One prescription for community and individual empowerment

a knitted city skyline with buildings and people in a city

One of my duties in local government was to attend community meetings. Sometimes I felt like Leslie Knope from the show Parks & Rec, with various levels of anger (or what she calls “people caring loudly”) directed my way. Small meetings of hyper-local bodies, such as homeowner associations, co-operative boards, or civic associations often weigh in on complex and emotion-inducing decisions. For example, in DC, our local, elected, volunteer Advisory Neighborhood Commissions can advise on planning and zoning matters. Perhaps that is why drama usually ensues, making it ripe for parody on a sitcom.

The stakes are real, with significant broad and long-term impacts, especially in the realm of land use and housing. Sometimes these hyper-local organizations wield unrepresentative power and can block needed housing, and there is a growing chorus of voices pushing back on that power. At the same time, this type of civic engagement and association are a critical feature, not a bug, of our society and valuable to us as a group of people and to use as individuals.

The smallest “d” democracy: a mini book review

I was reminded of both the roses and thorns of associations while reading the book Homes for Living: The fight for social housing and a new American commons in preparing for a book talk with the author Jonathan Tarleton. Tarleton examines the fight for the future of two subsidized (Mitchell-Lama for the housing nerds out there) lower-income cooperatives in New York. Through their cooperative boards, these residents had to vote on whether to stay in the program and remain attainable to lower income residents.

Continuing as a Mitchell-Lama co-op meant predictable costs and preserving an ongoing stock of affordable housing for future families. Leaving or privatizing would immediately create a much more valuable (as in 10-20 times more valuable) unit for existing residents, but would remove it from rent-restricted stock, thereby making it less attainable to many future households. And they had to vote not just once but three times over the course of a few years and after thousands of pages of reports. All of this resulted in groups formed, meetings held, arguments had, relationships frayed, grudges stoked, and many posters, counter-posters, and counter-counter-posters slipped under doors.

The book compellingly highlights a dramatic collision of broad public goals against individual decisions. Tarleton makes clear, through very human stories, that there are various frames for these debates: the individual household, the building, the neighborhood, the city, and even future generations. The question throughout the book is: what do these co-operative members (or “cooperaters”) and board members owe to anyone else in making a decision? The answer–that they do not legally owe them anything–meant that the debate was often framed as short-term economic self-interest vs. a broader moral duty. Tarleton shows how the residents were put into these difficult situations thanks to a change in the law in the 1960s that was intended to help spur more rental apartment construction. It had the unintended consequence of creating a privatization loophole for these privately-owned co-ops. The law was amended in 2021to make the process more difficult for co-ops, and thereby less likely to happen.

One legitimate takeaway from the stories is that there was a mismatch between those empowered with a decision and the broader public interests. It is similar in the land use and zoning world, where those who are literally the closest to a project are preferentially empowered. In both cases, there are legitimate questions about which level of the many scales o f policymaking is the right one for making decisions that have both direct and indirect impacts on a broader set of people and over time. But I will put aside the technocratic debate for now, because I think the larger takeaway is that these associations are critical for us as individuals and as society.

A prescription for empowerment

As Tarleton’s book shows, sometimes “drama ensues,” and yet I think the answer is not less civic engagement or empowerment. Already, our civic fabric is fraying, as social engagement decreases and social isolation increases. A recent intriguing article by Yoni Applebaum relates the decline in this social capital to a decrease in people physically moving places and therefore a decreasing interest in joining groups in order to build social connections in a new place. At the same time, technology and the lingering effects of COVID-19 have also accelerated isolation. I think that some of the underlying causes of polarization and social discord arises from a fraying of connections at the community level.

And yet gathering together is an incredibly important and healthy action for individuals, communities, and likely our broader democratic pursuit. I see the built environment, including libraries and downtowns, as a type of hardware that supports important social connections. The software would be the things that happen when people gather in these places and to make collective decisions. It is the type of hyper-local civic participation Tarleton recounts.

This type of engagement is not professional, paid time, but free and volunteer time. It could be joining an affinity or religious organization, attending a local informational meeting, or sitting on a board. Volunteering for civic organizations most clearly helps worthy organizations function and builds communities, which are goods in themselves. Yet it has also been shown to have long-term physical and psychological personal benefits.

And the United States has a long tradition of forming groups and associations and engaging in participatory democracy, as Frenchman Alexis de Tocqueville observed nearly 200 years ago:

“Americans of all ages, all stations in life, and all types of disposition are forever forming associations. They have not only commercial and manufacturing companies, in which all take part, but associations of a thousand other kinds—religious, moral, serious, futile, general or restricted, enormous or diminutive. … Nothing, in my opinion, is more deserving of our attention than the intellectual and moral associations in America.” - Alexis de Toqueville, Democracy in America

What is particularly notable for me at this moment is that such engagement is personally empowering. In these moments of tumult, I am finding solace in my roles on the DC Public Library board and my neighborhood church, even in a world in which my toddler makes finding free time very very difficult. I enjoy being a part of a body that can and must make decisions. That can include debate and disagreement while continuing toward a common purpose.

So for those looking to try and find a potential way out of malaise, disempowerment, over-consumption of news, or perhaps just looking for connection, my prescription is to go find some group or organization that appeals to you and join it. Or if you are already a part of such an organization, consider joining a committee or board. Perhaps most appealingly, this prescription doesn’t even need a doctor’s visit.