Sometime last year, I attended a neighborhood meeting. We were setting up a local org to advocate for neighborhood interests. As well as hold fun parties and events.
Setting up a group like that involves considering lots of issues. But one key issue amounts to deciding who, exactly, makes up the org’s constituency. Whose interests should we include? Did we want an org of residents or residential and commercial property owners?
What is a neighborhood org, anyway? Did we want it to be an org of tenants and homeowners, or an org of homeowners, landlords, and small business owners? As readers might imagine, I advocated strongly for the former.
But during the discussion, a local politician objected to that whole question. He claimed constituency ‘doesn’t matter’ and that ‘debates like this turn people off from joining an org.’ In his opinion, the policies we advocate would matter far more than who makes up the group.
Where might this strange view come from?
