What do you do if your alley is strewn with garbage after the sanitation
truck comes through? Or if you're tired of the rowdy teenagers next door
keeping you up all night? Is there a vacant lot on your block
accumulating weeds, needles, and litter? For a century, Chicagoans have
joined block clubs to address problems like these that make daily life
in the city a nuisance. When neighbors work together in block clubs,
playgrounds get built, local crime is monitored, streets are cleaned up,
and every summer is marked by the festivities of day-long block
parties.
In Chicago's Block Clubs, Amanda I. Seligman uncovers the history of
the block club in Chicago--from its origins in the Urban League in the
early 1900s through to the Chicago Police Department's
twenty-first-century community policing program. Recognizing that many
neighborhood problems are too big for one resident to handle--but too
small for the city to keep up with--city residents have for more than a
century created clubs to establish and maintain their neighborhood's
particular social dynamics, quality of life, and appearance. Omnipresent
yet evanescent, block clubs are sometimes the major outlets for
community organizing in the city--especially in neighborhoods otherwise
lacking in political strength and clout. Drawing on the stories of
hundreds of these groups from across the city, Seligman vividly
illustrates what neighbors can--and cannot--accomplish when they work
together.