of community organizing, but they found that doing development affected fewer people and made
organizing more difficult (Bratt, 1989). The problem is that CDCs are really not, nor can
they be, about empowerment. If we shift from a community development model to a community empowerment model, we can find a place for the CDC in community
redevelopment that does not so readily contradict community empowerment.

A NEW MODEL FOR COMMUNITY EMPOWERMENT

AND DEVELOPMENT
Creating a new model requires that we first determine what CDCs do well. While at least
one analyst concludes that the CDC approach should be discarded altogether (Berndt,
1977), I am not so sure. On the minus side, (Twelvetrees, 1989, pp.169,171), CDCs are an
irrelevance which diverts the talents of local people away from political pressure on those
institutions which do have the power to revitalise the ghetto. On the other hand, Without
CDCs, either nothing would have been done or development would have been undertaken in a more ruthless way by government and the private sector. Analysts and activists
recognize the tension between community organizing and development and the necessity
for both (Bratt, 1994; Stoecker, 1995a; Rubin, 1993b; Giloth, 1985; Peirce & Steinbach,
1990; Medoff & Sklar, 1994; Bradford & Cincotta, 1992). CDCs can produce affordable
housing (Lemann, 1994) that is sensitive to residents needs (Bratt, 1989). They can train
residents in the redevelopment process (Rubin, 1994a) and occasionally go beyond apartment building to develop co-ops and other types of affordable home ownership (Stoecker,
1994; Heskin, 1991).
CDCs probably cannot do organizing, however. Of three kinds of organizing (confrontational, collaborative, and community building), CDCs emphasize collaborative organizing
partly because it does not threaten CDC relationships with funders (Madison, 1995). However, many still see confrontational organizing as necessary to bring capital into
neighborhoods that cannot produce a quick profit for investors (Bradford & Cincotta,
1992; Stone, 1993; White, 1993). We must emphasize human development and organizing
as much as physical development, demand nonmarket solutions to the problems of poverty,
be wary of public-private partnerships, subordinate development plans to an organizing
agenda (Lenz, 1988), and promote community (not CDC) control of physical space. Only
when a building is under control of its occupants does its use value surpass its exchange
value in importance in determining its fate (Barton, 1977, p.21). Organizing groups
should be separate from CDCs because of the danger of funders trying to control organizing efforts and the demands of development overwhelming organizing (White, 1993; Bratt,

I Urban Political Economy: Community Redevelopment I 13

1994; Rubin, 1997). They must also be organized carefully to prevent homeowners and
business owners from dominating poor renters (Goetz & Sidney, 1993). These features of
a new model of community development and empowerment are, with the crucial exception
of the capitalist-resistant economic focus, similar to the original CDC model. The implementation of this model is very different, however, and consists of two components: a
community controlled organizing/planning process and the high capacity multilocal CDC.

Organize, Organize, Plan

Oppressed communities may benefit more by putting organizing before development. In
Boston, the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative (DSNI) focused on organizing as the
means to development while partnering to do actual physical redevelopment (Medoff &
Sklar, 1994). In Minneapolis, the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood residents placed neighborhood organizing and planning in the hands of the Project Area Committee, limiting their
CDC to implementing plans produced through the organizing process (Stoecker, 1994). In
San Antonio, Communities Organized for Public Service (COPS) resisted pressure to
become a CDC [in the words of their lead organizer, Ernest0 Cortes (1995) for the obvious reasons] after they achieved control of much of San Antonios CDBG budget (Reitzes
& Reitzes, 1987; Warren, 1995, Rogers, 1990; Sekul, 1983). CRA challenges, using a community organizing model, have produced enormous resources for community-based
development: $7.5 billion by one estimate (Puls, 1991), including a $400 million settlement in Boston, $373 million in Chicago, (Squires, 1992), and $1 billion in Detroit
(Everett, 1992). Bradford and Cincotta (1992, p.269) conclude All of the other facets of
reinvestment hinge upon the driving force of strong community organization.
It is also clear that successful organizing must lead to development, but only when organizing is seen as the guiding force that creates the development opportunities (Medoff &
Sklar, 1994, p.261). When communities are not organized first, development is less likely
to succeed (Medoff & Sklar, 1994). Organizing by itself may even be as successful as
CDCs in making development happen. (Twelvetrees, 1989, p. 132). The literature also
shows that participation in neighborhood organizations increases confidence, efficacy,
power, identification with the community, interaction, mutual aid, leadership development,
and problem solving capacity (Checkoway, 1985). Organizing to prevent capital flight or
speculation can be more effective than trying to mop up afterward (Giloth, 1985). Even
squatting campaigns have led to successful redevelopment (Schuman, 1990).
Gone are the days when the villains were clear and visible, however. Communities are
less threatened today by the rogue speculative investor than by disinvestment attacking
from the shadows. Capitalist disinvestment has so disrupted community networks that special forms of organizing that first build neighborhood relationships may be necessary
before the community can engage in more public struggle (Stall & Stoecker, 1994).
Defending against and recovering from the forces that cause decay also require education
and planning as much as strategy and tactics. Hamilton (1992), following Dean and Dowling (1987), describes a process that begins with some threat arousing the community and
then invokes a learning process as organizers help community members explore the causes
and ramifications of the threat. The community conducts research and begins a planning/
organizing process that leads to social action. After evaluating their efforts, they expand on
their initial organizing to spin-off development activity.

