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The original Ladder of Participation devised by Sherry Arnstein in 1969

1. A New Ladder Of Citizen Participation Pdf To Excel Converter

Some of you may know that, in 1969, Sherry Arnstein looked at citizen control and how citizen participation helps people achieve it. As she worked in America she used the word ‘citizen’ – an American term for our ‘general public’ or ‘people’. The word ‘citizen’ has now been adopted in the NHS.

Sherry studied different citizen campaigns in different parts of the USA and published her conclusions in an academic paper. Her work shook up both the political thinking of the time and its comfortable democratic principles.

She talked about the ‘have nots’, as citizens/people without power, and about how citizen participation was a means for them to gain some influence over the affluent society they lived in, and a share in some of its benefits. Her Ladder shows the different levels of citizen participation that measure how much control people are allowed to have over aspects of their lives.

She also described how, the closer the ‘have nots’ got to achieving full citizen control, the more barriers and excuses were introduced by those holding the power to make the decisions that affected their lives. And, how these barriers and excuses showed the discrimination that existed at the time.

• Participation is a buzz-word that means different things to different people. One way of looking at participation is using a version of the ‘ladder of participation’ first developed by Sherry Arnstein. This is now 20 years old, but is still relevant.
• According to Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, the word derives from the Middle English participacioun. “A Ladder of Citizen Participation.

Sherry was working on this at the end of the ’60s, a time when there was the American civil rights movement, the anti-Vietnam War movement and student unrest everywhere. A poster she saw created by French students in the 1968 Paris uprising particularly inspired her.

‘I participate, You participate, He participates, We participate, You participate, They Profit’

It’s uncanny how relevant the words from her paper are today – nearly half a century later.

“The heated controversy over “citizen participation”, “citizen control”, and “maximum feasible involvement of the poor”, has been waged largely in terms of exacerbated rhetoric and misleading euphemisms.”

At miss world 2012 top 15 announcement of new employee englishman in new york. Gastroenterologia pdf to excel playas de loreto baja california sur.

“The idea of citizen participation is a little like eating spinach: no one is against it in principle because it is good for you. Participation of the governed in their government is, in theory, the cornerstone of democracy-a revered idea that is vigorously applauded by virtually everyone.”

“And when the have-nots define participation as redistribution of power, the American consensus on the fundamental principle explodes into many shades of outright racial, ethnic, ideological, and political opposition.”

This version of her Ladder of Participation clearly summarises her analysis:

Only a decade ago people in many places across the country experienced participation in the NHS at rungs 6 and 7 of the Ladder of Participation which Arnstein describes as Citizen Power.

Whereas in today’s NHS in England ‘citizens’ are allowed no more than rungs 3, 4 and 5 of the Ladder of Participation, which Arnstein describes as Tokenism.

But the NHS, in England, is now introducing the two lowest levels of Arnstein’s Ladder of Participation (1 ‘manipulation’ & 2 ‘therapy’) by encouraging people to manage their own health. As part of the Sustainability and Transformation Plans and New Models of Care we are now expected to change our lifestyles and to ‘self-manage’ any long term conditions we may live with. The NHS describes this new expectation as ‘patient involvement, or participation, in their care’ but Arnstein describes it very clearly as Nonparticipation.

Even worse – only a few weeks ago – NHS England’s Patient and Public Participation Team introduced their new, supposedly improved, ‘Citizen’ Participation programme. But this will only work at levels 1 – 5 of the Ladder – which is ‘Nonparticipation‘ and ‘Tokenism‘.

The people’s voice in the NHS has been taken away – why?

A decade ago the NHS was proud of working with patients, and the public, to improve services which then began to work better than they had for a long time. Why are the ideas and suggestions of the people using the NHS now considered so dangerous that they need to be silenced? It is really disappointing that the level of Participation in the NHS has sunk so low in such a relatively short time.

Why is this necessary – why is the public voice so dangerous?

The Ladder below describes a modern version of Arnstein’s Ladder of Participation created by a French student in 2009 showing how ‘citizen control’ is seen as dangerous by those holding the power and control. The 1968 Paris student slogan is included (top right), and the spelling is interesting but the message is perfectly clear.

Arnstein’s Ladder, created to describe how people could gain power and control over their lives, has been ‘diluted’ over the years by those holding the power.

Each time her Ladder is simplified its meaning is diluted as there is no reference to her clear analysis. The very simplified version shown here is often used to show Arnstein’s Ladder.

But when compared to the detailed one shown earlier it tells us very little.

The one the right is a New Economics Foundation version, many ‘co-‘ words, but no clear explanation or analysis!

N.B. It was included, on P20, in the Northern Ireland Health Minister’s 10 year plan to save their health service ‘Health & Wellbeing 2026, Delivering Together’ that was published last Tuesday (25/10/16).

This is produced by Governance International, a consultancy set up in the ’00s, one of the new Involvement Industry. They help public services to ‘focus on smart savings and innovations to achieve better citizen outcomes‘!

Well they have a tree surrounded by all the ‘co-‘ words – so they must be good!

Finally – Arnstein’s Ladder of Participation, created to describe how people could gain power and control over their lives, has now been adopted by big business.

