In current theoretical and policy debates concerning social cohesion, the neighbourhood has re-emerged as an important setting for many of the processes which supposedly shape social identity and life-chances. It is in this context of a renewal of interest in local social relations and particularly the deployment of notions of social capital that this paper offers a critical review of a wide-ranging literature. The paper explores initially and briefly the idea that societies face a new crisis of social cohesion and outlines the key dimensions of societal cohesion. The core of the paper is then devoted to an examination of where the contemporary residential neighbourhood fits into these wider debates, particularly in relation to the interaction between social cohesion and social capital. In this context, some of the key debates around the concept of social capital are outlined. In moving beyond abstraction, the paper also shows how social capital can be broken down into relevant domains for policy action at the neighbourhood level and how concepts such as social cohesion and social capital can be operationalised for research purposes.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Baumgartner, M. (1988) The Moral Order of the Suburbs. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
2.
Beck, U. (1992) Risk Society. London: Sage.
3.
Blakely, E. and Snyder, M. (1997) Fortress America: Gated Communities in the United States. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press.
4.
Bourdieu, P. (1986) Forms of capital, in: J. G. Richardson (Ed.) Handbook of Theory and Research for the Sociology of Education, pp. 241-258. New York: Greenwood Press.
5.
Burns, D. and Taylor, M. (1988) Mutual Aid and Self Help. Bristol : Polity Press.
6.
Burns, D., Forrest, R., Kearns, A. and Flint, J. (2000) The Impact of Housing Associations on Social Capital: Interim Report to Scottish Homes. Department of Urban Studies , University of Glasgow.
7.
Byrne, D. (1997) National social policy in the United Kingdom, in: M. Pacione (Ed.) Britain's Cities: Geographies of Division in Urban Britain, pp. 108-127. London: Rout-ledge.
8.
Cars, G., Madanipour, A. and Allen, J. (1998) (Eds.) Social Exclusion in European Cities. London: Jessica Kingsley.
9.
Castells, M. (1997) The Power of Identity. Oxford : Blackwell.
10.
Castells, M. (1998) End of Millennium. Oxford: Blackwell.
11.
Christopherson, S. (1994) The Fortress City: Privatised Spaces, Consumer Citizenship, in: A. Amin (Ed.) Post-Fordism: A Reader, pp. 409-427. Oxford: Blackwell.
12.
Coleman, J. (1988) Social capital in the creation of human capital , American Journal of Sociology, 94 (September), pp. s95-sl20.
13.
Crow, G. and Allan, G. (1994) Community Life: An Introduction to Local Social Relations. London: Harvester: Wheatsheaf.
14.
Davies, M. (1990) City of Quartz. London: Verso.
15.
Davin, A. (1993) Growing Up Poor. London: River Oram Press.
16.
Dean, J. and Hastings, A. (2000) Challenging Images: Housing Estates, Stigma and Regeneration. Bristol: Policy Press .
17.
Ellen, I. and Turner, M. (1997) Does neighbourhood matter? Assessing recent evidence , Housing Policy Debate, 8, pp. 833-866.
18.
Etzioni, A. (1993) Spirit of Community: The Reinvention of American Society. London: Simon and Schuster .
19.
Fischer, C. (1982) To Dwell Among Friends: Personal Networks in Town and City. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
20.
Forrest, R. and Kearns, A. (1999) Joined-up Places? Social Cohesion and Neighbourhood Regeneration. York: York Publishing Services, for Joseph Rowntree Trust..
21.
Friedrichs, J. (1996) Context effects of poverty neighbourhooods in residents . Keynote address at ENHR/SBI Housing Research Conference on Housing and European Integration, Helsingor , Denmark, August.
22.
Fukuyama, F. (1999) The Great Disruption: Human Nature and the Reconstitution of Social Order. London: Profile Books.
23.
Galster, G. and Killen, S.P. (1995) The geography of metropolitan opportunity: a reconnaissance and conceptual framework, Housing Policy Debate, 6, pp. 7-43.
24.
Granovetter, M. (1973) The strength of weak ties, American Journal of Sociology, 78, pp.1360-1380.
25.