14 I JOURNAL OF URBAN AFFAIRS I Vol. 79/NO. 1/1997

The most important part of this model is the planning process, increasingly seen by
CDCs as central to development even if neglected in practice (Rubin, 1994b; Giloth, et al.,
1992; Keating et al., 1990). Community-based planning, if done correctly, serves a number
of purposes. First, it builds a sense of community, becoming an organizing process. Second, it educates residents on what resources and threats exist in their neighborhood. Third,
it builds community power, allowing residents to determine what kinds of development
they want and thus better repel speculators. Finally, it helps residents plan for the ideal,
without regard to limitations imposed by elites. Thus, residents are more likely to press for
changes in the limitations rather than restrict their imaginations (Jones, 1990; Fainstein,
1987; Rohe & Gates, 1985; Stoecker, 1993). The planning process in Cedar-Riverside
(which converted hundreds of rental units into co-ops, developed co-op businesses, provided play space for children, changed traffic patterns, and facilitated community gardens
for families) provides the best example of a comprehensive community controlled planning process that puts vision before budget (Stoecker, 1994). In East Toledo, community
controlled planning led to redevelopment of the areas industrial corridor, reviving a major
shipyard and retaining the remaining industries (Stoecker, 1993). This kind of community
controlled planning process also helped DSNI pressure government to grant it eminent
domain powers (Medoff and Sklar, 1994, p.265).
Cities such as Raleigh, North Carolina, Arlington, Virginia, Portland, Oregon, and Minneapolis, Minnesota, now have city-sponsored neighborhood planning programs
(Stoecker, 1993). The results of the most evaluated program, in Minneapolis, are mixed,
given the domination of the program by elites and the divisions between homeowners and
renters created by clashes of self-interest (Goetz & Sidney, 1993). However, the planning
process does seem to increase resident participation in the neighborhoods and, in two
cases, has enhanced community organizing. The Bancroft neighborhood planning process
helped start community organizing where none previously existed (Fainstein & Hirst,
1994). The Jordan Area Community Councils planning process prevented disruption of
already strong organizing activity by doing a plan independent of funding expectations
(Goetz & Sidney, 1993).
Making sure the planning/organizing process is inclusive and builds community rather
than internal conflict is crucial. If a CDC leads the planning process by putting a limited
budget on the table that will not meet the communitys needs, trouble will follow. If the
community engages in a planning process that makes no assumptions about funding, a plan
can evolve which includes everyones desires in some shape. While there are a number of
good community-based planning models (Rohe & Gates, 1985; Jones, 1990; Cassidy,
19801, Reardons (n.d.; East St. Louis Action Research Project, ESLARP, 1996) empowerment planning model used in East St. Louis is important to note. This model assumes that
poor neighborhoods mostly need power to get empowering redevelopment. Consequently,
the process emphasizes developing local peoples organizations. The expert planner helps
develop citizen leaders and provides specialized information to residents who then become
experts of a sort. The communitys ownership of the planning process motivates residents
to pressure capital and government to fund implementation.
The importance of the planning process being truly comprehensive cannot be emphasized enough (Stoecker, 1993). Lemann (1994) notes that one of the negative consequences
of all past ghetto revitalization programs has been that residents move out as soon as their

I Urban Political Economy: Community Redevelopment I 15

personal circumstances improve, disrupting community networks and draining community

resources. People need to first have a sense of control over their community. Unless democratic control can be institutionalized people become worn down by constant uncertainty
and struggle and will often trade their gains for individual mobility (Barton, 1977, p.27).
Residents also need material reasons to stay, which means that their personal circumstances and their surroundings must improve together. That means redevelopment cannot
be conducted by a small CDC doing a house here or there. It requires a massive influx of
resources all at once and that is where the high capacity CDC comes in.