There is now a Ladder of Participation for On-line Customers.

Another about Loyalty to a Brand, for the marketing department.

There is even a ‘success’ Ladder for all those ambitious middle managers!!

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Note

Originally published as Arnstein, Sherry R. 'A Ladder of CitizenParticipation,' JAIP, Vol. 35, No. 4, July 1969, pp. 216-224. I donot claim any copyrights.

Webmasters comment, February 2006.

This article has proved quite popular since I put it online inNovember 2004, there were over 1000 requests for the text just thisJanuary. I think that's great and welcome any comments you have,especially about success stories about giving power to communitiesin making decisions for themselves. You can contact me by visiting thecontact page for Duncan Lithgow.

This article is about power structures in society and how theyinteract. Specifically it is a guide to seeing who has power whenimportant decisions are being made. It is quite old, butnever-the-less of great value to anyone interested in issues ofcitizen participation. The concepts discussed in this article about1960's America apply to any hierarchical society but are stillmostly unknown, unacknowledged or ignored by many people around theworld. Most distressing is that even people who have the job ofrepresenting citizens views seem largely unaware, or evendismissive of these principles. Many planners, architects,politicians, bosses, project leaders and power-holder still dressall variety of manipulations up as 'participation in the process','citizen consultation' and other shades of technobable.

This article was reprinted in 'The City Reader' (second edition)edited by Richard T. Gates and Frederic Stout, 1996, RoutledgePress. Their editors' introduction is well worth reading.

Please copy and re-distribute this article. Let's work to helppeople understand the difference between 'citizen control' and'manipulation'. If you're reading this then I assume you areinterested in empowering people to take charge of their lives andtheir surrounding. I salute you for this work.

Enjoy. ( You can also download this documentin other formats. )

Because the question has been a bone of political contention,most of the answers have been purposely buried in innocuouseuphemisms like 'self-help' or 'citizen involvement.' Still othershave been embellished with misleading rhetoric like 'absolutecontrol' which is something no one - including the President of theUnited States - has or can have. Between understated euphemisms andexacerbated rhetoric, even scholars have found it difficult tofollow the controversy. To the headline reading public, it issimply bewildering.

My answer to the critical what question is simply that citizenparticipation is a categorical term for citizen power. It is theredistribution of power that enables the have-not citizens,presently excluded from the political and economic processes, to bedeliberately included in the future. It is the strategy by whichthe have-nots join in determining how information is shared, goalsand policies are set, tax resources are allocated, programs areoperated, and benefits like contracts and patronage are parceledout. In short, it is the means by which they can induce significantsocial reform which enables them to share in the benefits of theaffluent society.

There is a critical difference between going through the emptyritual of participation and having the real power needed to affectthe outcome of the process. This difference is brilliantlycapsulized in a poster painted last spring [1968] by the Frenchstudents to explain the student-worker rebellion. (See Figure 1.)The poster highlights the fundamental point that participationwithout redistribution of power is an empty and frustrating processfor the powerless. It allows the powerholders to claim that allsides were considered, but makes it possible for only some of thosesides to benefit. It maintains the status quo. Essentially, it iswhat has been happening in most of the 1,000 Comm-unity ActionPrograms, and what promises to be repea-ted in the vast majority ofthe 150 Model Cities programs.

Figure 1. French student poster. InEnglish, 'I participate, you participate, he participates, weparticipate, you participate...they profit.'

A typology of eight levels of participation may help in analysisof this confused issue. For illustrative pur-poses the eight typesare arranged in a ladder pattern with each rung corres-ponding tothe extent of citizens' power in deter-mining the end product. (SeeFigure 2.)

Figure 2. Eight rungs on the ladderof citizen participation

The bottom rungs of the ladder are (1) Manipulation and (2)Therapy. These two rungs describe levels of 'non-participation'that have been contrived by some to substitute for genuineparticipation. Their real objective is not to enable people toparticipate in planning or conducting programs, but to enablepowerholders to 'educate' or 'cure' the participants. Rungs 3 and 4progress to levels of 'tokenism' that allow the have-nots to hearand to have a voice: (3) Informing and (4) Consultation. When theyare proffered by powerholders as the total extent of participation,citizens may indeed hear and be heard. But under these conditionsthey lack the power to insure that their views will be heeded bythe powerful. When participation is restricted to these levels,there is no follow-through, no 'muscle,' hence no assurance ofchanging the status quo. Rung (5) Placation is simply a higherlevel tokenism because the ground rules allow have-nots to advise,but retain for the powerholders the continued right to decide.

Further up the ladder are levels of citizen power withincreasing degrees of decision-making clout. Citizens can enterinto a (6) Partnership that enables them to negotiate and engage intrade-offs with traditional power holders. At the topmost rungs,(7) Delegated Power and (8) Citizen Control, have-not citizensobtain the majority of decision-making seats, or full managerialpower.

Obviously, the eight-rung ladder is a simplification, but ithelps to illustrate the point that so many have missed - that thereare significant gradations of citizen participation. Knowing thesegradations makes it possible to cut through the hyperbole tounderstand the increasingly strident demands for participation fromthe have-nots as well as the gamut of confusing responses from thepowerholders.

