The Politics of Community Development: A History of the Bedford-Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation

Abstract

This dissertation explores the nearly fifty-year history of the Bedford-Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation (BSRC), the nation's first federally funded community development corporation (CDC). The BSRC's creation stemmed from the bottom-up initiatives of African American women in the Central Brooklyn Coordinating Council (CBCC), a federation of more than one hundred community groups aided by city planners at Pratt Institute. Their seminal efforts at rehabilitating Bedford-Stuyvesant marked a transition in the Civil Rights-Black Power Movement's confrontation of discriminatory practices, municipal neglect, and the pathologies of poverty and urban decay. These efforts attracted the attention and commitment of Senators Robert F. Kennedy and Jacob K. Javits, who recruited business and philanthropic leaders to the cause and secured the initial funding to launch Restoration in December 1966. Together these partners in renewal forged a public-private partnership at a time when black and white Americans were moving farther apart. Together they articulated a new definition of community in which the combination of mutual responsibility and the strength of the American business system provided the means to turn poor neighborhoods into engines of renewal. They created an intermediary level of American governance that was more responsive to the needs of local people and placed new resources at the disposal of community leaders. The BSRC was the innovative product of a "creative federalism" that coordinated the power of the federal government, philanthropies, labor unions, universities, and the private enterprise system. This comprehensive organizational history investigates the full spectrum of the BSRC's comprehensive physical, economic, social, and cultural redevelopment agenda. Building on the concept that the 'process is the product' Restoration's successes and failures demonstrate how capacity was built in one of the nation's most challenged communities. After a decade of impressive accomplishments, Restoration was forced to retreat and reevaluate its mission as successive conservative presidential administrations withdrew the federal support that once largely sustained the corporation. The 1980s served as a crucible in which Restoration reinvented itself in order to survive. The new structure underscored the importance of communal ties, profitable sustainability, and nimble leadership that could move from "the streets to the suites." As it emerged from the challenges of the 1980s, Restoration was no longer the movement's North Star, but rather another point of light in a competitive constellation of more than 4,500 CDCs. In 2014, Restoration continues to balance the weight of its historic mission to provide comprehensive community development in a neighborhood that is undergoing rapid change. While poverty remains a fact of life for many of the area's minority residents, gentrification brings new challenges and opportunities to create a collaborative community that steps beyond the boundaries of race and class to build a better Bedford-Stuyvesant.