Representing the Community

This chapter shows how community-based organizations (CBOs) in the Fairmount Corridor superseded elected politicians as de facto neighborhood representatives. Local elected officials were, at best, marginal players in the broader community development field. It was not necessarily the case that residents viewed CBOs as more authentic than elected representatives. In fact, regardless of resident perceptions, government officials and foundation funders viewed nonprofit CBOs as the legitimate representatives of poor neighborhoods. The privatization of political representation is a double-edged sword for the urban poor: CBOs can bring much needed resources to poor neighborhoods but are not subject to the same systems of accountability as democratically elected politicians.