Onward Sweep of Social Capital: Causes and Consequences for Understanding Cities, Communities and Urban Movements (The)

This article examines how 'social capital' is used by researchers and practitioners in the field of urban movements and community development. It also explores the gaps and weaknesses that occur when examining the 'social capital' perspective.

Mayer describes social capital in this way: "attaching the adjective 'social' to the economic term 'capital' suggests that, next to 'non-social' forms of capital (such as finance capital, material, physical capital or human capital), there exists a social variant of capital, which shares with other forms of capital the capacity to grow through utilization." She also contends that whether it is intended or not, when associated activities and civil resources are labelled as a form of capital "they appear as economic behaviour assets - a language effect, which... influences the way the emerging discourse perceives associational activity."

Mayer describes a signficant change in the development of urban movements. Politicians, urban scholars and activists in urban development now refer to the importance of grassroots empowerment and citizen participation for dealing with urban problems which "incorporate and harness community-based interests and local activism."

The social capital perspective at its core, according to Mayer, "argues that both the quality of democratic politics and the vitality of a region's economic life depend on the degree to which its people enjoy social capital." She further postulates that the goal of "the accumulation" of social capital is "not economic security for the poor or the reduction of inequality, but 'empowerment' and 'inclusion'".

Mayer suggests that communities, neighborhoods, women, workers and the unemployed must empower themselves and put pressure on urban administrators, to develop their social capital. The result according to Mayer is that urban poverty - which tacitly became constructed as the product of ineffective local governance and of underdeveloped social capital - can be alleviated."