Guest, A. and Wierzbicki, S. (1999) Social ties at the neighbourhood level: two decades of GSS evidence, Urban Affairs Review, 35, pp. 92-111.
26.
Henning, C. and Lieberg, M. (1996) Strong ties or weak ties? Neighbourhood networks in a new perspective, Scandinavian Housing and Planning Research , 13, pp. 3-26.
27.
Hirschfield, A. and Bowers, K. (1997) The effect of social cohesion on levels of recorded crime in disadvantaged areas, Urban Studies, 34, pp. 1275-1295.
28.
Jacobs, J. (1961) The Death and Life of Great American Cities. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books.
29.
Janowitz, M. (1967) The Community Press in an Urban Setting: The Social Elements of Urbanism, 2nd edn. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
30.
Kasarda, J. and Janowitz, M. (1974) Community attachment in mass society, American Sociological Review, 39, pp. 328-339.
31.
Kearns, A. and Forrest, R. (2000) Social Cohesion and Multi-Level Urban Governance, UrbanStudies, 37, pp. 995-1017.
32.
Kornhauser, R. (1978) The Social Sources of Delinquency. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
33.
Lang, R. and Danielsen, K. (1997) Gated communities in America: walling out the world? , Housing Policy Debate, 8, pp. 867-899.
34.
Leadbeater, C. (1997) Civic Spirit: The Big Idea for a New Political Era. London: Demos/New Statesman.
35.
Mann, M. (1970) Social cohesion of liberal democracy, American Sociological Review, 35, pp.423-439.
36.
McClellan, J. (2000) Web versus high street, The Guardian On Line, 27 January, p. 10.
37.
Morrow, V. (1999) Conceptualising social capital in relation to the well-being of children and young people: a critical review, Sociological Review, 47, pp. 745-765.
38.
Pahl, R. (1997) The ties that bind: creating communities. Paper given at ESRC Social Science Conference on Future Britain , QEII Centre, June.
39.
Pahl, R.E. (1991) The search for social cohesion: from Durheim to the European Commission, European Journal of Sociology, 32, pp. 345-360.
40.
Paugani, S. (1995) The spiral of precariousness: a multidimensional approach to the process of social disqualification in France, in: G. Room (Ed.) Beyond the Threshold: The Measurement and Analysis of Social Exclusion, pp. 49-79. Bristol : The Policy Press.
41.
Phillipson, C., Bernard, M., Phillips, J. and Ogg, J. (1999) Older people's experiences of community life: patterns of neighbouring' in three urban areas, Sociological Review , 47, pp.715-739.
42.
Portes, A. and Landolt, P. (1996) The downside of social capital, American Prospect, 26, pp. 18-21.
43.
Putnam, R.D. (1993) Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
44.
Putnam, R.D. (1995) 'Bowling alone': America's declining social capital , Journal of Democracy, 6(1), pp. 65-78.
45.
Putnam, R.D. (1996). The strange disappearance of civic America, American Prospect, Winter, pp. 34-48.
46.
Reich, R. (1991) The Work of Nations. London : Simon and Schuster.
47.
Rosenbaum, J.E. (1995) Changing the geography of opportunity by expanding residential choice: lessons from the Gautreaux Program, Housing Policy Debate, 6, pp. 231-269.
48.
Sampson, R. (1988) Local friendship ties and community attachment in mass society, American Sociological Review, 53, pp. 766-779.
49.
Sampson, R. (1991) Linking the micro- and macrolevel dimensions of community social organisation, Social Forces, 70, pp. 43-64.
50.
Sampson, R. and Groves, W.B. (1989) Community structure and crime: testing social-disorganisation theory, American Journal of Sociology, 94, pp. 774-802.
51.
Shaw, C. and McKay, H. (1942/69) Juvenile Delinquency and Urban Areas, rev. edn 1969. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
52.
Suttles, G. (1972) The Social Construction of Communities. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press .
53.
Turner, B. (1991) Prolegomena to a general theory of social order . University of Essex (mimeograph).
54.
Wilton, R.D. (1998) The Constitution of Difference: Space and Psyche in Landscapes of Exclusion, Geoforum, 29, pp. 173-185.
