CHAPTER 19 ·ng the Movement: The \l, ~hiladelphia: Tem_ple What Community Supplies •,Ii Robert J. Sampson

Community seems to be the modern elixir for community is in order. The loss is expressed much of what ails American society, Indeed, most frequently in terms of the decline of as we reflect on the wrenching social changes civic life and the deterioration of local that have shaped our recent past, calls for a neighborhoods. return to community values are everywhere. But if community has come to mean From politicians to private foundations to everything good, as a concept it loses its ana­ real estate developers to criminal justice lytical bite and therefore means nothing. officials to communitarians, the appeal of What exactly do we mean by community? community is ubiquitous. Does the term refer to geographic locales, Consider just a few examples of the efforts such as neighborhoods? Or to common mem­ to mobilize action under the rubric of com- - bership in some association or group? Does it munity. Among private foundations many mean shared values and deep commitments, programs have settled on community as a and if so to what? What in fact does com­ conceptual umbrella to coordinate new ini­ munity supply that makes it so in demand? tiatives. Meanwhile the growing Community Not only are the answers unclear, the current development corporation (CDC) movement appropriation of community rhetoric elides has long singled out community as a mean­ any references to the dark side of communal ingful unit of social intervention to improve life. One might ask, what do we stand to the lives of the poor. In the criminal justice lose by a return to community-what does system the move to community-based strat­ community deny? Perhaps more important, egies has included increased community does the current drumbeat of allusions to policing, community-based prosecution pol­ community values bespeak a mythical past, icies, and community corrections. Even real raising the paradox of returning to nowhere? estate developers are beginning to take heed The thesis of this chapter is that com­ of modern discontent with urban sprawl and munity does matter, albeit not in the simple suburban anonymity. They are proffering way that current yearning suggests. Com­ new visions of living arrangements that pro­ munities are an important arena for realizing mote neighborliness, local interaction, and common values and maintaining effective common physical space with architectural social controls. As such, they provide impor­ integrity, all in an attempt to restore some tant public goods, or what many have termed semblance of community. And in intellectual "social capital," that bear on patterns of discussions, the rise of communitarianism social organization and human well-being. as a serious movement is centered on com­ There is hope in this conception, for it reveals munity responsibility and civic engagement ways to harness social change to reflect the as the structure supporting social justice and nature of transformed (not lost) communi­ the good society. ties. Especially in low-income, socially dis­ Whatever the source, there has emerged a advantaged neighborhoods, dimensions of widespread idea that something has been lost social capital may work to buffer the forces in American society and that a return to of sociodemographic changes that have 164 I ROBERT J. SAMPSON

battered the idea of community. But the con­ later expanded these concerns by pos1trng cept is not an unqualified good, and thus one that size, density, heterogeneity, and ano­ must also come to grips with such potential nymity were socially disintegrative features adverse consequences as local corruption that characterized rapidly changing cities. Be and the social exclusion of outsiders. contended that these defining elements con­ To tackle these matters, this chapter begins strained social relations to be impersonal and by reviewing some of the defining themes of superficial and that this estrangement under­ community and neighborhood, placing pres­ mined family life and the intimate bonds of ent concerns within the framework of intel­ local community. lectual history. Although not apparent from Wellman (1979) summarizes this classical recent debates, there is a long history of tradition in urban sociology under the label research and theory on urbanism and com­ "Community Lost," invoking the idea that munity in the United States. the social ties of modern-urbanites have I next highlight the social dimensions by become impersonal, transitory, and seg­ which communities in the United States are mented, hastening the ec_lipse of community stratified ecologically. Neighborhoods vary a and feeding the process of social disorganiza­ great deal in terms of racial isolation and the tion. Community Lost is thus a salient theme concentration of socioeconomic resources, that has a venerable history in twentieth­ and social dislocations· such as crime and century America. poor health come bundled in geographical Research, however, suggests that Wirth's space. thesis is naive and the pronouncement of the I then turn to the heart of the topic: what loss of community premature. Ethnographic community supplies and how structural research in the 1950s and 1960s discovered forces in the larger society shape the internal