The resilience of the settlement-house tradition in community development: a study of neighborhood centers in San Francisco

Abstract

It is argued that the contemporary urban community may have lost its capacity to deal with all kinds of challenges due to weakened solidarity among residents. Community practitioners have innovatively developed many new community development approaches in revitalizing communities by nurturing the solidarity and capacity of local residents. In this paper, based on the findings of a study of neighborhood centers in San Francisco, we trace the legacy of the community development tradition of the settlement house movement. The findings indicate that despite many obstacles inherent in the movement, these eight centers have been resiliently carrying on the tradition, continuing to actively engage in revitalizing and rebuilding the community by creatively integrating the service-delivery and direct-advocacy approaches.

Keywords:

• settlement house movement
• community development
• community revitalization
• community organizing
• neighborhood center
• San Francisco

Notes

1. As Mattessich and Monsey (1997) suggest, community development includes a strong community building element which “generally refers to building the social networks within the community, and developing group and individual problem-solving and leadership skills” (p.60). The resemblance of these two concepts has led to confusion. In this paper, to avoid confusion, we decided not to use the term community building.

2. State and county Quickfacts, US Census Bureau. See http://quickfacts. census.gov/afd/states/o6/06075.html.

3. See MOCD 2005–2010 Consolidated Plan: San Francisco Demographic Profile. Retrieved 22 February 2010 from http://www.sfgov.org/site/uploadedfiles/mocd/demoprofile.pdf

4. Source: http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/ADPTable?_bm=y&-geo_id=05 000US06075&-qr_name=ACS_2007_3 YR_G00_DP3YR3&-context=adp&-ds_ name=&-tree_id=3307&-_lang=en&-redo Log=false&-format