URBAN REDEVELOPMENT AND GRASS-ROOTS ACTION IN CHICAGO AND SHEFFIELD -THEMES, VARIATIONS AND UNCERTAIN LEGACIES

In the Uptown area of Chicago and Sheffield, England's Sharrow neighbo rhood, redevelopment initiatives in the late 1960s and early 1970s pro duced a significant degree of community conflict. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s a variety of grassroots movements appeared in each communit y. The legacy of redevelopment-derived conflict and community-based or ganizing in the two communities suggests that there is more variation in neighborhood grassroots politics - even in communities with compara ble public policy and organizing histories - than prevailing explanati ons of neighborhood mobilization tend to acknowledge. However, with th e 1990s a convergence in the Uptown and Sharrow experiences has appear ed: the narrowing of their grassroots organizations' political agendas , which can be attributed to national shifts in political discourse an d public policy.