An asset-based approach to policymaking: revisiting the history of urban planning and neighborhood change in Cincinnati’s West End

Abstract

While planners and policymakers have recognized the role of the local assets, including physical capital (housing stock, roads, and the public space) and social capital (the informal networks of trust and reciprocity) in creating healthy communities, the nexus between such assets and policymaking remains vague. This article explores this linkage by chronicling the implementation of various urban policies, including triage, urban renewal, the Model Cities Program, and the Housing Opportunities for People Everywhere (HOPE VI Program) in the West End of Cincinnati. The critical examination of such programs helps us to differentiate between an asset-based as opposed to the conventional need-based approach to policymaking, and to explore the mutual impacts of government policies and the target groups that are affected by them; policies could result in the formation or destruction of the local assets (social capital). The study offers a conceptual framework consisting of policy networks defined in terms of policy type and target groups. Two additional concepts used to evaluate the mutual impacts of policies and target groups include interconnectedness (the strength of relationship between government and the target group) and cohesion (the distribution of objectives among the actors).