| This dissertation, a theory-building exercise involving community development in an inner city neighborhood of Mobile, Alabama, delves into the relationship between the municipal government and the amalgam of social connections, civic participation, and trust that has fallen under the rubric of social capital. This study focuses on Trinity Gardens, a community of some 4,300 residents that was once one of Mobile's most crime-ridden and blighted neighborhoods. In 1997, however, a newly seated Mobile city council member decided to mobilize his district, which took in most of Trinity Gardens. He first held an emergency meeting, at which he recruited volunteers for a community policing-oriented citizen's group. Its meetings would be attended by a cross-section of community leaders and the municipal bureaucracy. The councilman also encouraged a new women's civic group with development aims to meet with older neighborhood organizations, as well as police. A partnership between municipal and neighborhood leaders was thus formed, one that allowed a broadening of efforts after time. In its analysis of these developments, this work backs up the study of community capacity in public education, and World Bank research into simultaneous top-down and bottom-up development efforts. The research nevertheless suggests that the effect of leadership was also significant. It also suggests that there existed serious institutional, as well as socioeconomic, impediments to cooperation across sectoral and municipal boundaries. |
