Housing and Social Capital: A Theoretical Review

Abstract

The housing and neighborhood conditions possess the distinct capacity to create or modify the stock of social capital. This is in contrast with the relationship in other domains such as economic development, governance, employment, health and education where social capital acts as the causal agent. The identification of the bonding and bridging sub categories of social capital led to multiple discourses in the field of housing environment. The first group of reviews focuses on the issue of lack of social capital in general and bonding capital in particular and examines the role the physical environment in improving the situation. The second type of investigations stresses the negative effects of bonding capital and the contribution of living environment to enhance such bonds. It argues for the neighborhoods and housing designs to reduce the creation of bonding capital but to encourage the growth of bridging linkages to facilitate socioeconomic progress.