Community Organizing and Regionalism

Abstract

In 1996, the Gamaliel Foundation, a national network of more than 40 congregation‐based community organizing projects, adopted a regional approach to community organizing, consolidating local projects into metropolitan organizations and addressing regional dynamics of sprawl and socioeconomic polarization. Through participant observation and interviews at metropolitan and national levels, I examine the effects of regionalism on community organizing. I find that a regional approach may help organizers manage longstanding dilemmas of ideology—how to balance broad appeal with sharp analysis—and scale—how to maintain democratic participation while organizing beyond the local level. I look briefly at the effects of grassroots organizing on regionalism, and find that it may give it a more radical and populist thrust.