Neighborhood Councils as Antidote to Minority Political Marginalization?
In many of America’s major cities, a sense of hopelessness and cynicism discourages political participation, especially by members of minority groups. Disengagement, in turn, undermines accountability and facilitates corruption, which exacerbates public cynicism.
How can the vicious circle be broken? In a new paper on SSRN, Matt Parlow argues that neighborhood councils — “new substructures of local government that aim to involve citizens in the decision- and policy-making processes” — have the potential to raise the engagement level of minority citizens with local government. He uses Detroit to illustate the problems of local government corruption and minority political marginalization in American cities, while pointing to Los Angeles as an example of a city that has had some recent success with neighborhood councils.