thriving urban communities and ethnic dynamics of communities. Specifically, I enclaves where kinship and friendship flour­ explicate a theory of community social ished. Especially in poor urban neighbor­ organization and the public-good aspects of hoods, the evidence of dense social networks social capital such as informal social control and local identification remained strong (see .mechanisms, network ties to extra-local Gans, 1962; Jacobs, 1961; and Stack, 1974). power, mutual trust, capacity for efficacious Even quantitative studies began to chal­ action, and organizational resources that lenge the hegemony of Community Lost. In communities can in theory provide. Just as an important 1975 survey replication in a important, I delineate what research has Rochester, New York, neighborhood of a revealed about the ways structural forces (for study conducted there in 1950, Hunter example, inequality and stability) promote (1975) found a decrease in the use of shop­ or inhibit these public goods. ping, entertainment, and other facilities but no change in informal neighboring and local interaction. Indeed, the local sense of com­ COMMUNITY: LOST, FOUND, munity had increased, leading him to con­ AND LIBERATED clude that "the hypothesized consequences of an ecological and functional increase in scale The "loss of community" is by no means a have not resulted in a social and cultural­ new concern. The basis of the classic urban symbolic loss of.community." Summarizing paradigm in sociology is related to the mas­ these findings, ethnographic and quantitative sive social changes of the late nineteenth and alike, Wellman (1979) declared a mid-century early twentieth centuries. Concern c;wer the era of "Community Saved." presumed decline of traditional forms of per­ As suburbanization and technological sonal association in small towns and neigh­ change have increased in the past two dec­ borhoods under the advance of urbanization ades, scholarship has begun to reach a and industrialization was widely expressed compromise in the Community Lost and by early sociologists such as Tonnies, Durk­ Community Saved arguments. The research heim, Simmel, and Weber. Wirth (1938) of theorists on social networks has shown WHAT COMMUNITY SUPPLIES j 165 that, contrary to the assumptions of a decline shop, work, go to church, and make friends in primary relations and to the Community throughout geographical space and, increas­ Saved image of dense parochial ties, modern ingly, cyber space. This alone suggests that urbanites have created non-spatial com­ interventions in the local community are munities-viable social relations dispersed in unlikely to succeed if they attempt to pene­ space (Tilly, 1973). Modern urban dwellers, trate the private world of personal relations. for example, might not know (or want to I contend that we do not need com­ know) their neighbors on an intimate basis, munities so much to satisfy our private and but they are likely to have interpersonal personal needs, which are best met else­ networks spread throughout the city, state, where, nor even to meet our sustenance and even country. Wellman refers to this needs, which for better or worse appear to expanded concept of community as "Com­ irretrievably dispersed in space\Rather, local munity Liberated," or what might be thought community remains essential as a site for the of as community beyond propinquity. This realization of common values in support of does not mean local relations are unimport­ social goods, including public safety, norms ant, but only that they are no longer control­ of civility and mutual trust, efficacious vol­ ling for many areas of social life. untary associations, and collective socializa~ Fischer (1982) has presented a similar tion of the young,_____...--~ vision of what urbanism has wrought and The local community remains important what it means to think of communities as lib­ for another reason-economic resources and erated. Clarity is accomplished by emphasiz­ social-structural differentiation in general ing the distinction between the public and are very much spatially shaped in the United private spheres of social life. In the urban States. Income, education, housing stock­ world of strangers a person typically has the the bedrock of physical and human capital­ capacity to know people categorically, to are distributed unevenly across geographical place them by appearance (age, ethnicity, space, often· iri conjunction with ascribed lifestyle) in one of many urban subcultures. characteristics such as racial composition. But this is a situational not a psychological The continuing and in some cases increasing style, and it says nothing about attitudes and significance of such ecological differentiation action in the private sphere. City dwellers is fundamental to our understanding of com­ have not lost the capacity for deep, long­ munity. lasting relationships; rather they have gained Before addressing ecological differentia­ the capacity for surface, fleeting relationships tion, however, I mu~t first digress to consider that are restricted. Consequently, urbanism's the operational definitions of community effects are specified: estrangement occurs in and neighborhood in modern society. The the public sphere-less helpfulness, more complexity of the phenomenon is