Good Citizens and Persistent Public Problems

Most of what we hear about the state of citizenship today seems dismal and abstract. There is the persistently bad news about voter turnout and public mistrust of government. There are the constant reminders that young people in particular feel disconnected from public life. There are the concerns of experts who believe that volunteerism and membership in neighborhood associations, political parties, community organizations, and other groups is lower than ever before; this is a subject of great debate among political scientists and sociologists, who pore over opinion polls and historical data, and though the tone of the discussion is ominous, the answers are never clear. It is a cloudy and depressing vista, and there doesn't seem to be much we can do about it. We have become apathetic about our supposed apathy.

The picture becomes a little less blurry when we take a closer look at how citizens and public employees typically interact, how neighborhood associations and other grassroots groups operate, and what happens when residents try to "get involved." At that level, the capacity of ordinary people is clear; this book is filled with examples of what citizens have accomplished. But one of the other realities is that people only participate when they feel like they have to: when a problem has gone from bad to terrible, or when an important decision is being made (or has already been made) that will affect them directly. Usually, the crisis is something that could have been averted if citizens had been part of the process earlier on, but for a number of reasons, the regular opportunities for this kind of participation—neighborhood associations, parent-teacher associations, public meetings, and so on—fail to attract people until the crisis hits.

At the local and neighborhood level, most communities don't provide the kind of meaningful political opportunities that will compel and sustain long-term involvement. Local leaders talk about the need for persistent, widespread participation, but what they get are occasional bursts of active citizenship, often occurring in situations where the energy can't be channeled in any productive way. In most places, local democracy is like a boring college lecture course with a tedious professor: most of the students skip every class until the final exam, when they troop into the room, chewing their pencils with fear, anger, and determination.

On one hand, looking through the eyes of the average resident gives us a view of citizenship that is dismal and specific rather than dismal and abstract. On the other hand, it affirms that most people are not in fact apathetic, or incompetent, or permanently alienated from government, or so busy they are incapable of participating in public life. It helps us understand why expert rule is increasingly unattractive to citizens and leaders alike. It shows us how the sad state of our democratic infrastructure reinforces our guilt-ridden avoidance of active citizenship. It helps us see why neighborhood council systems and democratic organizing efforts are proliferating, and how these experiments in shared governance are different from the usual kind of local politics. It gives us a picture of citizenship that is both more hopeful and more complicated.

Looking carefully at the state of democracy in communities also reminds us why active citizenship matters so much. When we take stock of our progress on key public priorities like education, race relations, land use, and crime prevention, the consequences of the disconnection between citizens and government become more apparent. On almost every public issue, there is a lack of cooperation and coordination between residents and public employees. Citizens are often unaware of the nature of a public problem, the steps they might take to address it, and how they might get assistance. Citizens are unconvinced of the need to support and fund public services and capacities, while public employees are unconvinced of the need to legitimize the roles of active citizens and consult with the public on questions of policy. Some of the greatest difficulties are caused by the erosion of shared community values and by deepening divisions between different groups of people. The state of citizenship seems like an abstract idea when boiled down to a statistic like voter turnout; it becomes more real when we see how it affects the issues that affect our lives.

Overwhelmed by these limitations, expert rule is slowly being overtaken by forms of governance that foster and reward active citizens. So while most of what is written about citizenship focuses on the apathy or alienation of people en masse, we can learn the most from the experiences of individuals who, despite all the obstacles, are doing their best.

A Good Citizen

Providence, Rhode Island, 1997

I am standing with Lisa Giordano on the sidewalk in front of her house on Willow Street in Providence, Rhode Island. We are talking about all the things she has done for her block.

During the last ten years, Giordano has spent much of her time making life better for her neighbors. Despite the fact that she has a full-time job as a housecleaner, she has spent countless hours with the young people on the block—taking them on field trips, organizing activities, talking with them about their problems. She has worked with the police to make the neighborhood safer. She has put pressure on absentee landlords to clean up their properties. She has led efforts to clean up graffiti and litter. She has brought neighbors together for block parties where people got to know each other.

But for Giordano, active citizenship comes with a price. When she tells me about her greatest achievement of the past year, she lowers her voice. "... And so far the drug dealers have been doing a lot less dealing out of the blue house across the street," she says. "Since the landlord, after repeated requests from us and the police, threatened to evict the tenants who lived there, things have been quiet."

I make the mistake of looking over at the blue house. "Don't!" she says quickly. "They might see you—they're pretty sure we're the...