INCORPORATING CHANGE: GOVERNMENT PATRONAGE AND THE URBAN GARDENING MOVEMENT (COLLECTIVIST, BUREAUCRATIC, CLIENTALIST, ORGANIZATIONS, COMMUNITY)

This work examines the role of public agencies in the development of the urban gardening movement in America during the 1970s. This study is primarily concerned with the question of why certain social change efforts, like the urban gardening movement, often have been provided with official support and have many of their objectives rapidly and smoothly incorporated by government agencies. These organized efforts stand in sharp contrast to movements sociologists typically study, those that face uphill struggles for recognition and success, are accompanied by opposition and turmoil, and make use of confrontational strategies. By using the urban gardening as a case study, the dissertation examines those features of opposition-free movements that apparently are responsible for the high level of official support that they receive.; It is argued that while the structure and ideology of the movement provided the framework for official support, the key factor was the movement's emphasis of providing food production opportunities to urban dwellers. This feature furnished government agencies with the rationale both to support movement groups and to incorporate its program within their existing service delivery systems; it was a clientalist movement.; The study then assesses the characteristics of public agencies that assisted the movement, and the effects of official support on the movement's organizations and on participants in urban garden projects. It shows that differences in the organizational cultures of agencies and movement groups led to distinct interpretations of the urban gardening experience which jeopardized the nature of movement groups and the gardening experience itself.; The data for this study were obtained by fieldwork conducted at some three dozen urban gardening projects, by intensive interviews with over a hundred movement organization representatives and government officials, by participant observation conducted at several movement conferences and organizational meetings, and by archival research.