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Organizing Diversity: Scales of Demographic Change and Neighborhood Organizing in St Paul, MN

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  • Deborah G Martin

    (School of Geography, Clark University, Worcester, MA 01610, USA)

  • Steven R Holloway

    (Department of Geography, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602, USA)

Abstract

Neighborhood involvement in urban governance remains a pressing goal in an era of globalization. Cities have instituted a variety of structures to facilitate this involvement, including quasi-formal neighborhood or district councils. At the same time, urban populations are changing rapidly because of multiple dynamics operating at multiple scales. Immigration, for example, continues to transform inner-city neighborhoods despite the emergence of suburban immigrant enclaves. Existing research inadequately addresses the interaction between efforts to organize neighborhood political involvement and the dynamic nature of urban populations. We examine St Paul, Minnesota—a locale with a well-established neighborhood district-council system and a vibrant and rapidly growing immigrant community. Indeed, immigrants from Southeast Asia and East Africa are moving into neighborhoods that up until the early 1990s were predominantly white. Using a multimethod empirical analysis, we argue that the district-council system, while recognizing and empowering local-level organization, fails to provide adequate resources for neighborhoods to address social dynamics that operate at much broader scales. An index of ethnic and racial diversity computed with census data shows that St Paul experienced a significant overall increase in diversity during the 1990s. Although inner-city neighborhoods remained the most diverse, residential areas developed after World War 2 also diversified considerably. Interviews with neighborhood organizers based in part on tabular and cartographic displays revealed a wide variety of strategies and responses to changing ethnic and racial diversity. Predominant, however, was a mismatch between the scale at which demographic change occurs, and the scale of ‘neighborhood’ action embedded within the district-council system.

Suggested Citation

  • Deborah G Martin & Steven R Holloway, 2005. "Organizing Diversity: Scales of Demographic Change and Neighborhood Organizing in St Paul, MN," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 37(6), pages 1091-1112, June.
  • Handle: RePEc:sae:envira:v:37:y:2005:i:6:p:1091-1112
    DOI: 10.1068/a36142
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Danny MacKinnon, 2001. "Regulating Regional Spaces: State Agencies and the Production of Governance in the Scottish Highlands," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 33(5), pages 823-844, May.
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    Cited by:

    1. Adam Marc Pine, 2011. "The Temporary Permanence of Dominican Bodegueros in Philadelphia," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 48(4), pages 641-660, March.
    2. Andrew Gorman-Murray & Gordon Waitt, 2009. "Queer-Friendly Neighbourhoods: Interrogating Social Cohesion across Sexual Difference in Two Australian Neighbourhoods," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 41(12), pages 2855-2873, December.
    3. Dan Trudeau, 2008. "Junior Partner or Empowered Community? The Role of Non-profit Social Service Providers amidst State Restructuring in the US," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 45(13), pages 2805-2827, December.

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