The High Capacity Multilocal CDC

We know that large CDCs accomplish more than small CDCs and that there is some
point below which the CDC is so small it is useless for anything except as an example for
elites to use in victim blaming. We also know that The accountability of CDCs to the
neighborhoods in which they operate is an important question, to which no general solution
has.. .been found (Twelvetrees, 1989, p.142). Finally, it is clear that CDC professionals
care about neighborhoods and are more effective and sensitive developers of low income
housing than any other source, but However humane CDCs actually are, we have to think
of them as potential predators (Twelvetrees, 1989, p.175). It is too much to expect a CDC
to be large enough to do the job, accountable enough to remain under community control,
and resistant enough to market pressures attempting to co-opt its agenda. DSNI, in fact,
experienced some of its greatest problems when it was forced to add development to its
organizing and planning agendas. DSNI shifted later development projects to regular
CDCs, arguing that protecting its development potential meant defining itself as organizer, planner, monitor, enabler, and protector of the community interests (Medoff &
Sklar, 1994, p.269). CDCs, on the other hand, are niche organizations most useful for
bridging the gap between activists, service providers, and resource holders (Rubin, 1997).
Addressing this dilemma requires doing away with the mythology of the CDC as community-based. CDCs must attend to their own financial pressures. They are not good at
organizing and they must trade off development and empowerment. Removing the burden
of the community-based label accomplishes a number of things. First, it removes the possibility of scapegoating the community when redevelopment fails. Second, it admits to the
CDCs potential community disrupting qualities, allowing residents to better organize to
protect themselves. Third, it removes a competing voice from the neighborhood, allowing
residents voices to be heard without the filter of a developer.
Thus, we must clean up the acronym-laden fog of organizational definitions. Community
development corporations, nonprofit housing developers, community-based organizations,
community-based development organizations, community housing development organizations, and all the other labels only confuse the distinction between community organizing
and community development, a confusion illustrated by a quote from a funder who states
Not all CDCs should be developers (Giloth, et al., 1992, p.58). Let us reserve CDC for
those organizations that build buildings and community organizing group for those organizations that build community power and let us be wary of those who avoid admitting their
priorities.
Next, CDCs must enhance their capital capacity. European CDCs produce as much as
55% of the housing in Sweden and 35% in the Netherlands (Adams, 1990). When we

16 I JOURNAL OF URBAN AFFAIRS I Vol. 19/No. 1/1997

remove the community-based mythology from the CDC, each neighborhood no longer
needs, nor should want, their own CDC. In Toledo, many small neighborhoods each have
their own CDC, few large enough to do more than fill a couple of business spaces or rehab
a couple of houses each year. Large CDCs have more capital capacity, more political
capacity, and more collective talent to conduct physical redevelopment that can outpace
community deterioration. This, of course, also makes them a greater threat, but there are a
number of ways to deal with this.
The most important means of countering the large CDCs power is to make sure there are
strong community organizing groups with comprehensive and detailed redevelopment
plans, similar to the model used in the Cedar-Riverside and Dudley Street neighborhoods.
While organizing groups do not need the kind of development expertise that CDCs have,
they at least need to know how to construct development contracts that hold CDCs
accountable. There are also informal accountability tactics. The Cedar-Riverside Project
Area Committee controlled community organizing and planning, separating those tasks
from the CDCs economic agenda. Committee members packed CDC meetings when necessary, meticulously followed each project, and at one point tried to disband the CDC when
it strayed from community principles (Stoecker, 1994). Community organizing groups can
collectively press for policies that prevent CDCs from operating in poor neighborhoods
unless they contribute to independent organizing efforts. They can also demand a share of
the city budget to support organizing. With the recent establishment of the National Organizers Alliance, there is likely to be more collective and well networked organizing talent
available than has been the case for a while. To the extent that there will be problems with
the representativeness of some organizing groups, sensitive CDCs can refuse to do development in those neighborhoods. Unrepresentative organizing groups will not be able to
muster the collective force to pressure a reluctant CDC to do the wrong thing.

Fight the Power

Is such a model (reemphasizing community organizing, expanding the capitalization of
CDCs, and planning for redevelopment) practical or possible? The first question is whether
CDC professionals will accept a model that reduces CDC power but expands CDC capacity and emphasizes that CDCs are good at development, not community. Some CDCs will
argue that development itself is empowering, but renting a shoebox apartment from a CDC
is no more empowering than renting it from any responsible landlord. Co-ops can be
empowering, employee-owned businesses can be empowering, and other community controlled economic and housing alternatives can be empowering. Developing those
alternatives cannot happen without organizing the community because those alternatives
threaten the power of capitalists and thus depend on community cooperation and collective
action.
Advocates of the old model may object to the emphases on community-based planning
for empowering redevelopment, arguing that poor people do not have the time, interest, or
skills to participate in such endeavors. Who wants to go to a bunch of meetings to create
plans that will never be fulfilled anyway? Why should we try to help poor people become
homeowners, or co-op owners, when apartments are the most practical option for them?
These objections border dangerously on elitism. It is only a short step to say poor people
are too lazy and stupid to do something like this. Yes, it is very difficult to get people to

