query: examples of organizations that successfully combine bricks and mortar community development work with confrontational organizing tactics

[Discussion list for COMM-ORG]

[ed:  please feel welcomed to copy COMM-ORG with replies to James' 
query.  A bit from me below.]

From: James DeFilippis <jdefilip at rci.rutgers.edu>


Hi all,

I am looking for good examples of organizations that successfully 
combine bricks and mortar community development work with 
confrontational organizing tactics.
A lot of CDCs rediscovered "organizing" about 10 years ago or so, but 
many people (myself included) would argue that much of that organizing 
had lost the critical and confrontational politics focused on social and 
economic justice that had marked earlier periods of organizing.  I'm 
looking for examples of groups that either never lost a focus on such 
politicized organizing or got it back, while they have maintained their 
work as developers (and/or service providers).

thanks a lot, James

-- 
James DeFilippis
Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy
Rutgers University
33 Livingston Avenue
New Brunswick, NJ 08901
732-932-3822 ext: 734

[ed:  I have found one example, and some of the variables that I think 
make a difference, in a 2003 article, "Understanding the 
Development-Organizing Dialectic." Journal of Urban Affairs, 25: 493-512.]