staggering; conflict-but not in the private sphere­ Hillery (1984) reviews close to one hundred personal relationships and psychological definitions of neighborhoods. The traditional well-being. definition of a neighborhood, as used by It is unfortunate that the present nostalgia Park, Burgess, and other members of the early for community has emerged almost oblivious Chicago School, refers to an ecological sub­ to a research cycle of Community Lost, Saved, section of a larger community, a collection of and Liberated. The evidence supports the both people and institutions occupying a spa­ argument for Community Liberated, showing tially defined area that is conditioned by a set that community has been transformed rather of ecological, cultural, and political forces. In than lost. I use this framework to understand an almost utopian way, Park defined neigh­ what community supplies in mass society. borhood as "a loCality with sentiments, tra­ The evidence is now clear that urban dwell­ ditions, and a history of its own" (Park, ers rely less than they have in the past on 1916, p. 95). He also claimed that the neigh­ local neighborhoods for psychological sup­ borhood was the basis of social and political port, cultural and religious nourishment, and organization, albeit not in a formal sense. economic needs and transactions. They can Park's definition overstates the cultural 166 [ ROBERT J. SAMPSON

and political distinctiveness of residential pared with only 3 percent of poor whites enclaves, but there are aspects of it worth (Jargowsky, 1997, p. 41). The consequences preserving. Most important is the recogni­ of these distributions are profound because tion first that neighborhoods are an eco­ they mean that relationships between race logical unit and second that they are nested and individual outcomes are systematically within successively larger communities. confounded with important differences in There is no one neighborhood, but many community contexts. neighborhoods that vary in size and com­ The concentration ofpoverty and jobless­ plexity depending on the social phenomenon ness has been fueled by macroeconomic of interest and the ecological structure of the changes related to the deindustrialization larger community. This idea of embedded­ of central cities· where low-income minor­ ness is why Choldin (1984) argues for the ities are disproportionately located. These term subcommunity, emphasizing that the changes include a shift from goods­ local neighborhood is integrally linked to, prodµcing to service-producing industries, and dependent on, a larger whole. For these the increasing polarization of the labor mar­ reasons, one can think of residential neigh­ ket into low-wage and high-wage workers, borhoods as what Suttles (1972, p. 59) calls a and the relocation of manufacturing away "mosaic of overlapping boundaries" or what from the inner cities. The related exodus of Reiss (1996) calls an "imbricated structure." middle- and upper-income black families from the inner city has also, according to Wilson, removed an important social buffer ECOLOGICAL DIFFERENTIATION AND that could potentially deflect the full impact COMMUNITY STRATIFICATION of prolonged joblessness and industrial trans­ formation. Wilson (1996) argues that income A wealth of research has studied the eco­ mixing within communities was more char­ logical differentiation of American cities. acteristic of ghetto neighborhoods in the Research traditions rooted in "social area 1940s and 1950s and th~t inequality among analysis" and "factorial ecology" have estab, communities today has become more pro­ lished structural characteristics that vary nounced as a result of the increasing spatial among neighborhoods,. chiefly along the separation of middle- and upper-income dimensions of socioeconomic stratification blacks from lower-income blacks. (poverty, occupational attainment), family Focusing on racial segregation, Massey structure, residential stability (home owner­ and Denton (1993) describe how, in a segre­ ship, tenure), race or ethnicity, and urbaniza­ gated environment, economic shocks that tion (density). push more people into the ranks of low­ This research has demonstrated that many income earners not only bring about an social indicators coalesce in physical space. increase in the poverty rate for the group as a Current research is attempting to investigate whole but also cause an increase in the geo­ how macro forces lead to the clustering of graphic concentration of poverty. This geo­ social and economic factors in urban areas. graphic intensification occurs because the The best-known result is Wilson's (1987) additional poverty created by macroeco­ theory of "concentration effects" -that arise nomic conditions is spread unevenly over a from living in a neighborhood that is over­ metropolitan area. The greater the segrega­ whelmingly impoverished. Wilson argues tion, "the smaller the number of neighbor­ that the social transformation of inner-city hoods absorbing the shock, and the more areas in recent decades has resulted in an severe the resulting concentration of poverty" increased concentration of the most dis­ (Massey, 1990, p. 337). At the other end of advantaged segments of the urban black the income distribution, the gro:wing geo­ population, especially