Community Organizing and Community-Based Redevelopment in Cedar-Riverside and East Toledo:

Abstract

This paper addresses the question of the extent to which community organizing and community-based redevelopment are complementary or contradictory. Two neighborhoods are compared which transformed from community organizing movements to community- based redevelopment movements. In Cedar-Riverside, a neighborhood with radical counter-culture roots, militant community organizing to stop a high-rise redevelopment plan gave way to community- based redevelopment efforts to build low-density co-op housing. In East Toledo, a neighborhood characterized by strong East European immigrant culture and traditionalism, militant community organizing to stop a four-lane road and reverse city service cuts led to community-based redevelopment activities around jobs and infrastructure improvement in an effort to bring industry back to the area. These two examples show how community organizing is necessary for successful community-based redevelopment, and also how conflicts created by community-based redevelopment undermine c...