Food Movers, 1996
Block Culture
Study, 1997
Block Ethnographic Research, 1998
Sense
of Community on Racially Integrated Blocks, 1998
Food Movers, 1996
Block Culture
Study, 1997
Block Ethnographic Research, 1998
Sense
of Community on Racially Integrated Blocks, 1998
Sense of Community on Racially Integrated Blocks, 1998
Block
Ethnographic Research, 1998
As a continuation of the Sense of Community (SOC) project, local Neighborhood Organizations were surveyed about unique blocks located within their neighborhoods. A letter was sent to all neighborhood organizations that were members of the Lansing Neighborhood District Council requesting information on unique blocks to study. Included in this letter was SOC project information, general project findings, and a list of the blocks studied. SOC defined "unique blocks" as blocks that are effective in addressing problems such as noise, traffic, or crime. These blocks are also highly social or participate in activities together.
Over half of the 33 Neighborhood Council members were questioned by phone regarding blocks they felt were unique. Several of the Neighborhood Organizations were willing to go beyond just supplying information. For example, a member of the board of the Westside Neighborhood Organization volunteered to introduce one of our SOC undergraduate researchers to the neighbors. Other organization presidents passed the letter around during their meetings to get full input from their neighborhood. One association even allowed SOC time at their board meeting to explain the SOC project and to give more information to the neighborhood. Overall, the neighborhood organizations were cooperative and excited about the possibility of being included in this ethnographic research.
The ethnographic research on the unique blocks took place during the Summer of 1997 by Karen Dugas, a senior in Anthropology at Michigan State University. She performed ethnographic and participant observer research on the blocks for an in-depth look at the blocks' sense of community. These ethnographies enriched the SOC survey data with information on the interactions of the residents of the blocks. The observations provided support for the hypotheses that SOC has already made about blocks; that a high sense of community is related to higher voter participation, lower levels of crime, greater recycling participation and higher levels of helping behavior.
Food
Movers: Sense of Community Development on Hill Street
Author: Thomas B. Crew
The Food Movers project was an attempt to create a sense of community
on one of the blocks in the study. Hill Street was chosen because
several of the survey respondents identified themselves as interested in
working together to improve conditions on their block and/or as interested
in assuming a leadership role. This paper explores the Food Movers
project initiated on the block. Food Movers is an organization which
trains volunteers to rescue perishable foods from grocery stores and then
deliver them to various shelters or volunteers from neighborhoods could
rescue the food and distribute it to neighborhood residents. Given that
Hill Street residents were low income and expressed a desire to improve
their block's conditions, we felt that this could be an ideal project for
initializing community development. The implications of this
project are that research has a place in theory and in practice. Hill Street
was an initial unit of analysis to study how these two aspects are related.
It would be interesting to do a longitudinal study on Hill Street or another
block to determine if research can lead to intervention which can in turn
lead to further research to determine how to increase sense of community
in a residential block.