Grant: Travel Awards - Institute Community Support

This presentation outlines part of a qualitative case study of a collaborative, resident-led community development initiative in Hamilton, Ontario. The initiative, known as Neighbourhood Action (NA), engages residents in 11 neighbourhoods in collaboration with local service providers, city staff, and community developers. NA is a response to levels of concentrated poverty in the identified neighbourhoods, which reflects growing economic and social disparities in the city. My research explores how NA participants are taking up this new model of community development. Drawing on interviews, participant observation, and focus groups (Neighbourhood Action Evaluation, University of Toronto), I will outline residents' perceptions of inclusion in the project, highlighting barriers and enablers to diverse, representative participation in NA. Specifically, I will highlight how barriers to participation are reproduced and/or challenged by participants. If Neighbourhood Action seeks to address inequity experienced by residents in low income neighbourhoods by engaging residents directly in urban planning processes, it is necessary to investigate who is participating and how traditional barriers to civic engagement might be playing out in this context. In this way, practitioners and participants might gain insights about fostering more representative, meaningful participation among a wide cross-section of community members.