OUP - Abstract

Ties and Trust: Understanding How Social Capital Operates in Neighborhoods

Dissertation School: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Pages: 246

Publication Date: August 2002

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Access Number: 10740

Abstract:

This dissertation will focus on social capital as a feature of neighborhoods. In general terms, social capital refers to features of social structure that facilitate the achievement of individual or collective goals (Coleman 1988). Recently, policy analysts have looked to the development of social capital to alleviate the problems of inner-city neighborhoods (Committee for Economic Development 1995). For example, high social capital within neighborhoods has been linked to a reduction in crime rates (Sampson, Raudenbush and Earls 1997) and high social capital within buildings has been linked to an increase in housing quality (Saegert and Winkel 1998). Yet despite this strong interest and potential, there are several significant gaps in the research on social capital. I will structure the dissertation around three general questions designed to fill in these gaps.

First, how is social capital best defined and measured? If research on social capital is to have a payoff we must be clearer about what the term describes and how to measure it so that the policy implications of the research can be accurately assessed. Second, how is social capital created? More specifically, I examine one way in which this is generally assumed to occur but that has not been adequately tested empirically—participation in neighborhood voluntary associations. And third, does social capital facilitate the achievement of collective goals at the level of neighborhoods? Specifically, I will evaluate whether social capital increases the quality of public services and deters physical disorder. Knowledge of how to improve the quality of neighborhoods is of vital importance since neighborhoods are the locus of so many crucial activities in people's daily lives. Understanding the mechanisms underlying the relationships between neighborhood organizations, social networks, and trust, and how these in turn influence neighborhood outcomes is important to policies targeted at improving urban neighborhoods.

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