Urbanism and Social Capital
SOC604: Lecture V
Joseph D. Lewandowski
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What is Social Capital?
•Capital is value accumulated or stored in physical objects—timber, coal, screwdrivers, etc.
•Human capital is value accumulated or stored in individual human beings—skills, training,
knowledge, education, etc.
•Social capital is value accumulated or stored between and among individual human beings—social
connections, norms, ties and networks of trust that facilitate individual and collective action in
a given context or structure
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Dominant Threads in Contemporary Social Capital Studies
•Economic thread: rational choice model found in Gary Becker and James Coleman and central to
policy-oriented theories of growth and economic development such as those pursued at the World Bank
•Marxist thread: critical sociology exemplified by the work of Pierre Bourdieu, in which theories
of social groups, stratification and conflict are applied in the empirical study of sociocultural
practices
•Democratic thread: first intimated by Alexis de Tocqueville and popularized by Robert Putnam, in
which civil associations—including sport associations—are considered crucial to making democracy
work
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City Life & Social Capital
•Core Research Questions:
•How are social norms, networks, connections and ties created, deployed—and often frayed—in the
context of processes of urbanization?
•What effects do core features of city life, such as human density, social complexity, inequality,
cultural pluralism, ethnoracial diversity and division have on communities, associations, groups
and networks that typically constitute urban civil society?
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Cities & Urbanization
•Today half the globe’s population lives in cities
•Nearly seventy percent of the populations of Latin America, Europe, and the US reside in urban
centers •The once primarily rural populations of Asia and India continue to urbanize •Even some of
the most conservative estimates and models suggest that the percentage of urban dwellers world-wide
will increase to two thirds by the middle of this century
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Global Cities of Today & Tomorrow



What is urban social capital?
§Social connections, norms, ties and networks of trust that facilitate individual and collective
action in urban contexts
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Two kinds of urban social capital
•Horizontal urban social capital: resources (connections, norms, ties and networks) that are
accessible and appropriable within a specific socio-economic or cultural stratum in the urban
milieu •Vertical urban social capital: resources (connections, norms, ties and networks) that are
accessible and appropriable between and among various socio-economic and cultural strata in the
urban milieu
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Urban Social Poverty in Sao Paulo, Baltimore, & Prague
•Urban social poverty is an absence or scarcity of vertical social capital. It is a lack or
shortage of the kinds of social trust and connections that link individuals and enable freedom of
movement and associational interactions up and down the socioeconomic and cultural ladder
•Examples of the challenges posed by urban social poverty include the walled communities of Sao
Paulo, the problem of ‘black social capital’ in Baltimore, and the Roma of Prague
–Sao Paulo: social poverty, class, and the built environment
–Baltimore: social poverty, ethnicity, and public policy
–Prague: social poverty, sport, and advanced marginality
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