poor, female-headed graphic concentration of (predominantly families with children. At the national level white) affluence suggests a society increas­ in 1990, fully 25 percent of poor blacks lived ingly bifurcated by wealth. Although for dif­ in concentrated poverty neighborhoods com- ferent reasons, both Wilson and Massey WHAT COMMUNITY SUPPLIES I 167 contend that race-linked social change is a common values of its residents and maintain structural force that is reflected in local effective social controls. Social control should environments. not be equated with repression or forced con­ The recognition of the spatial clustering formity. Rather, it refers to the capacity of a of social problems actually has a long social unit to regulate itself according to history. In the 1920s Shaw and McKay desired principles, to realize collective, as (1969) discovered that the same Chicago opposed to forced, goals. This conception is neighborhoods characterized by poverty, similar to Tilly's (1973) definition of collect­ residential instability, and high rates of crime ive action: the application of a community's and delinquency were also plagued by high pooled resources to common ends. There rates of infant mortality, low birth weight, seems to be a consensus among Americans ' ' tuberculosis, physical abuse, and other fac­ on the virtues of neighborhoods character­ ' tors detrimental to child development. This ized by economic sufficiency, good schools, general empirical finding has emerged adequate housing, and a clean, healthy en­ repeatedly. Clearly, there is a connection vironment. The capacity to achieve such between the healthy development of children common goals is linked to informal relation­ and community structure. ships established for other purposes and In short, research on ecological differ­ more formal efforts to achieve social entiation has established some facts. First, regulation through institutional means (see there is considerable race-linked economic Kornhauser, 1978, p. 24 ). I' inequality among neighborhoods and com­ The present framework of social control munities, evidenced by the clustering of does not rest on homogeneity, whether cul­ indicators of both advantaged and disadvan­ tural or socio-demographic. Diverse popula­ taged socioeconomic status and racial isol­ tions can and do agree on wanting safe ation. Second, social problems come bundled streets. And social conflicts can and do rend at the neighborhood level, including but not communities along the lines of economic limited to crime, social disorder, and poor resources, race, political empowerment, and child health. Third, the ecological concentra­ the role of criminal justice agents in defin­ tion of poverty, racial isolation, and social ing and controlling drug use, gangs, pan­ dislocations appears tO have increased sig­ handling, and police misconduct. Conflict nificantly along with the concentration of usually coalesces around the distribution of affluence, especially during the 1980s and resources and power, not the content of core 1990s. values. As Selznick (1992, pp. 367,369) has Despite increased urbanization and a com­ written, "communities are characterized by plex imbricated structure, neighborhoods structural differentiation as well as by shared and residential subcorilmunities remain per­ consciousness." The goal of community is sistent in American society. As any real estate thus unity in diversity, or the reconciliation agent or homeowner will attest, location of partial and general perspectives on the does matter. It remains for a theory of com­ common good. munity to specify the social mechanisms by This sociological conception of social con­ which structural dimensions of community, trol addresses the longstanding criticism.that especially the concentration of urban pov­ theories of community social organization erty, racial segregation, and residential sta­ deemphasize social conflict. Recognizing that bility, matter. It is to this issue I now turn. collective efforts to achieve common goals are variable and coexist with conflict, I thus use the term "differential social organiza­ THEORY OF COMMUNITY SOCIAL tion." In other words, I accept that com­ ORGANIZATION munities lack homogeneity as I define them and focus on the variable forms of organiza­ At the most general level, community social tion, formal and informal. Furthermore, my organization may be thought of as the ability definition embraces geography rather than of a community structure to realize the solidarity or identity as the major criterion 168 I ROBERT J. SAMPSON

