NEIGHBORHOOD ACTIVISM IN SOCIOHISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE: COLUMBUS, OHIO, 1900-1980 (HISTORICAL MATERIALISM, MARXIST GEOGRAPHY, URBAN)

The emergence and development of a 'politics of turf' literature forms the point of departure for this dissertation. These studies have undertaken analyses of data provided by surveys or content analysis and have attempted to establish the correlates of neighborhood activism. By and large the methodologies employed have been empiricist, regarding neighborhood activism, as a 'dependent' variable to which links have been sought with a variety of 'independent' variables describing the activists, the issues and their neighborhoods. Overall, homeownership, the presence of school-attending children in the home, and urban development have consistently emerged as concomitants of neighborhood activism.;Similar quantitative shifts in certain correlates of neighborhood activism were also identified. Increasing rate of homeownership, the presence of children in the home, the changing scale of residential construction and an integration of real estate markets are suggested as important correlates of the historical trajectory of neighborhood activism.;The significance of these correlates derives from an historical materialist analysis which details changes in the broader sociohistorical context. In particular, it is argued that an understanding of the meaning of these correlates may be found in the resolution of a legitimation crisis which occurred around the turn of the century. This resolution involved a greater importance being placed on upward mobility and consumption, both of which led to homeownership, children and neighborhoods assuming a new significance in advanced capitalist settings. Threats to these new meanings have resulted in political responses such as neighborhood activism.;This dissertation begins by establishing the historical trajectory of neighborhood activism. It is shown that neighborhood activism as it is known today is highly contemporary. Using the results obtained from a content analysis of a local newspaper--The Columbus Dispatch--and an examination of rezoning files, major shifts in the intensity, character and historical geography of neighborhood activism are identified. Over the past eighty years, neighborhood activism has become more defensive and intense with a distinct focus on the exclusion of certain land uses and facilities from residential neighborhoods.