Place, Community Development, and Social Capital

Over the past decade, the concept of social capital has become an important component of many community development strategies. In this article we argue that social capital is predicated on assumptions that raise a number of questions about its usefulness in a variety of different settings. The most important features of social capital—trust and norms of reciprocity—emerge from repeated and regularized interactions that are bounded in space and time. They depend on an existing, relatively unproblematic relationship between place and social interaction. In many communities, this is not a tenable assumption. We conclude by suggesting that an interactional approach to community development can be a useful alternative.