Though the typology uses examples from federal programs such asurban renewal, anti-poverty, and Model Cities, it could just aseasily be illustrated in the church, currently facing demands forpower from priests and laymen who seek to change its mission;colleges and universities which in some cases have become literalbattlegrounds over the issue of student power; or public schools,city halls, and police departments (or big business which is likelyto be next on the expanding list of targets). The underlying issuesare essentially the same - 'nobodies' in several arenas are tryingto become 'somebodies' with enough power to make the targetinstitutions responsive to their views, aspirations, and needs.

The ladder juxtaposes powerless citizens with the powerful inorder to highlight the fundamental divisions between them. Inactuality, neither the have-nots nor the powerholders arehomogeneous blocs. Each group encompasses a host of divergentpoints of view, significant cleavages, competing vested interests,and splintered subgroups. The justification for using suchsimplistic abstractions is that in most cases the have-nots reallydo perceive the powerful as a monolithic 'system,' and powerholdersactually do view the have-nots as a sea of 'those people,' withlittle comprehension of the class and caste differences amongthem.

It should be noted that the typology does not include ananalysis of the most significant roadblocks to achieving genuinelevels of participation. These roadblocks lie on both sides of thesimplistic fence. On the powerholders' side, they include racism,paternalism, and resistance to power redistribution. On thehave-nots' side, they include inadequacies of the poor community'spolitical socioeconomic infrastructure and knowledge-base, plusdifficulties of organizing a representative and accountablecitizens' group in the face of futility, alienation, anddistrust.

Another caution about the eight separate rungs on the ladder: Inthe real world of people and programs, there might be 150 rungswith less sharp and 'pure' distinctions among them. Furthermore,some of the characteristics used to illustrate each of the eighttypes might be applicable to other rungs. For example, employmentof the have-nots in a program or on a planning staff could occur atany of the eight rungs and could represent either a legitimate orillegitimate characteristic of citizen participation. Depending ontheir motives, powerholders can hire poor people to co-opt them, toplacate them, or to utilize the have-nots' special skills andinsights. Some mayors, in private, actually boast of their strategyin hiring militant black leaders to muzzle them while destroyingtheir credibility in the black community.

It is in this context of power and powerlessness that thecharacteristics of the eight rungs are illustrated by examples fromcurrent federal social programs.

In the name of citizen participation, people are placed onrubberstamp advisory committees or advisory boards for the expresspurpose of 'educating' them or engineering their support. Insteadof genuine citizen participation, the bottom rung of the laddersignifies the distortion of participation into a public relationsvehicle by powerholders.

This illusory form of 'participation' initially came into voguewith urban renewal when the socially elite were invited by cityhousing officials to serve on Citizen Advisory Committees (CACs).Another target of manipulation were the CAC subcommittees onminority groups, which in theory were to protect the rights ofNegroes in the renewal program. In practice, these sub-committees,like their parent CACs, functioned mostly as letterheads, trottedforward at appropriate times to promote urban renewal plans (inrecent years known as Negro removal plans).

At meetings of the Citizen Advisory Committees, it was theofficials who educated, persuaded, and advised the citizens, notthe reverse. Federal guidelines for the renewal programslegitimized the manipulative agenda by emphasizing the terms'information-gathering,' public relations,' and 'support' as theexplicit functions of the committees.

This style of nonparticipation has since been applied to otherprograms encompassing the poor. Examples of this are seen inCommunity Action Agencies (CAAs) which have created structurescalled 'neighborhood councils' or 'neighborhood advisory groups.'These bodies frequently have no legitimate function or power. TheCAAs use them to 'prove' that 'grassroots people' are involved inthe program. But the program may not have been discussed with 'thepeople.' Or it may have been described at a meeting in the mostgeneral terms; 'We need your signatures on this proposal for amulti-service center which will house, under one roof, doctors fromthe health department, workers from the welfare department, andspecialists from the employment service.'

The signatories are not informed that the $2 million-per-yearcenter will only refer residents to the same old waiting lines atthe same old agencies across town. No one is asked if such areferral center is really needed in his neighborhood. No onerealizes that the contractor for the building is the mayor'sbrother-in-law, or that the new director of the center will be thesame old community organization specialist from the urban renewalagency.

After signing their names, the proud grass-rooters dutifullyspread the word that they have 'participated' in bringing a new andwonderful center to the neighborhood to provide people withdrastically needed jobs and health and welfare services. Only afterthe ribbon-cutting ceremony do the members of the neighborhoodcouncil realize that they didn't ask the important questions, andthat they had no technical advisors of their own to help them graspthe fine legal print. The new center, which is open 9 to 5 onweekdays only, actually adds to their problems. Now the oldagencies across town won't talk with them unless they have a pinkpaper slip to prove that they have been referred by 'their' shinynew neighborhood center.

Unfortunately, this chicanery is not a unique example. Insteadit is almost typical of what has been perpetrated in the name ofhigh-sounding rhetoric like 'grassroots participation.' This shamlies at the heart of the deep-seated exasperation and hostility ofthe have-nots toward the powerholders.

