Participatory Governance and the Spatial Representation of Neighborhood Issues

In democratic theory, community-representing organizations play a critical role in mediating between citizens and elites. While proponents argue that neighborhood governance can improve efficacy and responsiveness of urban governance, critics warn that socioeconomic bias privileges the parochial interests of higher-income residents. There is limited knowledge, however, concerning the specific types of activities community-representing organizations undertake. This study illuminates the community mediation process through an analysis of the agenda orientation of community-representing organizations. An analysis of actual meeting agendas from Los Angeles neighborhood councils demonstrates that these community-representing organizations engage with varied issues including community improvement and other types of service needs or preferences in addition to land use. The findings suggest a more complex relationship between income and agenda orientation than is generally acknowledged. In particular, lower-income communities focus heavily on internal maintenance and capacity development activities that may displace engagement with more substantive issues. In contrast to the conventional wisdom that these organizations are likely to channel middle-class NIMBYism, the analysis reveals a U-shaped relationship between income and land-use emphasis, evidence that engagement in land use is also emphasized in lower-income communities that historically have been the target of locally undesirable land uses.