What are the impacts on engagement that strong social ties might be creating?

  • “My ability to influence what’s going on, and to be able to influence what’s going on to a certain degree in my neighborhood is definitely impacted by the fact that I have a very strong social network here.”

    Olivia (North)

  • “It's almost like a precursor before anything else happens. Maybe some people are able to buy the vacant lots all on their own right? Or maybe they're able to buy a multi-unit building all on their own. But that's not everybody's lived experience.”

    Ruth (South)

  • “If somebody is talking about building something new, like big, multi-story complexes to replace a single-family home, we want to talk about that. If there's something that needs to be done, then we'll talk about it as a group and then say, ‘Hey, let's talk to the alderman’s office’ and let’s see what’s going on and if there’s anything we can do about it.’”

    Jerry (North)

  • “I do think that in a city it's absolutely essential to have strong community groups. I think that having a collective voice is a voice that can be heard loud and strong…When advertising our neighborhood association to new members at the farmers market, we don't have any trouble selling it. Because I think that people want to be part of a group, and it's such a good organization. You're giving back, you're having fun while you're doing it, you're with your neighbors, you have a big commonality. I think that the credibility probably lies more with being a member of the association than just coming as Stacey, an individual on X Avenue,” she said. “I think that they listen to me as a member of the association, first and foremost. They trust that.”

    Stacey (North)

Quantitative Considerations

“This cohesion taking place within the neighborhood as people band together to take action within their city raises the question of how the connection between neighbors might influence trust in authority figures like the local government. To examine this, I chose to operationalize data on community belonging. Community belonging is related to trust between neighbors insofar as the bonds that stem from social reciprocity embed one in the neighborhood. First, I wanted to examine the rates of community belonging reported across the city. The average rate of community belonging for a community area in Chicago is 44.35%, and there don’t appear to be any major regional differences in its distribution, as can be seen in Figure 18. Regional analysis of the average confirms this, with the average community belonging being 47%, 41%, and 44% across the North, West, and South community areas respectively.

I then compared these values with the levels of trust in the local government in Figure 19, where there emerged a clear correlation between the levels of community belonging and the trust in local government. What’s more, these patterns don’t appear to follow Hardship Index patterns as closely as they have on other indicators. These findings, combined with interview respondents’ experiences, suggest to me that when people work together to make change, they seem to stave off the negative impacts that others have experienced from the local government. Instead, unified neighborhoods feel heard and effective in their advocacy efforts with the city.

It seems then, that because they can see positive outcomes from their efforts, that their trust in the systems available to make change (i.e., the local government) is strengthened. However, the average reported community belonging across the city is low (like overall average trust), meaning that the rate at which this mechanism is able to take place in Chicago is limited. These low levels of community belonging are likely stemming from the lower rates of group membership observed by Putnam (2000) and the ever-more normalized liberation of people from community structures, but more research would be needed to fully understand this trend.

Conclusion

In summary, neighborhood relationships can play a large role in enhancing residents' perceived and actual influence over local developments. Strong social ties empower individuals to collectively address community issues and feel heard by developers, planners, and aldermen alike. When neighbors unite in advocacy, they not only counteract negative experiences that can hurt trust, but also strengthen their collective trust in the existing pathways for changemaking. Thus, community cohesion is essential for building participation.