Social Capital and Poor Communities

6: Housing, Social Capital, and Poor Communities

Chapter 6 Housing, Social Capital, and Poor Communities Langley C. Keyes Given the current definitional controversy surrounding the term "social capital ," any discussion of its relationship to housing and poor communities can quickly become mired in theoretical and empirical debate.1 Rather than cursing the definitional darkness, this essay seizes Michael Woolcock's (1998) framing of the term as the lens through which to view housing and poor communities. In "Social Capital and Economic Development: Toward a Theoretical Synthesis and Policy Framework," Woolcock (1998, 184) throws down this gauntlet:2 As arguably the most influential concept to emerge from economic sociology in the last decade, it behooves serious students to critique, clarify, and refine what they mean by this tantalizing term [social capital], lest it go from intellectual insight appropriated by policy pundits, to journalistic cliche, to eventual oblivion. Woolcock developed his theoretical synthesis and policy framework to look at issues of development in emerging countries, where the focus is on the nation-state and its relationship to local communities. When applied to the urban world of developed countries, his terminology needs some reformulation. But when focused at the level of the city, the neighborhood, or the individual housing development, his model provides a disciplined way of looking at the relationship of social capital to housing and poor communities in American cities. Woolcock's developmental world is one in which the legal, cultural, and institutional structures at the national and local levels of a nation both affect and are affected by the nature of the country's social capital networks. He posits four social capitals, each representing a unique kind of social network. Two of the networks are "bottom up," located at the local grassroots level. The other two are "top down," originating at the corporate and governmental levels. The first bottom-up social capital is concerned with "intracommunity ties"-the degree of integration of the community under consideration. The second bottom-up social capital focuses on linkage, the term Woolcock uses for extracommunity networks, that is, the degree to which the com136 I Housing, Social Capital, and Poor Communities munity is able to reach out to entities, organizations, and notables beyond itself. His underlying presumption is that the more integrated the community, the more readily it can successfully carry out such linkage. The social capital "view from the top" approximates a mirror image of the two bottom-up networks. Parallel to community integration at the bottom, integrity is the term applied to intra-integration of individual top-down organizations. How efficient , well organized, and rational are they? Synergy is Woolcock's conceptfor extraorganizational networking at the top between state and economic institutions, that is, linkage between key public and private stakeholders. Woolcock's schematic networked nation has horizontal linkages across "the top" and "the bottom." When spelled out in developmental terms, these four social networks present a two-by-two matrix of high and low degrees of social capital (see figure 6.1). FIGURE 6.1 / Woolcock's Four Social Networks SYNERGY (state-society relations) LINKAGE (extracommunity networks) Source: Woolcock 1998. t TOP-DOWN SOCIAL CAPITAL Low High High Low INTEGRITY (corporate coherence and capacity) Low High anarchy (collapsed state) inefficiency (weak state) corruption predation (rogue state) anomie amoral individualism Low cooperation. flexibility (developmental state) t (intracommunity ties) INTEGRATION social opportunity amoral familism High BOTTOM-UP SOCIAL CAPITAL I 137 Social Capital and Poor Communities After identifying the four types of social networks, Woolcock concludes that the most pressing issues for development theory and policy-especially those concerned with poverty alleviation-emerge from interaction between both realms. . . . [T]he prospects of local-level development efforts very much turn on the extent to which both bottom-up and top-down dilemmas are resolved (179).... [T] he interaction between "top down" and "bottom up" must therefore be a dynamic one. (180, emphasis added) The synergized-top should reach down, and the linkaged-bottom reach upward. There must be positive interaction between the two levels to achieve the ultimate "network of networks": the integrated and networked local community linked to a cohesive and civic-minded corporate realm that works synergistically with an equitable and efficient state. Interactions between Woolcock's bottom-up and top-down"dilemmas of development " produce sixteen possible "performance outcomes." Performance outcome is defined in terms of the quality of social capitals. In the best of all worlds, all four forms operate in tandem. Woolcock's "beneficent...