I Urban Political Economy: Community Redevelopment I 17

meetings, especially when they are convinced that their participation will be of no consequence, but that is the result of an urban redevelopment process that does not provide real
community control and substantial resources. Poor and working class people will participate in meetings, and,planning processes, that will lead to dreams that will come true. As I
have noted, there are well documented cases of this from San Antonio, Minneapolis, Boston, Toledo, and Los Angeles. Not helping people to express their dreams destroys their
imaginations, supports the imposition of artificial limits by the ruling class, and ultimately
accepts injustice.
Finally, there is the potential objection that people need housing now; they need jobs
now; they need services now. If that is the case, it is equally valid to help people occupy
vacant housing now, to help them march now on wealthy corporations laying off workers,
to help them protest now to politicians attempting to destroy government at every level.
Furthermore, none of what I have said argues that CDCs should not continue to serve
immediate needs, only that we rethink the kind of relationship CDCs have to poor communities. It is scary to hear some argue for the apolitical approach of using a CDC to create a
few low-wage jobs after a year of paper pushing when a strong, well-funded organizing
campaign could pressure large corporations to provide many more better paid jobs.
Granted, those jobs are controlled by outside employers, but good jobs controlled by outside employers are better than bad jobs controlled by them. Development is the result of a
strong community, not the cause.
There is a larger problem and it is the perennial problem for going beyond the existing
CDC model: Who is going to pay for all this? A federal government in financial tatters,
walled-in corporations, foundations that trickle minuscule resources on gargantuan problems? Our acceptance of these political realities as technical realities, however, contributes
to the problem. Yes, homeownership for the poor is not practical until we fight for the poor
to receive homeownership subsidies comparable to those received by the middle and upper
classes, until we demand real controls on corporate exploitation, and until we act on the
understanding that foundation funds are really monies not paid to the workers to begin
with. Of course, development cannot be done without strong government dollars, hefty private sector participation, and enormous foundation support, but the money is there.
Accessing it is a political problem, not a technical problem. This is one of the wealthiest
countries on the planet. The fact that our cities are in tatters is not because of a shortage of
money but because of a shortage of justice.
Is this too radical and unrealistic? Can funders be convinced to give tens of millions of
dollars to comprehensiveredevelopment in a single neighborhood?Can they be convinced
to give that money only in support of neighborhood-based plans? Can support develop for
market-resistant subsidies to community owned and controlled businesses that keep wealth
in the neighborhood? Can government be revived to represent the people, rather than the
wealthy, and to manage an economy so that profit produces jobs rather than lines the pockets of the rich? Can CDCs be convinced to adopt a new identity that emphasizes their
importance in conducting sensitive affordable redevelopment but makes them secondary to
organizations emphasizing community empowerment?
The obvious, quick, wrong answer is no. That no seems to be the answer is only
because we have come so far down the CDC model path that we have forgotten the real
issue is power, not development. Much of the art of community organizing has been lost or

18 I JOURNAL OF URBAN AFFAIRS I Vol. 79/No. 7/7997

has not kept pace with the increasing sophistication of elites in hiding the real causes of
urban decay. So long as the antagonism exists between capital and community, development alone cannot produce empowerment. However, good community organizing
produced state and national voting rights for women in the early 1900s, historical social
safety net legislation of the 1930s, voting rights for African-Americans in the 1960s, an end
to a war in the 1970s, landmark environmental laws, the Community Reinvestment Act, the
relocation of the people of Love Canal, and on and on and on. Community organizing is not
impractical and unrealistic; its timetable for success is no longer than for the technical
development approach and the first barrier to its implementation is our inability to inspire
our own imaginations. These ideals are unlikely to be achieved in the short term. That
makes it even more important that we not accept a redevelopment model which promotes
the current national and corporate priorities and myths and undermines the potential for
community development and empowerment.
1995 Planners Network annual meetings, the 1995 American Sociological Association annual meetings, and the H-Net/
H-Urban History of Community Organizing and Community-based Development online seminar
moderated by Wendy Plotkin. I thank Tim Mungaven, Ron Randall, Lucy Gerlach, Herb Rubin, Ed
Goetz, Angela Stuber, Tim Siegel, Mickey Lauria, John Cabral, Wendy Plotkin, Dave Beckwith,
Pedro Huesa, Elliot Smith, Ben Marquez and anonymous reviewers for the Journal of Urban Affairs
for detailed comments on earlier drafts.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: This paper is a revised version of papers presented at the

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