THE ECOLOGY OF EMPOWERMENT - PREDICTING PARTICIPATION IN COMMUNITY ORGANIZATIONS

The community empowerment model of grassroots organizing is briefly de scribed. A particular ecological framework of physical, economic, and social environmental predictors of citizen participation in grassroots community organizations is presented. Individual and block-level (con textual) survey and observational data from New York City, Baltimore, and Salt Lake City were used to predict residents' participation in su ch organizations, cross-sectionally and after a one-year time lag. Lon gitudinal data from one city were used to predict the viability of blo ck associations seven years later. Crime and fear were unrelated to pa rticipation. Defensible space, territoriality, and physical inciviliti es were sometimes negatively and sometimes positively related to parti cipation. Income, home ownership, minority status, and residential sta bility were positively, bur inconsistently, related to participation. Community-focused social cognitions (organizational efficacy, civic re sponsibility, community attachments) and behaviors (neighboring, volun teer work through churches and other community organizations) were con sistently and positively predictive of participation at both the indiv idual and block levels. The model explained up to 28% of the variance in individual participation and up to 52% of the variance in block-lev el participation. Implications for theory, research, and community org anizing are discussed.