Contributions of Social Capital to Best Practice Urban Planning Outcomes

Abstract

Sustainable communities prioritise health, safety and equity among residents. These interdependent dimensions of community well-being require an integrative developmental and evaluation framework to highlight the connections essential for their development. We examine the utility of the social capital construct as a connective framework with the potential to assist urban planners in enhancing these attributes and the sustainability of communities in new or existing developments. Concepts of social capital are already utilised in urban planning contexts, however, we chart a novel approach and demonstrate that a combination of the bonding, bridging and linking dimensions of social capital can provide a comprehensive and multidimensional framework that overcomes the limitations imposed by popular, yet narrower concepts, such as social cohesion and social exclusion. The strength of this combination is that it not only explores connections between individuals and various resources within communities but also includes relationships with broader networks and decision-makers. In this way, planning processes can contribute to more recent notions of sustainable development that include governance as a fourth and essential pillar in quadruple bottom line approaches to sustainable development.

可持续社区的要义在于居民的健康、安全和平等。幸福社区的这几个方面相互依存，须有整体性的开发和评估框架，以凸显其发展所必需的关联性。本文考察作为关联 框架的社会资本建构的运用，这一建构有可能帮助城市规划者再现有或新的开发项 目中强化上述方面，促进社区的可持续性。社会资本的概念虽然已经在城市规划中 运用，但我们提出了一个新路径，并说明将社会资本中融合、连接和关联的面向相 结合，便能提供一个完整、多面向的框架，克服目前常用但狭窄的概念——如社会 凝聚和社会排斥——的局限。这种结合不仅探索了社区内部个体与不同资源的关联， 并且涵纳了与更多网络和决策者的关系。规划过程由此便能促进可持续发展的新理 念，把治理作为可持续发展四柱法中的第四根支柱。

KeyWords:

• Social capital
• urban planning
• community development
• sustainable development
• strategic planning
• quadruple bottom line