Enclaves, Social Capital and the City

This thesis focuses on the migration, settlement, and adaption of communities and their impacts on the transformation of host cities in the United States. I will borrow a social science term “enclave” to describe the uniqueness of these communities. Apart from the media and public at large, academic literature also portrays ambiguity about enclaves. Academic researchers and commentators of varying theoretical orientation differ in their views about enclaves. Some regard them positively, others regard them poorly and a few are unconcerned. Those steeped in the Chicago sociological tradition and the 'melting pot' perspective tends to view enclaves as cultural ghettos, obstructing the assimilation of ethnics;^1 whereas others inspired by European theoretical traditions and multicultural perspectives regard enclaves as expressions of cultural pluralism and sites of social capital formation.^2 However, little attention has been attributed toward the involvement of these self-sufficient, minority communities with the larger society. One important outcome of the thesis should thus be a theory or model that predicts or describes how to enable effective engagement (i.e., which mechanism to use, and how) in any particular situation. As a student of architecture I can provide such insight. Architecture requires more than the creative manipulation and coordination of material, technology, and environment. It is colored by the engagement of territory, culture, and structure. Examining society and enclaves with such lens enables me to identify the mechanisms for engagement

Relationships Between Commuting and Social Capital Among Men and Women in Southern Sweden.

The societal need for a mobile workforce increases time spent commuting and thus also the total workday. How this affects individual well-being and social life is, however, surprisingly little known. We investigated the relation between commuting time and mode, and social participation and general trust in other people as measures of social capital, using data from public health surveys conducted in 2004 and 2008 in Scania, Sweden: in all, 21,088 persons ages 18 to 65 and working at least 30 hr per week. Commuting by car was significantly associated with a higher prevalence of low social participation and low general trust compared with active commuting, and the association increased with the duration of commuting time. In contrast, public commuting was not significantly associated with decreased social capital measures except among long-duration commuters, who reported lower social participation. The overall pattern was similar for men and for women

Putting the Community Back into Community Networks: A Content Analysis

This study examines the role that community networks can take in fulfilling McQuail\u27s call for a more democratic participant form of media. Community networks, which are grassroots organizations designed to promote local community initiatives, increased their presence on the Internet in the 1990s. However, in recent years their number has declined. Research suggests that community networks fail because they lack a unified identity, have not determined their specific purpose on the Web, and do not provide relevant information to network members. Findings suggest that community networks wishing to achieve sustainability should concentrate their efforts on developing social capital and fostering strong democracy on their sites. The extent to which existing community networks are working toward developing such content is assessed

The Internet, social capital and local community

This dissertation is concerned with the extent to which the use of information and communication technology can (re-)create social capital and local community in an urban environment. Will the new technologies lead to new forms of social inclusion or to the creation of a digital divide? How have social networks, social support, trust and sense of community been affected by the rapid development of the Internet? In the literature there is disagreement between writers who see the technology as a new basis for social inclusion, social capital and community (e. g. Wellman, 1997; Rheingold, 2000; Lin, 2001) and others who see it as a threat, leading to new forms of exclusion and a decline in face-to-face contacts ( e.g . Slouka, 1995;Stoll, 1995). A combination of qualitative and quantitative data from a study in a relatively disadvantaged area of Stockholm is used to evaluate the impact of two computer projects, a Local Net and an Internet Cafe. Each of the projects was aimed at encouraging digital inclusion and at enhancing social contacts and the sense of community. The findings show that Local Net largely failed to achieve its goals and was abandoned two years after its inauguration. In its place an Internet Cafe was established, which seems to be achieving many of the goals that were set out in its prospectus. Visitors to the Cafe, who include many representatives of disadvantaged groups, have acquired useful computer skills. The IT-Cafe, with is provision of subsidised public access, in formal support and training, makes its visitors feel more included in the Information Society as well as in the wider society. The visitors also have more local friends, express stronger social trust and perceive less tension in the than non-visitors. The Internet Cafd is regarded as an offline as well as online meeting-place with positive impacts on social integration, and Internet use is associated with networking, exchange of support and information seeking

Social networks, social capital, and the use of information and communications technology in socially excluded communities: a study of community groups in Manchester, England

This study investigates grassroots community groups in low-income or (more specifically) socially excluded areas using information and communications technology (ICT) and the social ties that support their ICT use. How and to what purpose do groups not expected to use ICT—because they are formed from “digitally divided” populations—in fact do so? Who or what helps them use it? The study makes a contribution primarily to the field of community informatics, drawing concepts from social capital and social network theory (Granovetter, Lin, Putnam, Wellman). Data concerning where community groups get help with ICT are analyzed to see whether and how strong and weak ties and bridging and bonding social capital play a role in helping the groups. The study finds that having more ties providing ICT help—and more strong ties, more bonding social capital—is associated with more extensive ICT use by the community groups. Based on 25 measures of ICT, the groups fall into three progressively more extensive categories of ICT use: downloading (using computers and the Internet, particularly e-mail), uploading (maintaining a group Web presence), and cyberorganizing (helping others to become uploaders or downloaders). These three categories align with group purpose (tenant groups, cultural groups, or social support groups), suggesting that the groups use a particularly social form of ICT (SICT) relating very closely to group purpose. The 31 groups are reaching across real or perceived digital divides in accessing help with ICT; the ties utilized are likely to be younger, more white, more male, and more in the workforce. The method helps to move the new field of community informatics beyond the case study by analyzing a sample of 31 community groups and their 62 ICT helpers. Empirical proof is provided via statistical tests on closed-end responses (quantitative) along with narratives extracted from interviews (qualitative). Social exclusion is often oversimplified, not taking into account the phenomenon uncovered here: groups that reach across ethnicity, class, gender, and generations for skilled help, yet stay close to their strong-tie, bonding-social-capital networks, relying largely on people in their own communities. Policy models might usefully take into account the relatively invisible but active networks within socially excluded communities.Ph.D.InformationUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/39370/2/williams_kate_2005_dissertation.pd