Collective Action and Urban Poverty Alleviation: Community Organizations and the Struggle for Shelter in Manila

How effective are neighborhood participation and citizen organizing as tools of development? The perfect test may be in Manila, which exploded with organizations after the collapse of the Marcos dictatorship in 1986. Anyone wondering about limits to local democracy - in poor neighborhoods anywhere - should read this thorough study. Professor William W. Goldsmith, Director, International Studies in Planning, Cornell University There is an urgent need to address the problems experienced by rapidly growing cities in the developing world. Recently, innovative approaches have focused on community-based organizations (CBOs) in setting up self-help and participatory programmes. Using the experience of CBOs in Manila, this book emphasizes the external conditions that influence patterns of collective action within communities and addresses issues such as the local political economy and the communities' place within the global economy. An estimated 600 million people now live in informal or 'squatter' settlements in the rapidly growing cities of the developing world. With such settlements often lacking basic necessities, there is an urgent need to address this urban crisis. Recently, innovative approaches have focused on the role of community-based organizations (CBOs) in setting up self-help and participatory programmes. This incisive book questions whether communities have the ability to organize, engage government and undertake major redevelopment. It also examines when and how mobilization of communities occurs and if such organizations possess any influence in the intensely political decision-making arena of urban land development. It is illustrated by a detailed analysis of the experience of CBOs in Manila, as the Philippine government has undertaken what is perhaps the most radical experiment in decentralized, participatory approaches to urban governance in the world. The book emphasizes the external conditions that influence patterns of collective action within communities and addresses issues such as the local political economy and the communities' place within the global economy. Contents: Preface; Introduction; Obstacles to empowerment: local politics and community organizing in metro Manila; Community-based organizations and the state: 5 case studies; Building communities: social capital and participation in CBOs; Political identities and collective action; A quantitative assessment of community organizing in metro Manila; A comparative perspective on collective action and community change; Appendix; Bibliography; Index. About the Author: Dr Gavin Shatkin is Assistant Professor at the Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning, University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, USA.