POLITICS AND COMMUNITY - CHICAGO NEAR WEST SIDE BLACK UNDERCLASS

The black underclass are one population group that has recently experi enced a devastating decay of their built environment. This article exa mines the attitudes and political response of the black underclass to this process. Our focus on Chicago's Near West Side probes resident pe rceptions of the problem, resident mobilization around political agend as, leader actions at public forums, and levels of institutionalized o bstacles to effective leader participation. The results suggest that t his population had little opportunity to reverse this decay. Obstacles to controlling neighborhood change were embedded in everyday social l ife, communicative discourses, community institutional actions, and lo cal government policy. While formal political procedures prevented thi s group's meaningful public participation, underclass social life rava ged their incentives to participate. We conclude that opening up commu nity development to the black underclass requires restructuring the ga me's rules and this group's impoverished condition.