Middle Class

Chapter 8

Gardening with a Little Help from Your (Middle Class) Friends: Bridging Social Capital Across Race and Class in a Mixed Neighbourhood Talja Blokland I

Introduction Public policies to generate more community participation take up different fOTITIS in various places, but often share three elements linked to popularized versions of

social capital theory. Firstly, high poverty neighbourhoods tend to be viewed as having social capital that is supportive, but not of the 'bridging type' and not providing the 'right' type of role-models. The point of departure then is that the spatial arrangements of bonding ties determine the workings of this social capital, with negative outcomes for both

society and the individuals involved. Indeed, as Curley shows in her chapter, the close proximity of people in difficult circumstances may keep other people down. Whereas Curley approaches the spatiality of social capital through looking at poor people after relocating, this chapter looks at the workings of social capital for poor women in a deprived part of a mixed neighbourhood, and zooms in on bridging ties across race and class.

Secondly, economically and racially diverse neighbourhoods are expected to facilitate the development of diverse and productive networks (see Blokland and Van Eijk 2008; Field 2003: 11-2) and networks to be profitable (see Field 2003: 12-3). Spatial diversity instead of segregation should provide roads to resources for individual residents, roads that geographical segregation is blocking (see Kleinhans 2005 and Galster 2007 for overviews). Thirdly, spatially organized social capital is expected to enhance the liveability of neighbourhoods. After all, social capital can improve cooperation in a group and 1 I am grateful to Beth, Ms Magnolia and all others who have helped me with this research, and to Mike Savage, Tim Butler and Sara Ohly for comments on earlier drafts. The ethnography presented here is part of my larger research project 'Does the urban gentry help?', funded by the Royal Netherlands Academy ofArts and Sciences, the National Scientific Organization (NWO), the Wenner Gren Foundation, and the Amsterdam School for Social Science Research. Thanks to Jolien Veensma and Petra Nijhove for their help with preparing this manuscript.

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make their collective actions morc efficient (see for example Putnam] 993, ] 67/f). A diverse neighbourhood as a site of resourceful networks might thus contain localized forms of trust and cooperation that contribute to the collective efficacy needed for a ]iveable neighbourhood (Sampson and Raudenbusch 2004). In all such ideas bridging, not bonding, arouses the highest expectations (see also, B]ok]and and Nordhoff in this volume). An"r all, those forms of socia] capital that 'tend to reinforce exclusive identities and homogeneous groups', and serve especially specific reciprocity (tit for tat) and mobilize solidarity (Putnam 2000, 22; sec also Gittal1 and Vidal 1998) are bonding. Bridging are the forms of social capital that look outward and encompass people over the borders of social cleavages. Bridging social capital has also acquired a very positive connotation in academic debates. Lin, for example, states that weaker ties provide better access to social capital for instrumental action (Lin 200 I, 67). Burt's theory of structural holes is an extension of the positive feature of bridges connecting groups that are otherwise not related (Burt ]992, 2001; Lin 2001, 70-]). We exchange something for something else, if not now then somewhere down the road, and may be receiving from a third party, based on a shared understanding of generalized reciprocity or tlust. Rational choice theory explains that bridges work because it is rational for people to make them work. This is how they build credit, create reputations that can later payoff, and cash in on earlier investments (Co]eman ]988, SI02-3). While there is a need for trust, such trust is an estimation of risks, not a substantial rational consideration (see also H. Blok]and 2006). This chapter challenges the notion of bridging social capital as consisting of morally neutral transfers of resources for which all that is needed is the existence of a tie. Using ethnographic data from research in an economically and racially mixed neighbourhood in New Haven, Connecticut, I explore bridging social capital at two different analytical levels. At one level, the first half of the chapter discusses whether a concrete program, e.g. a program for a community garden in a low income housing development, created the community social capital and strengthened the bridging social capital that it set out to achieve. Wellman and Frank (2001, 235-6) have noted that 'there is more to interpersonal life than just individuals and ties' and that people are immersed in milieus filled with dynamics that go beyond the individual. But they have limited their exploration of this statement still to characteristics of networks, ties, network capital and, to some extent, social characteristics of network members (2001, 234-5). What, then, are those dynamics? This chapter aims to shed light on the remarkable workings of social capital, especially where some people invest more resources than they may ever receive, and there is no sanctioning if they would not do so. Why do they use their access to resources for the sake ofothers? It seems unlikely that they are simply 'irrational' exceptions to the rules of the rational choice, or saint-like altruists. Neither is bringing rational choice back in by claiming that such people 'really' do such things for a sense of self-gratification convincing. Instead, I suggest that there is substantial rationality to bridge-building work across boundaries of race and class that finds its explanation not in individual attitudes or characteristics but in a set of beliefs or a milieu (cf. Eade et al. ]997) ofa loosely defined group or movement.