One hopeful note is that, having been so grossly affronted, somecitizens have learned the Mickey Mouse game, and now they too knowhow to play. As a result of this knowledge, they are demandinggenuine levels of participation to assure them that public programsare relevant to their needs and responsive to their priorities.

In some respects group therapy, masked as citizen participation,should be on the lowest rung of the ladder because it is bothdishonest and arrogant. Its administrators - mental health expertsfrom social workers to psychiatrists - assume that powerlessness issynonymous with mental illness. On this assumption, under amasquerade of involving citizens in planning, the experts subjectthe citizens to clinical group therapy. What makes this form of'participation' so invidious is that citizens are engaged inextensive activity, but the focus of it is on curing them of their'pathology' rather than changing the racism and victimization thatcreate their 'pathologies.'

Consider an incident that occurred in Pennsylvania less than oneyear ago. When a father took his seriously ill baby to theemergency clinic of a local hospital, a young resident physician onduty instructed him to take the baby home and feed it sugar water.The baby died that afternoon of pneumonia and dehydration. Theoverwrought father complained to the board of the local CommunityAction Agency. Instead of launching an investigation of thehospital to determine what changes would prevent similar deaths orother forms of malpractice, the board invited the father to attendthe CAA's (therapy) child-care sessions for parents, and promisedhim that someone would 'telephone the hospital director to see thatit never happens again.'

Less dramatic, but more common examples of therapy, masqueradingas citizen participation, may be seen in public housing programswhere tenant groups are used as vehicles for promotingcontrol-your-child or cleanup campaigns. The tenants are broughttogether to help them 'adjust their values and attitudes to thoseof the larger society.' Under these ground rules, they are divertedfrom dealing with such important matters as: arbitrary evictions;segregation of the housing project; or why is there a three-monthtime lapse to get a broken window replaced in winter.

The complexity of the concept of mental illness in our time canbe seen in the experiences of student/civil rights workers facingguns, whips, and other forms of terror in the South. They neededthe help of socially attuned psychiatrists to deal with their fearsand to avoid paranoia.

Informing citizens of their rights, responsibilities, andoptions can be the most important first step toward legitimatecitizen participation. However, too frequently the emphasis isplaced on a one-way flow of information - from officials tocitizens - with no channel provided for feedback and no power fornegotiation. Under these conditions, particularly when informationis provided at a late stage in planning, people have littleopportunity to influence the program designed 'for their benefit.'The most frequent tools used for such one-way communication are thenews media, pamphlets, posters, and responses to inquiries.

Meetings can also be turned into vehicles for one-waycommunication by the simple device of providing superficialinformation, discouraging questions, or giving irrelevant answers.At a recent Model Cities citizen planning meeting in Providence,Rhode Island, the topic was 'tot-lots.' A group of elected citizenrepresentatives, almost all of whom were attending three to fivemeetings a week, devoted an hour to a discussion of the placementof six tot-lots. The neighborhood is half black, half white.Several of the black representatives noted that four tot-lots wereproposed for the white district and only two for the black. Thecity official responded with a lengthy, highly technicalexplanation about costs per square foot and available property. Itwas clear that most of the residents did not understand hisexplanation. And it was clear to observers from the Office ofEconomic Opportunity that other options did exist which,considering available funds would have brought about a moreequitable distribution of facilities. Intimidated by futility,legalistic jargon, and prestige of the official, the citizensaccepted the 'information' and endorsed the agency's proposal toplace four lots in the white neighborhood.

Inviting citizens' opinions, like informing them, can be alegitimate step toward their full participation. But if consultingthem is not combined with other modes of participation, this rungof the ladder is still a sham since it offers no assurance thatcitizen concerns and ideas will be taken into account. The mostfrequent methods used for consulting people are attitude surveys,neighborhood meetings, and public hearings.

When powerholders restrict the input of citizens' ideas solelyto this level, participation remains just a window-dressing ritual.People are primarily perceived as statistical abstractions, andparticipation is measured by how many come to meetings, takebrochures home, or answer a questionnaire. What citizens achieve inall this activity is that they have 'participated inparticipation.' And what powerholders achieve is the evidence thatthey have gone through the required motions of involving 'thosepeople.'

Attitude surveys have become a particular bone of contention inghetto neighborhoods. Residents are increasingly unhappy about thenumber of times per week they are surveyed about their problems andhopes. As one woman put it: 'Nothing ever happens with those damnedquestions, except the surveyor gets $3 an hour, and my washingdoesn't get done that day.' In some communities, residents are soannoyed that they are demanding a fee for research interviews.

Attitude surveys are not very valid indicators of communityopinion when used without other input from citizens. Survey aftersurvey (paid for out of anti-poverty funds) has 'documented' thatpoor housewives most want tot-lots in their neighborhood whereyoung children can play safely. But most of the women answeredthese questionnaires without knowing what their options were. Theyassumed that if they asked for something small, they might just getsomething useful in the neighborhood. Had the mothers known that afree prepaid health insurance plan was a possible option, theymight not have put tot-lots so high on their wish lists.

