The Limits of Citizen Participation: Lessons From San Francisco's Model Cities Program

• Author: Stephen R. Weissman
• DOI: 10.1177/106591297803100105
• Published date: 01 March 1978
• Date: 01 March 1978
• Subject Matter: Articles

THE LIMITS OF CITIZEN PARTICIPATION: LESSONS
FROM SAN FRANCISCO’S MODEL CITIES PROGRAM
STEPHEN R. WEISSMAN
University of Texas at Dallas
N
THE late 1960s, federal anti-poverty programs often mandated the partici-
~ pation of the poor.’ While the new, &dquo;post-categorical&dquo; generation of social
programs attempts to decentralize power to local elected officials 52 Congress
has insisted upon a modified dose of citizen participation. For example, the Com-
prehensive Employment and Training Act of 1973 (CETA) vests contractual
authority for manpower training in units of local government, but requires &dquo;ap-
propriate arrangements with community-based organizations serving the poverty
community, and other special target groups, for their participation in the planning
of programs.&dquo; Local planning councils are expected to include &dquo;representatives of
the client community and of community-based organizations.&dquo; And federal dis-
cretionary funds may be used to support some of the older manpower programs
where community organizations have won a share of the turf.3 A similar thrust is
visible in the Housing and Community Development Act of 1974.4 Outside of the
government, the late Saul Alinsky’s Industrial Areas Foundation, Imamu Baraka’s
Congress of Afrikan People, and the Ford Foundation have launched reform-
minded citizens’ groups in dozens of poor neighborhoods.5 Yet we have surprisingly
little knowledge of the impact of community-based organizations on public and
private policies. As one political scientist has written,
Important questions such as &dquo;What policy changes resulted from the
emphasis on citizen participation in the Model Cities and Community
Action Programs&dquo; are especially difficult to answer. We lack evidence
as to what policy changes resulted from the entire program much less a
specific aspect of the undertaking
6
NOTE : This study was supported by a National Science Foundation Research Applied to
National Needs grant to Stanford University. In addition to Community Development
Study materials cited in footnotes, the author benefitted from the assistance of several
individuals. In particular, Steven A. Waldhom first suggested the need for a typology
of urban inner city organizations, and provided some valuable initial concepts. Nancy
Weissman collected program output data and interviewed businessmen and agency per-
sonnel. Lynne Zucker helped draft a questionnaire for corporate personnel officials and
participated in some interviews. Robert Rosenbloom shared several of his interviews
with community activists.
1
James L. Sundquist, Politics and Policy: The Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson Years
(Washington, D.C.: Brookings, 1968), ch. 4; Frances Fox Piven and Richard A. Clow-
ard, Regulating the Poor: The Functions of Public Welfare (New York: Vintage, 1971),
ch. 9; Steven A. and Judith Lynch Waldhorn, "Model Cities: Liberal Myths and
Federal Intervention Programs," in Urban Law Annual 1971 (Beverly Hills, Ca.: Sage
Publishing Co., 1972), pp. 45-55; Steven Arthur Waldhorn, "Legal Intervention and
Citizens Participation," in Virginia B. Ermer and John H. Strange, Blacks and Bureau-
cracy: Readings in the Problems and Politics of Change (New York: Crowell, 1972),
pp. 289-301.
2
See the discussion in Restructuring the Federal System: Approaches to Accountability in
Special Revenue Sharing and Block Grant Programs (New York: Crane, Russak, 1975),
passim.
3
U.S. House of Representatives, Conference Report: Comprehensive Employment and Train-
ing Act of 1973, Committee Print, 93rd Congress, 1st session, December 18, 1973.
4

Congressional Quarterly, August 24, 1974, pp. 2319-20.
5
On Alinsky groups, see especially Charles Silberman, "Up from Apathy: The Woodlawn
Experiment," Commentary 37 (May 1964): 51-58; and John Hall Fish, Black Power-
White Control (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1973). On the Ford experiments,
see Peter Marris and Martin Rein, Dilemmas of Social Reform (New York: Atherton,
1967); and Marilyn Gittell, "Decentralization and Citizen Participation in Education,"
Public Administration Review 33 (October 1972), Special Issue, 669-86. Baraka’s
efforts are described briefly in New York Times, December 27, 1974, p. 35.
6
John H. Strange, "The Impact of Citizen Participation on Public Administration," Public
Administration Review 32 (September 1972), Special Issue, 465.