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At a second level, the second half of the chapter discusses the discursive construction of 'community' in the actual workings of bridging social capital. It shows how this construction changed over time. It argues that the dominant discourse on deserving and undeserving poor that penetrates America on many levels also informed the micro-level social ties between the white middle class volunteers in the gardening project and the black poor residents of the housing development. As such, the transfer of resources over bridges is as moral or as value-laden as any other social interactions. The existence of a tie may thus not be enough for traffic over the bridge and may nurture acceptance of the status quo discursively - ironically so, as the aims of the progressive white middle class residents involved in this study were the exact opposite.

A Mixed Neighbourhood as a Research Site This chapter draws on an ethnographic study of socia] capita] in a 'mixed neighbourhood' in New Haven, Connecticut, USA, conducted from December 1999 to December 2000, January 2002 to Ju]y 2002, and January 2004 to May 2004. During these periods, 1 first lived in the northern corner, then in the historic district. The last return to the field was exclusively focussed on data collection in the low income housing development, and 1 lived on the other side adjacent to the light industrial area surrounding it. The fieldwork included participant observation, observation and participation.' 1 attended meetings ofneighbourhood groups and political organizations, including the Good Government Committee (GGC), socia] clubs and churches, and volunteered in a homeless shelter, in a youth program and in the gardening project discussed here. Indepth interviewing with key persons in these groups as well as casual conversations complemented this material, as did research on secondary sources and archives. 3 The people in this study knew that] was writing 'a book on their neighbourhood' with a focus on how they got together to get things done. Most research notes were written immediately after returning to my apartment. Where feasible, 1 took notes on site. In the last research period, I taped extensive conversations and conducted life history interviews with low income residents. I generally received very supportive reactions to requests for interviews. Two affluent, politically active residents welcomed me at political neighbourhood gatherings at their homes and allowed me to attend social events, but first postponed and upon my return for the second phase of fieldwork refused to be interviewed. The ethnographic part ofthis project does not test pre-existing hypotheses about the relationship between geographical proximity of a middle class and the social capital ofpoorer residents. It explores mechanisms and patterns within such a context that may contribute to further theoretical insights into how access to individual assets, interactions and collective action relate. It thus is an abductive, rather than an inductive or deductive type of research (cf. Schuyt 1986). 2 See for these distinctions Gans 1962,336-8. 3 A survey on social support and social networks among 250 residents is part of the larger

research project, but has not been used as basis for this chapter.

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Gardening with a Little Help/rom Your (Middle Class) Friends

As a fieldwork site, I chose this neighbourhood with circa 3060 residents and its distinct boundary of the railroad that separates it from downtuwn for its history of gentrification since the late 1960s.·' This gentrification had brought about a make-up of residents different in race and class. The most affluent, generally white residents lived in the mansions around 'the Square'. Merchants and wealthy descendants of colonial families had ringed the Square with exclusive mansions in the first half of the 19th century. As the town developed its manufacturing industry and railroad, reaching the heydays of urbanism described in Chapter 2, the neighbourhood became an Irish, then later an Italian immigrant working class area. Much of the housing stock was of low quality. Two streets were replaced by public housing in 1942 as their condition was considered too severe. This became the home of the most deprived, black and Hispanic residents who nicknamed this housing complex 'the Ghetto'. When the city began to loose its industrial base, suburbanization accelerated, and migration of blacks from the South increased, the neighbourhood decayed. Redevelopment in the early sixties gave the final blow to what is now remembered as an urban village or 'Little Italy'. The urban regeneration, as also noted in chapter two, was both praised and despised. The highway built right across the area meant relocation to many families, and cut off the increasingly black lowincome housing complex from the other residences. Zoning redefined the rest of this side of the neighbourhood as light industrial. The Square side of the highway remained mainly residential. Thanks to the efforts of, among others, active residents and the city's Preservation Trust, the Square was saved, and piecemeal regeneration revived its architectural exclusiveness. Two census tracts make up the neighbourhood: one tract (1422) including the Square gentrified, the other tract (1421), including the Ghetto, remained relatively poor. 5 By 1960, the percentage of blacks had increased from virtually none in the 1940s to around 20 per cent. While more whites then again moved into the Square's tract, whites became a numeric minority in and around the Ghetto. In both tracts in the 1940s, over half ofthe population consisted of unskilled or semi-skilled workers. The Square's tract gradually showed a shift to managerial and professional jobs. At the other side, low paid service work replaced manufacturing. In both tracts, the number of residents older than 25 with four years or more of high school went up, but far more so around the Square than around the Ghetto. The gaps between median incomes of the tracts showed a widening gap over the years, as did the percentage offamilies living in poverty: 28.8 per cent in the Ghetto and 5.1 per cent around the Square in 1990. 6 At the time of my research, most of the 532 official residents of the low-income housing complex were black single mothers with their children, and a dozen or so

Hispanic families. 7 The gardening project, or