A classic misuse of the consultation rung occurred at a NewHaven, Connecticut, community meeting held to consult citizens on aproposed Model Cities grant. James V. Cunningham, in an unpublishedreport to the Ford Foundation, described the crowd as large andmostly hostile:

Members of The Hill Parents Association demanded to know whyresidents had not participated in drawing up the proposal. CAAdirector Spitz explained that it was merely a proposal for seekingFederal planning funds -that once funds were obtained, residentswould be deeply involved in the planning. An outside observer whosat in the audience described the meeting this way: 'Spitz and MelAdams ran the meeting on their own. No representatives of a Hillgroup moderated or even sat on the stage. Spitz told the 300residents that this huge meeting was an example of 'participationin planning.' To prove this, since there was a lot ofdissatisfaction in the audience, he called for a 'vote' on eachcomponent of the proposal. The vote took this form: 'Can I see thehands of all those in favor of a health clinic? All those opposed?'It was a little like asking who favors motherhood.'

It was a combination of the deep suspicion aroused at thismeeting and a long history of similar forms of 'window-dressingparticipation' that led New Haven residents to demand control ofthe program.

By way of contrast, it is useful to look at Denver wheretechnicians learned that even the best intentioned among them areoften unfamiliar with, and even insensitive to, the problems andaspirations of the poor. The technical director of the Model Citiesprogram has described the way professional planners assumed thatthe residents, victimized by high-priced local storekeepers, 'badlyneeded consumer education.' The residents, on the other hand,pointed out that the local store-keepers performed a valuablefunction. Although they overcharged, they also gave credit, offeredadvice, and frequently were the only neighborhood place to cashwelfare or salary checks. As a result of this consultation,technicians and residents agreed to substitute the creation ofneeded credit institutions in the neighborhood for a consumereducation pro-gram.

It is at this level that citizens begin to have some degree ofinfluence though tokenism is still apparent. An example ofplacation strategy is to place a few hand-picked 'worthy' poor onboards of Community Action Agencies or on public bodies like theboard of education, police commission, or housing authority. Ifthey are not accountable to a constituency in the community and ifthe traditional power elite hold the majority of seats, thehave-nots can be easily outvoted and outfoxed. Another example isthe Model Cities advisory and planning committees. They allowcitizens to advise or plan ad infinitum but retain for powerholdersthe right to judge the legitimacy or feasibility of the advice. Thedegree to which citizens are actually placated, of course, dependslargely on two factors: the quality of technical assistance theyhave in articulating their priorities; and the extent to which thecommunity has been organized to press for those priorities.

It is not surprising that the level of citizen participation inthe vast majority of Model Cities programs is at the placation rungof the ladder or below. Policy-makers at the Department of Housingand Urban Development (HUD) were determined to return the genie ofcitizen power to the bottle from which it had escaped (in a fewcities) as a result of the provision stipulating 'maximum feasibleparticipation' in poverty programs. Therefore, HUD channeled itsphysical-social-economic rejuvenation approach for blightedneighborhoods through city hall. It drafted legislation requiringthat all Model Cities' money flow to a local City DemonstrationAgency (CDA) through the elected city council. As enacted byCongress, this gave local city councils final veto power overplanning and programming and ruled out any direct fundingrelationship between community groups and HUD.

HUD required the CDAs to create coalition, policy-making boardsthat would include necessary local powerholders to create acomprehensive physical-social plan during the first year. The planwas to be carried out in a subsequent five-year action phase. HUD,unlike OEO, did not require that have-not citizens be included onthe CDA decision-making boards. HUD's Performance Standards forCitizen Participation only demanded that 'citizens have clear anddirect access to the decision-making process.'

Accordingly, the CDAs structured their policy-making boards toinclude some combination of elected officials; schoolrepresentatives; housing, health, and welfare officials; employmentand police department representatives; and various civic, labor,and business leaders. Some CDAs included citizens from theneighborhood. Many mayors correctly interpreted the HUD provisionfor 'access to the decision-making process' as the escape hatchthey sought to relegate citizens to the traditional advisoryrole.

Most CDAs created residents' advisory committees. An alarminglysignificant number created citizens' policy boards and citizens'policy committees which are totally misnamed as they have either nopolicy-making function or only a very limited authority. Almostevery CDA created about a dozen planning committees or task forceson functional lines: health, welfare, education, housing, andunemployment. In most cases, have-not citizens were invited toserve on these committees along with technicians from relevantpublic agencies. Some CDAs, on the other hand, structured planningcommittees of technicians and parallel committees of citizens.

In most Model Cities programs, endless time has been spentfashioning complicated board, committee, and task force structuresfor the planning year. But the rights and responsibilities of thevarious elements of those structures are not defined and areambiguous. Such ambiguity is likely to cause considerable conflictat the end of the one-year planning process. For at this point,citizens may realize that they have once again extensively'participated' but have not profited beyond the extent thepowerholders decide to placate them.

Results of a staff study (conducted in the summer of 1968 beforethe second round of seventy-five planning grants were awarded) werereleased in a December 1968 HUD bulletin. Though this publicdocument uses much more delicate and diplomatic language, itattests to the already cited criticisms of non-policy-making policyboards and ambiguous complicated structures, in addition to thefollowing findings:

1. Most CDAs did not negotiate citizen participation requirementswith residents.

2. Citizens, drawing on past negative experiences with localpowerholders, were extremely suspicious of this new panaceaprogram. They were legitimately distrustful of city hall'smotives.

