出版社：Suntory Toyota International Centres for Economics and Related Disciplines
摘要：The Defra Rural Evidence Research Centre in the School of Geography at Birkbeck College is carrying out a short study on social capital in rural areas. It was agreed in 2006 that two urban case studies exploring social capital in a very different context should be added to the study in order to uncover common ground in relation to policy and delivery of services as well as to uncover distinctions. We were asked to provide the two urban case studies and proposed the two Northern urban neighbourhoods from the Neighbourhood Study which has tracked families for seven years, with much of the enquiry being around the subject of social capital. Inevitably, as a study with the data collection completeI it is constrained by the study boundaries: - it is a study of disadvantaged urban areas - it is a study of families’ experience of neighbourhood conditions - it is a longitudinal study tracking the experiences of a particular group of families who are ordinary residents within those areas. This report therefore stands as somewhat distinct from the rural report. It is important to stress that cities are very different social structures from rural areas. They are large, diverse, changing, noisy and under constant pressure and tension. This leads to very different forms of social relations and social distinctions. It also leads to much stronger hierarchies of neighbourhoods, more rapid decline of poorer areas and greater concentrations of affluence in richer areas. We can learn from disadvantaged areas by the sheer concentration of people, by the need those people feel for a sense of community and by the very different ways that people relate in an urban context. Typically urban neighbourhoods would be classed as more frightening, more unpleasant, less friendly places than a smaller, calmer rural community. However, below the surface social relations have more in common than they have separating them. It is also the case that most anchor services such as schools, health, transport have the same infrastructure, funding and provision mechanisms in both types of area. A final important point is that we can learn a great deal from families, whether they are based in a rural or an urban community. This is because mothers and children spend disproportionate amounts of time in social contact with other families, they are heavily reliant on more immediate support networks, and without these they struggle. Therefore, this short study of social capital among families in two urban areas will shed some light on the value of social capital to both policy makers and service deliverers. It should also reinforce among citizens the extremely valuable role that social networks and community play in modern cities as well as in the countryside.