identifying a community. Following Tilly social capital by its functions: it is created (1973, p. 212), I "choose to make territorial­ when the structure of relations among per­ ity define communities and to leave the extent sons facilitates action, "making possible the of solidarity problematic." When formulated achievement of certain ends that in its in this way, the dimensions of community absence would not be possible." Social cap­ social organization are analytically separable ital is a social good embodied in the relations not only from racial segregation, concen­ among persons and positions. In other trated poverty, instability, and other exoge­ words, social capital is lodged not in indi­ nous sources of variation but from the social viduals but in the structure of social organ­ goods that may result. ization. Pntnam (1993, p. 36) has defined social capital in a similar fashion as "features of social organization, such as networks Networks, Social Capital, and norms, and trust, that facilitate coordina"tio~ Collective Efficacy and cooperation for mutual benefit." · The social-control way of thinking about It follows that communities high in social community is grounded in what Kasarda and capital are better able to realize common Janowitz (1974, p. 329) call the "systemic" values and maintain effective social controls. model, in which the local community is Consider the case of childrearing, which viewed as a complex system of friendship is analyzed typically from the perspective and kinship networks, and of formal and of families. Neighborhoods characterized informal associational ties rooted in family by .extensive obligations, expectations, and life, on-going s6cialization processes, and interlocking social networks - connecting local institutions. Important systemic dimen­ adults are best able to facilitate the informal sions of community social organization are social control of children. Such close local the prevalence, interdependence, and over­ networks provide the child with social cap­ lapping nature of social networks, local ital of a collective nature, as reflected in the participation in formal and voluntary organ­ idea that "it takes a whole village to raise a izations, and the span of collective attention child." that the community directs toward local Social networks alone, however, are not problems. sufficient to understand local communities. Thus conceived, the systemic model of After all, networks are, differentially social capital borrows insights gleaned from invoked; and in fact dense, tight-knit net­ the social network paradigm in sociology. As works may actually impede social organiza­ a theoretical project, network analysis rejects tion if they are isolated or weakly linked to the attempt to explain social process in terms collective expectations for action. of individual cognition or categorical attrib­ Private ties notwithstanding, then, it is the utes such as poverty or ethnicity. "What counts linkage of mutual trust and the willingness to more are the social relations among persons intervene for the common good that defines and the structural connections among posi­ the neighborhood context of what Sampson tions. Applied to the local community, net­ et al. (1997) term collective efficacy. Just as work analysis investigates the constraining individuals vary in their capacity for effective and enabling dimensions c;,f patterned rela­ action, so too do neighborhoods vary in their tionships among social actors in an eco­ capacity to achieve common goals. It follows logical system. The important point to take that the collective efficacy of residents is a from this view is that community com­ critical feature of urban neighborhoods, position, the aggregation of individual char­ regardless of the demographic composition acteristics, matters primarily as it bears on of the population. network structure. The systemic or network analysis of social Institutions and Public Control control is theoretically compatible with more recent formulations of what has been termed The present integration of a social capital social capital. Coleman (1988, p. 98) defines and systemic network model of community WHATCOMMUNITYSUPPLIES [ 169 social organization should not be read as on an individual's local friendships and par­ ignoring institutions or the political environ­ ticipation in local social activities even after ment of which local communities are a part. accou"uting for factors such as age, social The institutional component of the systemic class, and life cycle (Sampson, 1988). Con­ model is the neighborhood organizations sistent with the predictions of tbe systemic and their linkages with other organizations, model, these findings suggest that residential within and outside the community. Neigh­ stability promotes a variety of social net­ borhood organizations are the structural works and local associat10ns, thereby embodiment of community solidarity. For increasing the social capital of local com­ example, Kornhauser (1978, p. 79) argues munities. that when the horizontal links among institu­ Neighborhood variations in informal tions in a community are weak, the capacity social control and institutional vitality are to defend local interests is weakened. More­ also systematically linked to patterns of over, institutional strength is not necessarily resource deprivation and racial segregation, isomorphic with neighborhood cohesion. especially tbe concentration of poverty, job­ ;'I ;, Many communities exhibit intense private lessness, and family disruption. Wilson ties among friends and kin yet still lack the (1996) has described the corroding effects on i', ';-1 institutional capacity to achieve social neighborhood social organization of concen­ I,, control. trated joblessness and the social isolation of "' Vertical integration is potentially even the urban poor. He argues that in areas of eco­ more important. Bursik and Grasmick ( 19 9 3) nomic distress where men are marginalized emphasize the importance of public control, from the labor market