3. Most CDAs were not working with citizens' groups that weregenuinely representative of model neighborhoods and account-able toneighborhood constituencies. As in so many of the poverty programs,those who were involved were more representative of the upwardlymobile working-class. Thus their acquiescence to plans prepared bycity agencies was not likely to reflect the views of theunemployed, the young, the more militant residents, and thehard-core poor.

4. Residents who were participating in as many as three to fivemeetings per week were unaware of their minimum rights,responsibilities, and the options available to them under theprogram. For example, they did not realize that they were notrequired to accept technical help from city technicians theydistrusted.

5. Most of the technical assistance provided by CDAs and cityagencies was of third-rate quality, paternalistic, andcondescending. Agency technicians did not suggest innovativeoptions. They reacted bureaucratically when the residents pressedfor innovative approaches. The vested interests of the old-linecity agencies were a major - albeit hidden - agenda.

6. Most CDAs were not engaged in planning that was comprehensiveenough to expose and deal with the roots of urban decay. Theyengaged in 'meetingitis' and were supporting strategies thatresulted in 'projectitis,' the outcome of which was a 'laundrylist' of traditional pro-grams to be conducted by traditionalagencies in the traditional manner under which slums emerged in thefirst place.

7. Residents were not getting enough information from CDAs toenable them to review CDA developed plans or to initiate plans oftheir own as required by HUD. At best, they were gettingsuperficial information. At worst, they were not even gettingcopies of official HUD materials.

8. Most residents were unaware of their rights to be reimbursed forexpenses incurred because of participation - babysitting,trans-portation costs, and so on. The training of residents, whichwould enable them to under-stand the labyrinth of thefederal-state-city systems and networks of subsystems, was an itemthat most CDAs did not even consider.

These findings led to a new public interpretation of HUD'sapproach to citizen participation. Though the requirements for theseventy-five 'second-round' Model City grantees were not changed,HUD's twenty-seven page technical bulletin on citizen participationrepeatedly advocated that cities share power with residents. Italso urged CDAs to experiment with subcontracts under which theresidents' groups could hire their own trusted technicians.

A more recent evaluation was circulated in February 1969 byOSTI, a private firm that entered into a contract with OEO toprovide technical assistance and training to citizens involved inModel Cities programs in the north-east region of the country.OSTI's report to OEO corroborates the earlier study. In addition itstates:

In practically no Model Cities structure does citizenparticipation mean truly shared decision-making, such that citizensmight view them-selves as 'the partners in this program. ...'

In general, citizens are finding it impossible to have asignificant impact on the comprehensive planning which is going on.In most cases the staff planners of the CDA and the planners ofexisting agencies are carrying out the actual planning withcitizens having a peripheral role of watchdog and, ultimately, the'rubber stamp' of the plan generated. In cases where citizens havethe direct responsibility for generating program plans, the timeperiod allowed and the independent technical resources being madeavailable to them are not adequate to allow them to do anythingmore than generate very traditional approaches to the problems theyare attempting to solve.

In general, little or no thought has been given to the means ofinsuring continued citizen participation during the stage ofimplementation. In most cases, traditional agencies are envisagedas the implementers of Model Cities programs and few mechanismshave been developed for encouraging organizational change or changein the method of program delivery within these agencies or forinsuring that citizens will have some influence over these agenciesas they implement Model Cities programs ... By and large, peopleare once again being planned for. In most situations the majorplanning decisions are being made by CDA staff and approved in aformalistic way by policy boards.

At this rung of the ladder, power is in fact redistributedthrough negotiation between citizens and powerholders. They agreeto share planning and decision-making responsibilities through suchstructures as joint policy boards, planning committees andmechanisms for resolving impasses. After the groundrules have beenestablished through some form of give-and-take, they are notsubject to unilateral change.

Partnership can work most effectively when there is an organizedpower-base in the community to which the citizen leaders areaccount-able; when the citizens group has the financial resourcesto pay its leaders reasonable honoraria for their time-consumingefforts; and when the group has the resources to hire (and fire)its own technicians, lawyers, and community organizers. With theseingredients, citizens have some genuine bargaining influence overthe outcome of the plan (as long as both parties find it useful tomaintain the partnership). One community leader described it 'likecoming to city hall with hat on head instead of in hand.'

In the Model Cities program only about fifteen of the so-calledfirst generation of seventy-five cities have reached somesignificant degree of power-sharing with residents. In all but oneof those cities, it was angry citizen demands, rather than cityinitiative, that led to the negotiated sharing of power. Thenegotiations were triggered by citizens who had been enraged byprevious forms of alleged participation. They were both angry andsophisticated enough to refuse to be 'conned' again. Theythreatened to oppose the awarding of a planning grant to the city.They sent delegations to HUD in Washington. They used abrasivelanguage. Negotiation took place under a cloud of suspicion andrancor.

In most cases where power has come to be shared it was taken bythe citizens, not given by the city. There is nothing new aboutthat process. Since those who have power normally want to hang ontoit, historically it has had to be wrested by the powerless ratherthan proffered by the powerful.

