Some scholars suggest that critical social relationships are waning and communities are fragmenting, much to the detriment of the development of social capital and, more broadly, civil society. This research, grounded in Tocqueville's commentaries on democracy and associational life, questions the breadth, depth, and overall quality of civic engagement in contemporary American community life. In contrast, other studies suggest that civil society is not in decline, but is simply changing as new modalities of civic participation arise and challenge more traditional models. There is agreement, however, that civil society can only be strengthened by forms of civic engagement that promote cooperative relationships across lines of race, class, religion, and gender. This article explores a new model for civic engagement that may hold potential for such cooperative relationships. We examine a form of multi-sector collaboration called a community benefits district (CBD), which is "… a city subdistrict whose property owners, both residential and commercial, pay property taxes in addition to what the city levies to receive supplemental services such as security, sanitation (garbage collection), and economic development" (Baer and Marando 2001, 721-722). A community benefits district exhibits a unique constellation of relationships within and across the nonprofit, for-profit and public sectors, and thus may represent new possibilities for enriching and strengthening civil society.In a sense, CBDs are like business improvement districts though they are more inclusive because resident and nonprofit associations are also members. Rather than replacing neighborhood or business asso-Volume 22 Number 9/10 2002 An Overview: Civil Society and Social CapitalPerhaps no other work has defined the debate regarding civil society more than Robert Putnam's Bowling Alone (2001). According to Putnam, formal measures of social participation, such as voter turnout, citizen participation in political parties and campaign activities, and Americans' trust in government and politicians have steadily declined since the 1960s. Additionally, prominent civic, religious, and labor organizations, such as the PTA, the Protestant Church, Lions, Rotary and Kiwanis clubs, and the AFL-CIO, have experienced significant declines in membership during the last few decades. On a more informal level, he notes that on average Americans are socializing less with one another (i.e. fewer dinner with friends, less card playing and bowling, and more infrequent collective leisure activities) and express less trust in each other than in the past. These developments, according to Putnam, signify the erosion of civil society.Those on the other side of the debate suggest that civic life is not in decline but is simply changing. Ladd (1999), for instance, concedes that traditional civic organizations like the Elks, the League of Women Voters, and the PTA, have experienced significant membership drops since the 1960s. Yet he asserts that Putnam's concern about these declines ...

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