Social Capital and Neighbourhoods that Work

Alan Middleton, Alan Murie and Rick Groves
Additional contact information
Alan Middleton: Corporate Development Centre, University of Central England, Perry Barr, Birmingham, B42 2SU, UK, alan.middleton@uce.ac.uk
Alan Murie: Centre for Urban and Regional Studies, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, B15 2TT, UK, A.S.Murie@bham.ac.uk
Rick Groves: Centre for Urban and Regional Studies, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, B15 2TT, UK, R. Groves @ bham. ac. uk

Urban Studies, 2005, vol. 42, issue 10, 1711-1738

Abstract: The concept of social capital has received increasing attention in recent years from both academics and the policy community. It has come to be widely used in debates about housing and neighbourhoods and figures strongly in discussions of social cohesion, community development and neighbourhood renewal. This paper provides an original discussion of some of the key issues related to these debates. It argues that, although it is widely used, the concept of social capital is poorly defined and much of the discussion is based upon assertion rather than upon evidence. The paper goes on to present the results from original social survey work carried out in Bournville in Birmingham, England, and referring to different parts of the Bournville estate. The results refer to the extent of bonding, bridging and linking social capital and how these relate to the social and economic differences between six neighbourhoods within Bournville. The survey evidence is not consistent with key assertions made in the existing literature in relation to age, poverty and class and the paper concludes by raising important reservations about the use of social capital as an analytical rather than a generic concept.

Date: 2005
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1080/00420980500231589 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:42:y:2005:i:10:p:1711-1738

DOI: 10.1080/00420980500231589

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Urban Studies from Urban Studies Journal Limited
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().