Washington University in St. Louis Washington University Open Scholarship Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations Arts & Sciences Winter 12-15-2015 Collective Action Dynamics in Urban Neighborhoods: A Study of Urban Community Gardens Nishesh Chalise Washington University in St. Louis Follow this and additional works at: https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/art_sci_etds Recommended Citation Chalise, Nishesh, "Collective Action Dynamics in Urban Neighborhoods: A Study of Urban Community Gardens" (2015). Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 641. https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/art_sci_etds/641 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Arts & Sciences at Washington University Open Scholarship. It has been accepted for inclusion in Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Washington University Open Scholarship. For more information, please contact [email protected]. WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY IN ST. LOUIS Brown School of Social Work Dissertation Examination Committee: Gautam Yadama, Chair Aaron Hipp Peter Hovmand Shanta Pandey Jason Purnell Collective Action Dynamics in Urban Neighborhoods: A Study of Urban Community Gardens by Nishesh Chalise A dissertation presented to the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences of Washington University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy December 2015 St. Louis, Missouri © 2015, Nishesh Chalise Table of Contents List of Figures ................................................................................................................................ vi List of Tables ................................................................................................................................. ix Acknowledgement .......................................................................................................................... x Abstract ........................................................................................................................................ xiii Chapter 1: Introduction ................................................................................................................... 1 1.1 Community Gardens: An empirical context..................................................................... 2 1.2 Research Aim ........................................................................................................................ 3 1.3 A feedback perspective ......................................................................................................... 4 1.4 Organization of the Dissertation ........................................................................................... 6 Chapter 2: Review of Literature ..................................................................................................... 7 2.1 Overview ............................................................................................................................... 7 2.2 Community Engagement ....................................................................................................... 7 2.2.1 A Brief history of community engagement in urban development ................................ 8 2.2.2 Community Engagement in poor urban neighborhoods ............................................... 11 2.2.3 Significance of community engagement ...................................................................... 14 2.2.4 Community engagement in the context of community gardens ................................... 15 2.3 Why do communities engage? ............................................................................................ 16 2.3.1 Theories of collective action......................................................................................... 16 2.3.2 Social Capital and Collective action ............................................................................. 22 2.3.2 Self efficacy and collective action ................................................................................ 24 2.3.3 Collective efficacy and collective action ...................................................................... 25 2.4 Conceptual model: Feedback Perspective ........................................................................... 27 2.4.1 What are feedback mechanisms ................................................................................... 27 2.4.2 A working feedback model of collective action dynamics ........................................... 28 2.5 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................... 32 Chapter 3: Methods ....................................................................................................................... 34 3.1 Overview ............................................................................................................................. 34 3.2 Research Design .................................................................................................................. 35 ii 3.3 System Dynamics Modeling ............................................................................................... 36 3.3.1 Foundations of System Dynamics ................................................................................ 36 3.4 Case selection ...................................................................................................................... 40 3.5 Sampling and Recruitment .................................................................................................. 40 3.6 Data collection..................................................................................................................... 41 3.7 System Dynamics Model building process ......................................................................... 41 3.7.1 Problem Formulation .................................................................................................... 41 3.7.2 Formulation of dynamic hypothesis ............................................................................. 42 3.7.3 Formulation of a simulation model .............................................................................. 43 3.7.4 Model Testing ............................................................................................................... 46 3.8 Protection of human subjects .............................................................................................. 48 3.9 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................... 49 Chapter 4: Description of the Community Context ...................................................................... 50 4.1 Overview ............................................................................................................................. 50 4.2 West End Neighborhood ..................................................................................................... 50 4.3 Community Gardens Background ....................................................................................... 55 4.3.1 22nd Ward Community Garden ..................................................................................... 56 4.3.2 Block Unit 429 Neighbors and Friends ........................................................................ 58 4.3.3 Friends of Hamilton Village ......................................................................................... 61 4.3.4 Ford School Community Garden/ Miss Ellen’s Garden ............................................... 63 4.3.5 Global Farms ................................................................................................................ 67 4.3.6 Ladies of Wells Community Garden ............................................................................ 70 4.3.7 Maple Community Garden ........................................................................................... 71 4.3.8 Mayberry Community Garden...................................................................................... 76 4.3.9 Monsanto Family YMCA Garden ................................................................................ 79 4.3.10 Mr. Jesse Spivey Memorial Garden ........................................................................... 81 4.3.11 Mr. Johnny Whiting’s Community Garden ................................................................ 84 4.4 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................... 86 Chapter 5: Model Description ....................................................................................................... 87 5.1 Overview ............................................................................................................................. 87 5.2 Revised Causal Loop Diagram ............................................................................................ 87 iii 5.3 Developing the system dynamics model ............................................................................. 92 5.3.1 Gardener Structure ........................................................................................................ 93 5.3.2 Land Structure ............................................................................................................ 104 5.2.3 Activities Structure ....................................................................................................