Such a working partnership was negotiated by the residents inthe Philadelphia model neighborhood. Like most applicants for aModel Cities grant, Philadelphia wrote its more than 400 pageapplication and waved it at a hastily called meeting of communityleaders. When those present were asked for an endorsement, theyangrily protested the city's failure to consult them on preparationof the extensive application. A community spokesman threatened tomobilize a neighborhood protest against the application unless thecity agreed to give the citizens a couple of weeks to review theapplication and recommend changes. The officials agreed.

At their next meeting, citizens handed the city officials asubstitute citizen participation section that changed thegroundrules from a weak citizens' advisory role to a strong sharedpower agreement. Philadelphia's application to HUD included thecitizens' substitution word for word. (It also included a newcitizen prepared introductory chapter that changed the city'sdescription of the model neighborhood from a paternalisticdescription of problems to a realistic analysis of its strengths,weaknesses, and potentials.) Consequently, the proposedpolicy-making committee of the Philadelphia CDA was revamped togive five our of eleven seats to the residents' organization, whichis called the Area Wide Council (AWC). The AWC obtained asubcontract from the CDA for more than $20,000 per month, which itused to maintain the neighborhood organization, to pay citizenleaders $7 per meeting for their planning services, and to pay thesalaries of a staff of community organizers, planners, and othertechnicians. AWC has the power to initiate plans of its own, toengage in joint planning with CDA committees, and to review plansinitiated by city agencies. It has a veto power in that no plansmay be submitted by the CDA to the city council until they havebeen reviewed, and any differences of opinion have beensuccessfully negotiated with the AWC. Representatives of the AWC(which is a federation of neighborhood organizations grouped intosixteen neighbor-hood 'hubs') may attend all meetings of CDA taskforces, planning committees, or sub-committees.

Though the city council has final veto power over the plan (byfederal law), the AWC believes it has a neighborhood constituencythat is strong enough to negotiate any eleventh-hour objections thecity council might raise when it considers such AWC proposedinnovations as an AWC Land Bank, an AWC Economic DevelopmentCorporation, and an experimental income maintenance program for 900poor families.

Negotiations between citizens and public officials can alsoresult in citizens achieving dominant decision-making authorityover a particular plan or program. Model City policy boards or CAAdelegate agencies on which citizens have a clear majority of seatsand genuine specified powers are typical examples. At this level,the ladder has been scaled to the point where citizens hold thesignificant cards to assure accountability of the program to them.To resolve differences, powerholders need to start the bargainingprocess rather than respond to pressure from the other end.

Such a dominant decision-making role has been attained byresidents in a handful of Model Cities including Cambridge,Massachusetts; Dayton, and Columbus, Ohio; Minneapolis, Minnesota;St. Louis, Missouri; Hartford and New Haven, Connecticut; andOakland, California.

In New Haven, residents of the Hill neighborhood have created acorporation that has been delegated the power to prepare the entireModel Cities plan. The city, which received a $117,000 planninggrant from HUD, has subcontracted $110,000 of it to theneighborhood corporation to hire its own planning staff andconsultants. The Hill Neighborhood Corporation has elevenrepresentatives on the twenty-one-member CDA board which assures ita majority voice when its proposed plan is reviewed by the CDA.

Another model of delegated power is separate and parallel groupsof citizens and power-holders, with provision for citizen veto ifdifferences of opinion cannot be resolved through negotiation. Thisis a particularly interesting coexistence model for hostile citizengroups too embittered toward city hall - as a result of past'collaborative efforts' - to engage in joint planning.

Since all Model Cities programs require approval by the citycouncil before HUD will fund them, city councils have final vetopowers even when citizens have the majority of seats on the CDABoard. In Richmond, California, the city council agreed to acitizens' counter-veto, but the details of that agreement areambiguous and have not been tested.

Various delegated power arrangements are also emerging in theCommunity Action Program as a result of demands from theneighborhoods and OEO's most recent instruction guidelines whichurged CAAs 'to exceed (the) basic requirements' for residentparticipation. In some cities, CAAs have issued subcontracts toresident dominated groups to plan and/or operate one or moredecentralized neighborhood program components like a multipurposeservice center or a Headstart program. These contracts usuallyinclude an agreed upon line-by-line budget and programspecifications. They also usually include a specific statement ofthe significant powers that have been delegated, for example:policy-making; hiring and firing; issuing subcontracts forbuilding, buying, or leasing. (Some of the subcontracts are sobroad that they verge on models for citizen control.)

Demands for community controlled schools, black control, andneighborhood control are on the increase. Though no one in thenation has absolute control, it is very important that the rhetoricnot be confused with intent. People are simply demanding thatdegree of power (or control) which guarantees that participants orresidents can govern a program or an institution, be in full chargeof policy and managerial aspects, and be able to negotiate theconditions under which 'outsiders' may change them.

A neighborhood corporation with no intermediaries between it andthe source of funds is the model most frequently advocated. A smallnumber of such experimental corporations are already producinggoods and/or social services. Several others are reportedly in thedevelopment stage, and new models for control will undoubtedlyemerge as the have-nots continue to press for greater degrees ofpower over their lives.

