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Obstacles to collective action in socially disadvantaged neighbourhoods : toward a radical planning theory of community crime prevention

University of British Columbia

This dissertation examines the capacity of socially disadvantaged neighbourhoods to collectively mobilize around a significant local problem, in this case crime. The problem addressed is the inability of community crime prevention (CCP) programs to promote a broadly based mobilization of residents in socially disadvantaged neighbourhoods. This study advances CCP scholarship by identifying and critically examining the obstacles that impede the mobilization of poor neighbourhoods around crime prevention. Based upon primary research conducted in a poor inner-city Vancouver neighbourhood, this study reveals that CCP programs have been unable to initiate and sustain a broadly based mobilization of local residents, despite a widespread concern over crime. The findings of this study reveal myriad factors that obstruct a mobilization of Mount Pleasant residents. These obstacles can be discerned at three levels: the community, the organizational and the structural. Obstacles at the community level can be identified by examining the demographic and sociopsychological factors related to non-participation, such as socioeconomic status, race, tenure of residence, social integration, and community cohesion. Organizational obstacles stem from the deficiencies of crime prevention groups and activities in promoting collective action, including inappropriate and ineffectual community outreach. Obstacles to collective action are rooted in the dominant institutions and ideologies of advanced western societies: individualism, the liberal political economy, the dominance of the state in social control, and technical approaches to local social problem solving. The iiiobstacles at the three levels are not mutually exclusive, but critically interconnected. A finding of the study is that the application of traditional CCP theory has failed to incite a broadly based mobilization of Mount Pleasant residents because of epistemological shortcomings, erroneous assumptions, and a lack of attention to processes essential to CCP. To overcome the obstacles, this study reconceptualizes CCP, emphasizing strategies that empower poor neighbourhoods. First, CCP is reconceptualized as a social movement so that its collective action processes can be isolated and the obstacles to a broadly based mobilization better understood. Second, CCP is imbued with radical planning theories that provide normative process-oriented strategies missing from traditional CCP theory, including: social mobilization, social learning, undistorted communication, and decentralized decision-making and control.

Thesis/Dissertation

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2009-04-20

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http://hdl.handle.net/2429/7399

Planning

University of British Columbia

UBCV

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