The Community Control Movement In The United States In The Middle And Late 20th Century

In the late 1960 s,the Community control movement broke out in the United States.Community control refers to the return of power to the residents in the community,and the residents control part or all of the affairs of the community.Its purpose is to expand the residents’ participation in the urban political life,and to fight against the local government that overemphasizes specialization and centralization.This paper mainly discusses the cause and process of the outbreak of the community control movement,analyzes the difficulties encountered by the community control movement and its impact.This paper is divided into four parts.The first part discusses the background and causes of the outbreak of the community control movement,including the American tradition of self-government and its practice,the failure of traditional regionalism theory and reform,the absence of community representation,the sharp contradiction between communities and the promotion of citizen participation by the federal government.Although the community control movement broke out in the late 1960 s,its reasons can be traced back to the tradition of local autonomy that existed in the Colonial period of The United States.The spirit of self-government embodied in the tradition of American local autonomy,the enthusiasm for small government and the enthusiasm for political participation deeply influenced the community control movement.In addition,many practical problems,such as the excessive concentration of municipal power in disregard of the people’s will,the deprivation of community representation,the intentional favoritism of some communities at the expense of others,and the decline of the central city,have prompted many communities to want to leave the control of the municipal government.The federal government’s array of local aid programs has helped.The community control movement is a community movement initiated from the bottom up and empowered from the top down,which contains many cases.Therefore,the second part first uses induction method to discuss the general situation of community control movement.Since the specific process of the community control movement is relative to specific communities,this part adopts the method of case analysis,taking the black community control movement in New York City in the late1960 s and the Community Development Company in Bedford-Stuyvesant community as examples to summarize and analyze the specific process of the community control movement.The third part mainly analyzes the difficulties encountered by the community in the process of community control,including the difficulties of boundary demarcation,power acquisition,fund acquisition and management.There have been many successful cases of community control in the United States and many failures.The lack of independent funds,excellent talents and effective management mechanism is a common difficulty encountered by the community in the community control movement.In addition,the ambiguity of community boundaries and the small size of communities also make it difficult for communities to gain power.These difficulties have an important impact on the success or failure of community control.The last part mainly analyzes the influence of community control movement.The influence of the community control movement is mainly reflected in its influence on local politics and society in the United States.In local politics,the community control movement promotes the reform of urban decentralization and slows down the trend towards centralization of local government.However,due to the growth of community autonomy,the fragmentation of American local politics has become more serious.In terms of social influence,the community control movement is a movement initiated by residents at the bottom of the community,which is conducive to maintaining the interests of the community residents and alleviating various social contradictions caused by the dissatisfaction of the community residents.