Neighborhood Democracy

The Neighborhood Involvement Alliance brings together Salt Lake community councils and University of Utah faculty and students in order to investigate ways west Salt Lake residents can become more active participants in their community councils. This partnership includes a University undergraduate political science course grounded on community-based research, and consultant focus group surveys facilitated by UNP staff.

This spring, Political Science professor Dr. Luke Garrott will teach Neighborhood Democracy a course he designed to provide students the opportunity to study issues of grassroots democracy. The idea for the course emerged out of his initial work with the Glendale Community Council. Students explore democratic theory, sub-municipal politics, leadership, and community development and organization. University students enrolled in the course experience civic-oriented learning, largely through reflective experiential knowledge. Dr. Garrott envisions the activist teaching he practices as leading to a discovery process for authentic citizenship in each student, modeling the various ways citizens can sustain democracy in their own lives, neighborhoods, city, state, and ultimately, nation.

Last year, students partnered with YouthCity (a city-wide youth programming that provides innovative and enriching activities offered in various city community centers, schools and parks both after-school and during the summer.) to support a youth community planning initiative that engaged young residents in Glendale and Popular Grove neighborhoods to update the master community development plan for west Salt Lake.

The students in the Neighborhood Democracy class have conducted over 350 door to door interviews with residents in Rose Park, Fair Park, Glendale and Central City to ask them about life and their civic involvement in their neighborhood. The results of these polls are shared with their respective community councils in order to provide fresh perspectives from their constituencies. The survey findings can help community councils expand their reach to individuals and helping to revitalize neighborhood-level politics in Salt Lake City.