and often family life as defined as tbe capacity of local community well, the incentives for participation in the organizations to obtain police and fire ser­ social aspects of community life are reduced. vices, block grants and other extralocal Similarly, Brooks-Gunn et al. (1993) resources that help sustain neighborhood reported that for many child and adolescent social stability and local control. outcomes such as low IQ, dropping out of high school, problem behaviors, and out-of­ wedlock births, the absence of affluent LINKING STRUCTURAL neighbors was more important than the pres­ DIFFERENTIATION AND SOCIAL ence of low-income neighbors. In particular, ORGANIZATION high econmµic status proved to be more important than the poverty status, racial The preceding discussion underscores the composition, or the family structure of neigh­ reality that community social capital does borhoods. Aber (1992) found that neighbor­ not emerge from a vacuum. It is embedded in hood socioeconomic status and joblessness strllctural contexts and a political economy interacted to predict adolescent outcomes: it of place. Structural differentiation and extra­ was in conditions of high jobless rates tbat local political economy shape the dimensions the absence of affluent neighbors served to of neighborhood social organization depress academic achievement scores. Research shows that local friendship ties Studies have explored the mechanisms of and the density of acquaintanceship vary community social ·organization more directly, widely across communities and that these especially how they are shaped by ecological variations are positively related to residential differeutiation. Elliott et al. (1996) examined stability in a community. Stability is typically survey data from neighborhoods in Chicago measured by average length of residence and and Denver, which revealed that a measure the prevalence of homeownership. Com­ of informal control was significantly related munity stability is independently associated to adolescent outcomes in both places­ with collective attachment to community and positively to school achievement and con­ rates of participation in social and leisure ventional friendships, for instance, and nega­ activities. Furthermore, community residen­ tively to delinquency. A similar finding was tial stability has significant contextual effects reported in Sampson's (1997) analysis of a 170 I ROBERT J. SAMPSON

community survey in Chicago designed to Consider public housing and the legacy of measure the willingness of neighbors to urban renewal. Bursik (1989) has shown that intervene in skipping school, spray-painting the construction of new public housing pro­ graffiti, and like public acts of deviance by jects in Chicago in the 1970s was- associated children. Variations in the informal social with increased rates of population turnbver control of children across eighty neighbor­ which predicted increases in crime indepenci'. hoods were positively related to residential ent of the area's population composition. stability and negatively related to concen­ Skogan (1990) has noted that urban renewal trated poverty. In fact, informal social con­ and forced migration contributed to the trol accounted for more than half of the wholesale uprooting of many urban com­ relationship between residential stability and munities, and especially that freeway net­ lower rates of delinquency. works driven through the center of many Although limited, the cumulative results of cities in the 1960s destroyed viable, low­ recent research support the idea that neigh­ income neighborhoods. Across the nation, borhoods characterized by mistrust, sparse fully 20 percent of all central-city housing acquaintanceship networks among r_esidents, units occupied by blacks were lost in the attenuated social control of public spaces, 1960s because of urb~n redevelopment. This and a weak institutional base coupled with displacement does n~t even inch1de that litrle participation in local voluntary associ­ brought about by evictions, rent increases, ations face an increased risk of crime, social and other routine market forces. disorder, and troublesome youth behavior. Equally disturbing, Wilson (1987) docu­ Perhaps more important, these dimensions of ments the often disastrous consequences of community social capital or collective effi­ municipal decisions to concentrate minor­ cacy are systematically structrued (although ities and the poor in public housing. Oppos­ not determined) by differences in wealth, ition from organized community groups to jobs, family status, and residential tenure. building pnblic housing in their neighbor­ Once again, however, one must be careful not hoods, de facto federal policy to tolerate to view structural patterns as arising solely extensive segregation against blacks in urban from processes indigenous to neighborhoods. housing markets, and the decision by local To understand neighborhood variations and governments to neglect code enforcement ultimately to design community interven­ and the rehabilitation of existing residential tions, a.de must also take into account urban units have all contributed to segregated hous­ political economy. ing projects that have become ghettos for many poor minority members. The responsibilities of private develop­ Political