ABSTRACT
That the discovery of this situation - lack of facilities, faulty construction, unresponsiveness of the developer - led eventually to activism on the part of the residents should not be perceived as inevitable. As Orbell and Uno (1972:474-5) note, this rather easy assumption - of political activism as a natural response to an awareness of lack of neighbourhood quality - is at the base of much of the literature on community action. In exploring this point, a modified version of Hirschman's (1970) 'exit' or 'voice' model of reaction to community (and organizational) deterioration may be useful (Barry, 1974: Birch, 1975).
