Social capital and community development: Where do we go from here?

ABSTRACT

Social capital has become a cornerstone to community development. Unfortunately, its scope of research, particularly on policy, creates more smoke than light. This essay builds on an interdisciplinary foundation for a more inclusive approach to social capital research. Though broad evidence supports Putnam’s claims on social capital, our understanding is incomplete, partly due to scholars’ focus on individual disciplinary perspectives. We summarize social capital and its use as a development tool, and consider how to move toward a more interdisciplinary framework. We explore where communities have created and evaluated social capital, cross-disciplinary insights, empirical work suggesting cause-effect, and offer three examples of interplay between social capital and community development: the built environment, migration, and entrepreneurship. Our conclusion presents a conceptual model including all Community Capitals rather than treating them piecemeal, viewing the community as a system under what ecologists call the “law of the minimum” wherein limiting elements constrain growth.

KEYWORDS:

• social capital; community capital; economic development

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank the anonymous reviewers for valuable suggestions. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the authors.

Disclosure of potential conflicts of interest

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Contemporary scholars include Bourdieu (1986, 1989), Coleman (1988), and Loury (1977).

2. Earliest uses of the term are attributed to Hanifan (1916), Jacobs (1961) and Loury (1977).

3. Florida (2002, p. 220) challenges this viewpoint, arguing clusters “do not approximate the classic social capital model”; creative class people “do not desire the strong ties and long-term commitments associated with traditional social capital” but a “more flexible, quasi-anonymous community” to pursue opportunities and build relationships.

4. Mayunga uses slightly different definitions of the capitals than Flora and Flora.

Additional information

Funding

Partial funding was provided by the New Hampshire Agricultural Experiment Station and the Moore Institute Visiting Fellows Programme at the National University of Ireland Galway. This is Scientific Contribution Number 2897. The work was supported by the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture under Multistate Project 1749, Project 1015411. New Hampshire Agricultural Experiment Station [NE 1749];Moore Institute, National University of Ireland Galway [n/a];