Urban Affairs Review

This study considers some of the political implications of the so-called community question, in particular the relationship between communality and levels of participation in local politics. Communality is here understood as a cultural phenomenon residing in the action orientations and symbolic constructions of individuals. Original survey data are used to test the hypothesis that communality and participation are correlated positively. The findings do indeed confirm the hypothesis. Further, they suggest that so-called symbolic measures of communality predict the less demanding forms of participation better than do measures of social status, but the latter better predict the more demanding forms of participation. Finally, the results suggest that the communality-participation relationship persists when certain status characteristics are held constant, although the precise impact of such characteristics remains unclear.

Recent research on citizen-initiated contacting propensity has generated two different findings: one of a parabolic relationship between contacting and neighborhood social well-being, the other a negative relationship between the two. It has been argued that the latter pattern is to be expected in cities with central complaint-handling units, owing to the effect of such units on citizen awareness of urban service systems. Results reported here from a city with a central complaint unit yield the expected pattern. In addition, survey research data provide a test of the need-awareness model that has been posited to explain the two patterns.

The behavior of voters and candidates in at-large and ward elections for the Buffalo Common Council is examined. Candidates in ward races spend more per registered voter than do their at-large counterparts, and voters tend to ignore the at-large races more than the ward races. Several reasons for this are considered, and it is concluded that district type has an independent impact on voter and candidate behavior.

Human ecological theory has been consistent in its formulation of the process of invasion-succession. Early studies that employed these concepts tended to focus on a particular example of the process, racial residential succession. This focus produced several empirical generalizations as well as a number of normative and ideological connotations. As a result, more recent studies on gentrification and neighborhood revitalization have not employed the concepts even though the empirical studies meet the theoretical criteria. A unique example of the process of invasion-succession is presented in which a residential population successfully invades a commercial and industrial area. This example is used to demonstrate the general application of the concepts to current changes in urban social organization and argues for restoration of the concept of its more generic application as the theory provides.

A market for industrial locations has emerged in recent years. On one side of the market, cities compete with each other to attract jobs; on the other side, firms seek subsidy payments for providing jobs. These developments have been noted, but until now have not been viewed as an explicit market. This article provides evidence of the market's development and identifies factors that have stimulated the market's growth. It demonstrates that costs of using the market have declined, but benefits have increased. The study goes on to show that the market can be efficient under certain conditions, but that major impediments to efficiency exist. Finally, it discusses how the market for jobs is likely to evolve.

Currently, 25% of all households are headed by females. Although 75% of all female householders are urban dwellers, few investigations have examined factors contributing to their centralization. This study focused on the dynamics of residential location among female householders living in one-person, two-or-more person family, and nonfamily configurations. A path model was designed and evaluated that examined the relationships among such variables as tract distance from the central business district (CBD), proportion of structures in the tract built before 1950, tract density, urban! suburban tract designation, median rent per tract, proportion of elderly householders and black householders per tract for each of the female householder groups. The results suggest that female-headed households live close to the CBD, in urban and densely populated tracts, in pre-1950 buildings, and in lower rent units and that socioeconomic and spatial organization factors impact differently on the residential location of each of the household configurations considered.

In a communication model of neighborhood mobilization, communication variables are seen as mediating between measures of neighborhood mobilization and indicators of social status, perceptual frames and neighborhood commitment. Using data from a survey of three inner city neighborhoods, four path models are constructed, one for each dependent variable. Attention to neighborhood newspapers predicts to awareness of local groups and their activities but not to actual participation, which is more closely linked to interpersonal communication. The exogenous variables predict to communication but some direct paths also persist. Education is directly connected to the two awareness measures, income is related to the estimation of turnout for self-help projects, and fear of gentrification predicts to group participation.