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33
The available social science literature shows that independent neighborhood
organizations had limited influence on citywide anti-poverty programs, but it fails
to spell out what these community groups actually accomplished. Much of the
research was undertaken in the early stages of new programs. It distinguished be-
tween contrasting pardigms of citizen participation -
the basic polarity being com-
munity representation in service-delivery vs. community mobilization for political
power - and elaborated these in terms of how problems and issues were defined
and which activities were undertaken. Absent, however, were systematic analyses
of either strategy’s effects on the allocation of values to poor neighborhoods.7
7
While examples of community benefits have often been cited, peripherally (an
urban renewal plan defeated, a highway rerouted, a modification of police tactics,
a changed public housing site, increased garbage collection and street cleaning
activities, etc.), &dquo;the cause of such changes and their extent are impossible to
document.&dquo;s
A good deal of attention has been devoted to the process of citizen participa-
tion and the individual gains reaped therefrom. Such subjects as the employment
policies of citizen organizations,9 the political socialization (or desocialization!) of
citizen representatives/o and their utilization of channels of communication to
government officialsll have been explored in increasingly sophisticated ways. One
cannot say the same for the product of community participation (be it services or
power mobilization) and the attendant individual or collective gains against neigh-
borhood problems like subemployment, educational failure, and poor housing and
community facilities. 12
In order to gain a better understanding of the impact of neighborhood citizen
participation on urban social problems, an exploratory study was made of a &dquo;com-
munity-controlled&dquo; manpower component in San Francisco’s Federal Model Cities
Program. The research was guided by two general sets of concerns. First, what
was a militant, mobilization-minded community organization receiving federal aid
able to accomplish over time with regard to poor people’s employment problems
7
David Austin, "Resident Participation: Political Mobilization or Organizational Co-opta-
tion?" in Public Administration Review 32 (September 1972): 409-20; Kenneth Clark
and Jeanette Hopkins, A Relevant War Against Poverty (New York: Harper Torch-
books, 1970); Ralph Kramer, Participation of the Poor: Comparative Case Studies in
the War on Poverty (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1969); Judith May, "Two Model
Cities: Negotiations in Oakland," in Ira Katznelson, Gordon Adams, Philip Brenner,
Alan Wolfe, The Politics and Society Reader (New York: David McKay, 1974), pp.
68-100; Paul Peterson, "Forms of Representation: Participation of the Poor in the
Community Action Program," American Political Science Review 64 (June 1970):
491-507; Kenneth J. and Annette C. Pollinger, Community Action and the Poor: In-
fluence vs. Social Control in a New York City Community (New York: Praeger Special
Studies, 1972) ; Roland L. Warren, "The Sociology of Knowledge and the Problems of
Inner Cities," Draft Manuscript, October 23-November 8, 1970.
8
Strange, "The Impact of Citizen Participation," p. 465.
9
Bennett Harrison, "The Participation of Ghetto Residents in the Model Cities Program,"
Journal of the American Institute of Planners 39 (January 1973): 43-55.
10
Dale Rogers Marshall, The Politics of Participation in Poverty (Berkeley, Ca.: University
of California Press, 1971); Louis A. Zurcher, Jr., Poverty Warriors (Austin: University
of Texas Press, 1970) ; Pollinger and Pollinger, Community Action and the Poor; Daniel
P. Moynihan, Maximum Feasible Misunderstanding: Community Action in the War on
Poverty (New York: Free Press, 1970).
11
James L. Sundquist and David W. Davis, Making Federalism Work (Washington, D.C.:
Brookings, 1969) ; May, "Two Model Cities," loc. cit.; Rufus Browing and Dale Rogers
Marshall, "Implementation of Model Cities and Revenue Sharing in 10 Bay Area Cities:
Design and First Findings," paper presented at the 1974 Annual Meeting of the Ameri-
can Political Science Association, Chicago, Ill., August 29 - September 2, 1974.
12
A sophisticated analysis of the impact of Model Cities on city employment of minorities is
in preparation. For first findings, see ibid. An interesting, but sometimes vague and
unsystematic, comparison of the results of neighborhood mobilization in four cities is
found in Jon H. Mollenkopf, "On the Causes and Consequences of Neighborhood
Mobilization," paper presented at the 1973 Annual Meeting of the American Political
Science Association, New Orleans, La., September 4-8, 1971, pp. 10-14.

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34
in the private economy? And what environmental constraints helped account for
these results? The case at hand avoided some of the major problems in impact
analysis.l3 For instance, most of the other community groups adopting mobilization
strategies were unable to mount substantial programs....