A Political-Economy Approach to the Study of Neighborhood Organizations

Neighborhood organizations are becoming increasingly important political institutions in U.S. cities, and there has been considerable debate over the institutionalization of their role in urban governance. This article employs concepts from collective-goods theory to develop a theoretical framework by which neighborhood organizations can be analyzed as mechanisms for mobilizing communities for collective action. The framework is then employed in analyzing how community-level associations in Indianapolis mobilize resources and apply them to the production of benefits for neighborhood residents. The analyses show that structurally more powerful forms of neighborhood organization are more effective in mobilizing resources and applying them to the production of collective goods than are less institutionalized forms of association; a finding which has significant implications for both national and local neighborhood policies.