Though the bitter struggle for community control of the OceanHill-Brownsville schools in New York City has aroused great fearsin the headline reading public, less publicized experiments aredemonstrating that the have-nots can indeed improve their lot byhandling the entire job of planning, policy-making, and managing aprogram. Some are even demonstrating that they can do all this withjust one arm because they are forced to use their other one to dealwith a continuing barrage of local opposition triggered by theannouncement that a federal grant has been given to a communitygroup or an all black group.

Most of these experimental programs have been capitalized withresearch and demonstration funds from the Office of EconomicOpportunity in cooperation with other federal agencies. Examplesinclude:

1. A $1.8 million grant was awarded to the Hough Area DevelopmentCorporation in Cleveland to plan economic development pro-grams inthe ghetto and to develop a series of economic enterprises rangingfrom a novel combination shopping-center-public-housing project toa loan guarantee program for local building contractors. Themembership and board of the nonprofit corporation is composed ofleaders of major community organizations in the blackneighborhood.

2. Approximately $1 million ($595,751 for the second year) wasawarded to the Southwest Alabama Farmers' Cooperative Association(SWAFCA) in Selma, Alabama, for a ten-county marketing cooperativefor food and livestock. Despite local attempts to intimidate thecoop (which included the use of force to stop trucks on the way tomarket) first year membership grew to 1,150 farmers who earned$52,000 on the sale of their new crops. The elected coop board iscomposed of two poor black farmers from each of the teneconomically depressed counties.

3. Approximately $600,000 ($300,000 in a supplemental grant) wasgranted to the Albina Corporation and the Albina Investment Trustto create a black-operated, black-owned manufacturing concern usinginexperienced management and unskilled minority group personnelfrom the Albina district. The profitmaking wool and metalfabrication plant will be owned by its employees through a deferredcompensation trust plan.

4. Approximately $800,000 ($400,000 for the second year) wasawarded to the Harlem Commonwealth Council to demonstrate that acommunity-based development corporation can catalyze and implementan economic development program with broad community support andparticipation. After only eighteen months of program developmentand negotiation, the council will soon launch several large-scaleventures including operation of two super-markets, an auto serviceand repair center (with built-in manpower training program), afinance company for families earning less than $4,000 per year, anda data processing company. The all black Harlem-based board isalready managing a metal castings foundry.

Though several citizen groups (and their mayors) use therhetoric of citizen control, no Model City can meet the criteria ofcitizen control since final approval power and account-ability restwith the city council.

Daniel P. Moynihan argues that city councils are representativeof the community, but Adam Walinsky illustrates thenonrepresentativeness of this kind of representation:

Who . . . exercises 'control' through the representativeprocess? In the Bedford-Stuyvesant ghetto of New York there are450,000 people - as many as in the entire city of Cincinnati, morethan in the entire state of Vermont. Yet the area has only one highschool, and SO per cent of its teenagers are dropouts; the infantmortality rate is twice the national average; there are over 8000buildings abandoned by everyone but the rats, yet the area receivednot one dollar of urban renewal funds during the entire first 15years of that program's operation; the unemployment rate is knownonly to God.

Clearly, Bedford-Stuyvesant has some special needs; yet it hasalways been lost in the midst of the city's eight million. In fact,it took a lawsuit to win for this vast area, in the year 1968, itsfirst Congressman. In what sense can the representative system besaid to have 'spoken for' this community, during the long years ofneglect and decay?

Walinsky's point on Bedford-Stuyvesant has general applicabilityto the ghettos from coast to coast. It is therefore likely that inthose ghettos where residents have achieved a significant degree ofpower in the Model Cities planning process, the first-year actionplans will call for the creation of some new community institutionsentirely governed by residents with a specified sum of moneycontracted to them. If the groundrules for these programs are clearand if citizens understand that achieving a genuine place in thepluralistic scene subjects them to its legitimate forms ofgive-and-take, then these kinds of programs might begin todemonstrate how to counteract the various corrosive political andsocioeconomic forces that plague the poor.

In cities likely to become predominantly black throughpopulation growth, it is unlikely that strident citizens' groupslike AWC of Philadelphia will eventually demand legal power forneighborhood self-government. Their grand design is more likely tocall for a black city achieved by the elective process. In citiesdestined to remain predominantly white for the foreseeable future,it is quite likely that counterpart groups to AWC^ will press forseparatist forms of neighborhood government that can create andcontrol decentralized public services such as police protection,education systems, and health facilities. Much may depend on thewillingness of city governments to entertain demands for resourceallocation weighted in favor of the poor, reversing grossimbalances of the past.

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Among the arguments against community control are: it supportsseparatism; it creates balkanization of public services; it is morecostly and less efficient; it enables minority group 'hustlers' tobe just as opportunistic and disdainful of the have-nots as theirwhite predecessors; it is incompatible with merit systems andprofessionalism; and ironically enough, it can turn out to be a newMickey Mouse game for the have-nots by allowing them to gaincontrol but not allowing them sufficient dollar resources tosucceed. These arguments are not to be taken lightly. But neithercan we take lightly the arguments of embittered advocates ofcommunity control - that every other means of trying to end theirvictimization has failed!