VOICES: Turning the tide to neighborhood stability

What creates a stable community? Or better —what can be done to create a stable community? Does homeownership help aid stabilization? Consequently do high concentrations of rental housing impact a neighborhood’s health?

When my wife and I purchased our home in Folwell 12 years ago we were hoping to become part of a community with families and children for our kids to play with, to be part of a neighborhood where they could explore local parks, create relationships, build social bonds and for all to feel safe within our neighborhood. Unfortunately many of those families and friends who once were on our block have moved away. Yes a few new ones have moved in, but as every great neighbor sold their home I felt the notion of a stable community slipping away with it.

The reasons for the departures are varied — old age, the need for a larger or smaller home, work, schools. The decline in “livability” is also one major reason for their exit from our community.

So the question lingers, what can be done to create a stable community? How do neighborhoods such as ours, classified as having “medium to high rates of poverty” attain more stability? It is a crucial time to ask this question, a time that is a “glass half full” opportunity to turn the tide and create neighborhood stability.

To answer the question of what creates stability I began my search by reading journal articles, research papers and studies relating to that question. What I discovered affirmed much of what I knew from living here and meeting with other homeowners and having discussions of our community concerns.

Michael Greenburg from Rutgers University describes “health” for a neighborhood in a hierarchy of needs and describes these in order: crime, industrial developments, infrastructure, (parks transportation, schools) are the most important to address for a healthy neighborhood. Greenburg says that severe physical blight and crime must be the top priorities of community initiatives for tackling stabilization. He adds if these are not addressed other elements cannot attain positive ground. Noted author Winifred Gallagher makes a similar argument that crime and blight go hand in hand in communities—with one comes the other. This was an inherent factor in neighborhoods she studied, those similar in demographics to ours. These conditions create environments where people flee their surroundings and retreat inside their homes, and thus end up feeling dispirited and dehumanized. Conditions within these communities continue to decline because no one feels they can make a difference or improve their surroundings.

Are we stable? The research points to the following issues in need of examination to answer that question: Home ownership rates, manageable crime control, educational opportunities, economic growth and development, public transportation, and access to health care. If we look at the conditions that exist in Camden it is not difficult to go down the list and conclude we have identifiable needs, and work could be done to raise our level of stability by addressing issues related to each topic.

By no means does this imply that improvement is not achievable. We all want developments that will improve our community. I believe we can attain greatness for the whole Northside and all its residents. This will take work and courage. It will take the admittance that although there are severe disparities within our community, personal accountability and civil responsibility are issues requiring serious examination by all. To quote Gallagher, “We need to think about our homes from a behavioral perspective.”

For years sociologists have made the argument of “social contagion” as a process that can effect urban environments. It is defined as “imitative behavior based on influences” or perhaps better described as the copycat effect. In relevance to community it has distinct effects for what is normal and acceptable. For example: if no one repairs their broken screens and they drop their garbage on the street this becomes the acceptable norm. If two-thirds of residents on your block fail to have a front storm door, don’t mow their lawn, throw their garbage in the backyard or don’t recycle, these behaviors become the “standard.” This then becomes accepted as average behavior and living conditions for the community.

It is about role models and positive examples of a community standard. When there are fewer and fewer positive “community-healthy” role models as good examples keeping the standard quality of community life up, the whole will fall.

This is a class issue of educational attainment and the understanding of one’s community standards. This is not an elitist ideology or the drumming of ‘gentrification’ to push out the poor. The attempt here is to find what is “good for all as a whole,” which can aid in creating a healthy neighborhood.

This is most crucial for our children. We owe them the opportunity to learn right from wrong so that they will carry this forward. If their standards are reduced to the lowest common denominator they become the lowest rung on the ladder. Ingrid Ellen, Professor of Public Policy and Urban Planning at NYU, adds to this argument and the relationship between crime and children, “As children get older, living in a neighborhood where crime is commonplace may lead them to believe that it is acceptable or even normal.”

Ellen says six community factors may influence the outcomes of the people living in neighborhoods with poverty. These are most relevant for children and adolescents. The six include: social services, level of socialization, peer influences, social networks, exposure to crime and violence, and physical distance/isolation. In her research she states that neighborhood characteristics overwhelmingly have influence for adolescents and their relationships to criminal activity as well as their peer influences.

In terms of our community, it is important to look at why this is crucial, particularly in terms of the high concentrations of rental and subsidized housing throughout the Northside. Are the high concentrations we have here allowing their households increased opportunities? What are their positive role models? Is this aiding in the stabilization of our community for everyone?

In the next part of this series I’ll focus on the issue of promoting more homeownership and why, in our community, this makes the most sense for neighborhood stability. Although, unfortunately, not the opportunity all people in our community are able to achieve