Redefining civic participation: Non-profits, redevelopment and democracy

The focus of this work is civic participation by immigrants in the revitalization of their urban community. Building on theories of social and cultural capital, as well as urban political approaches, this primarily ethnographic study contends that participation is a racialized, gendered, propertied project that precludes the active and meaningful participation of a growing segment of the U.S. population. This research includes interviews of Latino, Asian, African American residents, mostly immigrants, as well as residents from European descent. The second part of this work uses U.S. Census and other demographic analysis to ascertain the impact of redevelopment on the residents of this community.; This work begins by examining the parallel views of participation that exist in City Heights, a multi-ethnic urban community in San Diego, California. At one level, a public-private partnership in collaboration with predominantly white homeowners, is successfully revitalizing this urban area. I argue that this approach privileges efficiency over democratic processes. An alternative view of participation is offered by an elementary school in City Heights, where a 'relational approach' to participation is used. This approach incorporates culture, language, economic and social conditions as part of the participatory equation. The results include the active involvement of more than 600 African, Asian, Latino, African-American parents and 800 children in a series of literacy nights, as well as the active participation of immigrants in governance committees.; This dissertation concludes with a list of policy recommendation that call for greater understanding of the local social structures in urban communities, and for the development of a systematic and consistent way of connecting these local structures to the larger political-economic structures. In addition, this work concludes that the process of urban renewal has not changed significantly. The faces may have changed, technology and globalization have made the process more complicated, but the outcomes are strikingly similar to those of the redevelopment initiative of the Eisenhower and Kennedy years. Urban renewal is still hardest on the poor. It continues to result in a decline in affordable housing without significant replacement, and it continues to ignore the voices of those most affected by these changes.