Urban Studies and Planning Commons^™

Working Across Difference To Build Urban Community, Democracy, And Immigrant Integration, Timothy Sieber, Maria Centeio

Tim Sieber

What factors make it possible for new immigrants to integrate well into established communities of long-term citizen residents, and to establish effective collaborations that unify the community around struggles for neighborhood defense and improvement? In the 25-year history of Boston’s Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative, the place-based nature of the organizing initiative and its commitment to the democratic participation of all residents in neighborhood planning were key to institutionalization of multiethnic, multiracial collaboration that knit immigrants to old-timers in struggles to improve quality of life for all. DSNI’s successful organizing of an inclusive, unified city neighborhood offers a compelling model of …