Economy ment and business do not emerge unscathed, Empirical research on the political economy either. The idea of cities as growth machines of American cities has shown that structural (Logan and Molotch, 1987) reflects the mar­ differentiation is shaped directly and indir­ riage of private markets and enthusiastic ectly by the spatial decisions of public governments to pursue aggressive develop­ officials and businesses. The decline and ment, often at the expense of previously destabilization of many central-city neigh­ stable communities with strong patterns of borhoods, for instance, has been facilitated local social organization. Tax breaks for sub­ not only by individual preferences as mani­ urban development and federally supported fested in voluntary migration patterns, but housing mortgages have been especially pro­ government decisions on public housing, minent in the hollowing out of many urban incentives for suburban growth in the form of centers. Historically, real estate agents have tax breaks for developers and private mort­ aided racial segregation and neighborhood gage assistance, highway construction and instability by acting as panic peddlers in an urban renewal, economic disinvestment in effort to induce or accelerate the pace of central cities, and zoning restrictions on neighborhood change. Joining them have land use. been banks that redlined mortgage applica- WHAT COMMUNITY SUPPLIES j 171

tions and promoted economic disinvestment mumt1es can easily become translated into in the inner city. the .wholesale interrogation of racial minor­ Zoning, a seemingly innocuous adminis­ ities (see Skogan, 1990). Suppose further that trative practice, has undermined the social a community comes together with high social aspects of traditional urban life. By design, capital and cohesion to block the residential zoning is intended to create separate geo­ entry of a racial group. Put rnore bluntly, graphical spaces, and it has done so by what if racism is a shared value among resi­ cutting up neighborhoods into artificial seg­ dents of certain neighborhoods? Such exclu­ ments, which disrupts patterns of social sion happens too often, prompting Suttles interaction and human activities. Indeed, the (1972) to warn of the dark side of "defended eerie lack of people walking and interacting neighborhoods." on the streets of many suburban develop­ Consider also the historical connection ments attests to zoning's dehumanization of between official corruption and local solidar­ the environment. ity. Whyte (1943, p. 126) was one of the first to Whether through the purposeful segrega­ document the ironic consequences of dense, tion of low-income public housing, highway multiple relationships in cohesive commu­ construction, urban renewal, government nities for law enforcement. "The policeman subsidized development by the private sector, who takes a strictly legalistic view of his zoning, redlining, blockbusting, or something duties cuts himself off from the personal rela­ so simple yet powerfully symbolic as gated tions necessary to enable him to serve as a communities with no sidewalks, it is no medi,:!tor of disputes in his area." By con­ longer possible to think of neighborhoods as trast, "the policeman who develops close ties natural areas created by the aggregation of with local people is unable to act against individual preferences alone. Clearly, govern­ them with the vigor prescribed by the law." ment, business, and the political economy It follows that police corruption is an ever matter to an unOerstanding of what com­ present danger under conditions of high munities can and cannot supply. social capital even as it aids in dispute reso­ lution and informal social control because of interlocking social ties. It was the nature CONCLUSION of such corruption that originally led to decentralized policing and an emergency­ Urbanization and modernity notwithstand­ based patrol response in which officers were ing, local communities and residential neigh­ randomly assigned across neighborhoods. borhoods remain a prominent feature of The nationwide move to embrace com­ American society. In this chapter I have pro­ munity policing has perhaps not recognized posed a community-level framework to the risks inherent in the community side of explain why. I have explored the meaning, the equation. sources, and consequences of what commu­ Obviously, Americans would not do well nities supply from the perspective of a theory to think of racism, norms of social exclusion, of social capital and collective efficacy. and instruments of corruption as desirable It is appropriate to close, however, with forms of social capital, and we must balance some words of caution on the limits of com­ community with a normative conception of munity. Achieving common goals in an social justice. It is for this reason that I have increasingly diverse society is no easy task focused on widely expressed desires regard­ and has proven a problem for communitar­ ing community-especially social order and ian thinking in an age of individual rights. In public safety. My strategy relies on a vision the pursuit of informal social control and col­ of urban America based on shared values lective goods, there is always the danger that for a safe and healthy environment, not on freedoms will be restricted unnecessarily, that policies that divide by race and class. None­ people will face unwanted and even unjust theless, pursuit of community goals must scrutiny. For example, surveillance of "sus­ proceed cautiously and with respect for indi­ picious" persons in socially controlled com- vidual rights, diversity, and limits on state l 172 I ROBERT J. SAMPSON

power. Fortunately, legal justice and com­ Bursik, Robert J. 1989. "Political Decision-Making and munity are not the antinomy common wis­ Ecological Models of Delinquency: Conflict and Con­ sensus." In Theoretical Integration in the Study of dom suggests. Constitutional law has long Deviance and Crime, edited by Steven Messner, Mar­ been concerned with balancing individual vin Krohn, and Allen Liska, pp. 105-17. Albany, NY: rights against the need to promote the health State University of New York at Albany Press. and safety of communities. The very idea of Bursik, Robert and Harold Grasmick. 1993. Neighbor­ police power suggests the tension, long rec­ hoods and Crime: The Dimensions of Effective Community Control. Lexington, MA: Lexington ognized by the Supreme Court, between indi­ Books. vidual rights and the pursuit of social order. Choldin, H. M. 1984. "Subcommunities, neighbor­ Bringing law and social justice back into dis­ hoods, and suburbs in ecological perspective." In cussions of community development is a-wel­ Sociological Human Ecology:' Contemporary Issues come and necessary move in the attempt to and Applications, edited by M. Micklin and H. M. Choldin, pp~ 237-76. Boulder, Colorado: unite diversity in the name of community. Westview Press. Finally, I caution against falling into the Coleman, James S. 1988. "Social Capital in the Creation trap of local determinism. Part of the appeal of Human Capital,;" American Journal of Sociology of community is the image of local residents 94, S95-S120. working collectively to solve their own prob­ Elliott, Delbert, and others. 1996. "The Effects. of Neighborhood Disadvantage on Adolescent Devel• lems. A defining part of American tradition opment." Journal of Research in Crime and Delin­ (nostalgia?) is to hold individuals as well as quency. 33: 389-426. communities responsible for their own fate. Fischer, Claude. 1982. To Dwell among Friends: Like _Saul Alinsky, I too have embraced the Personal Networks in Town and City. Chicago: American ideal of residents joining forces to University of Chicago Press. Gans, Herbert. 1962. The Urban Villagers. New York: build community and maintain social order. Free Press. This is not the only or even the most import­ Hillery, G, A. 1984. "Definitions of Community: Areas ant story, however. As I have been at pains to of Agreement." Rural Sociology 20: 111-23. emphasize, what happens within neighbor­ Hunter, Albert. 1975. "The Loss of Community: An hoods is in large part shaped by extra-local Empirical Test through Replication." American Socio­ 1,:' logical Review 40: 537-53. ' social forces and the political economy. In Jacobs, Jane. 1961. The Death and Life of Great Ameri­ addition to encouraging communities to can Cities. New York: Random House. mobilize via self-help strategies of informal Jargowsky, Paul. 1997. Poverty and Place: Ghettos, Barrios, and the American City. New York: Russell 1 I I social control, it is incumbent on government Sage Foundation, 1:.:: ! to mount aggressive strategies to address Kasarda, John, and Morris Janowitz. 1974. "Com­ the social and ecological changes that have munity Attachment in Mass Society," American battered inner-city communities. The specific Sociological Review 39: 328-39. nature of such efforts is beyond the scope of Kornhauser, Ruth. 1978. Social Sources .of Delinquency. this chapter, but that should not detract from Chicago: University of Chicago Press. the importance of restorative moves at the Logan, John, and Harvey Molotch. 1987. Urban For­ tunes: The Political Economy of Place. Berkley, CA: political and macro-social level. Recognizing University of California Press. that community social action matters, in Massey, Douglas S. 1990. "American Apartheid: Segre­ other words, does not absolve society of the gation and the Making of the Underclass." American responsibility for seeking equality of oppor­ Journal of Sociology 96: 338-39. tunities at the neighborhood as well as the Massey, Douglas S., and Nancy Denton. 1993. Ameri­ can Apartheid: Segregation and the Making of the individual level. Underclass. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. REFERENCES Park, Robert, 1916. "The City: Suggestions for the Investigations of Human Behavior in the Urban Aber, Lawrence. 1992. "Adolescent Pathways Project." Environment." American Journal of Sociology 20: Paper prepared for the Committee for Research on the 577-612. Urban Underclass, Social Science Research Council, Putnam, Robert. 1993. "The Prosperous Community: Russell Sage Foundation. Social Capital and Community Life." American Pros­ Brooks-Gunn, Jeanne, and others. 199'3. "Do Neigh­ pect (Spring), 35--42. borhoods Influence Child and Adolescent Behavior?" Reiss, Albert J. Jr. 1996. Personal communication. American Journal of Sociology 99: 353-95. Sampson, Robert J. 1988. "Community Attachment in WHAT COMMUNITY SUPPLIES I 173

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