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Are you interested in how to create social capital for the 21^st century? Our summary today works with the article titled Building social capital: A learning agenda for the twenty-first century from 1997 by Patricia A. Wilson, published in the Urban Studies journal. Since we are investigating the future of cities, I thought it would be interesting to see how to create the so many times required social capital – which will also be partially our topic with Noel Tighe, the next interviewee in episode 99. This article presents the importance of social capital and how professionals can participate in building it.

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Welcome to today’s What is The Future For Cities podcast and its Research episode; my name is Fanni, and today I will introduce a research paper by summarising it. The episode really is just a short summary of the original paper, and, in case it is interesting enough, I would encourage everyone to check out the whole paper. Stay tuned until because I will give you the 3 most important things and some questions which would be interesting to discuss.

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Social capital creates local economic prosperity: the level of inter-personal trust, civic engagement and organisational capability in a community counts. The lack of or decline in social capital lies behind the psychological, spiritual and economic malaise in communities throughout the world. Civil society also needs interpersonal aspects of total quality management, not just the private sector with its team building, for example. Social capital is recognised as a determinant of local economic development, thus, development planners need to work with this very intangible goal. They now need to confront the fuzzy task of building trust and shaping feelings of responsibility and belonging. These intangibles can no longer be only by-products of economic development. A central task for development planners is now social capital formation, also known as community-building.

There are questions to be investigated. First: how do you know what level of social capital are you starting with and when you have successfully created more? Second, how do you create social capital and build community? And finally, how must colleges and universities respond to become relevant to the new roles their graduates will be called upon to play? The answers create a new agenda for professional practice and academia in building social capital for community development. Whether the focus is community economic development, community social development or local democracy strengthening, productive social capital rests on the values of trust and openness. The role of the professional as technical expert, master planner, or manager will be embedded in the larger role as a catalyst, facilitator, communicator, team-player.

Social capital as a term has been used since 1835 as the propensity for individuals to join together to address mutual needs and to pursue common interest. Social capital can be eroded by too much individualism or low-trust in the community. Social capital is needed because it increases a community’s productive potential, promotes business networking, shares leads, equipment, etc. It also provides the cultural will to solve community problems collaboratively. The organisational infrastructure of social capital creates pragmatic skills that enable citizens to act directly to solve problems. Social capital is essential for maintaining and enhancing the value of public goods through cooperation and trust, like quality of life, environmental preservation, safety. With its collective sense of responsibility, it generates broad-based participation in problem solving.

Social capital can have different facets. Productive social capital generates understanding, compassion, trust and an inclusive concept of community. Unproductive social capital, in contrast, is built on fear and mistrust, even hate and its goal is to protect a group’s self-interest against perceived outside threats. Civic participation puts the common good over self-interest only when citizens respect and trust each other. Productive social capital depends on learning and listen to one another, to resolve conflicts, and to overcome barriers of fear and suspicion. Some see productive social capital as a remainder from pre-modern cultures, others see it as a leading force for the 21^st century. Social capital could transform the current fear-based economy to a trust-based one.

So, what is the role of the development planner in social capital formation? The master planner or development planner must understand that social capital is a self-organising system which can be managed only through self-regulation – meaning that the expert needs to work with its flows and rules not against them. Even changing the approach is required: from technical expert to the reflective practitioner. The technical expert says they know what to do while the reflective practitioner assumes that there are information and knowledge they don’t know but can learn with continuous immersion and reflection on the problems, stakeholders, situations. This results in a collaborative exploration of trust-building in which each party empowers the other.

Development planning has already ventured far beyond the technical expert model. Development planning now includes the collaborative process skills that are the key to building social capital. By addressing social capital formation, development planners are joining the larger professional tide toward the model of the reflective practitioner. The new tools, skills and sensitivities are already being demanded in the field of community economic development: promoting stakeholder participation, measuring qualitative change and catalysing inner development. Other tools go well beyond substantive expertise, like participatory action research, organisational learning, dynamic system analysis, communicative action, non-traditional indicators, and participatory methods.

Development planners also need to have inter-personal and group process skills, such as communication and active listening, relationship skill with building mutual respect and trust, group process skills with conflict resolution and participatory problem solving and decision-making, networking skills with creating inner and outer linkages, and leadership skills with being the catalyst and change agent. Community building is not a formal activity. To be effective, community builders and development planners must embed the tools and skills in a set of conducive personal values and virtues, like openness, authenticity, intimacy, caring, confidence.

In the coming century, professionals will be called upon to create the kind of public space that generates social capital – the patterns of mutual accountability and cooperation that enhance connectedness. The education for these professionals need to prepare them for such tasks, going beyond the only technical expertise. Education needs to teach the relation and process skills, tools and values necessary for community building. However, this education cannot be confined to the university. Action research workshops, internships and extended residencies will take the student into the community as a core part of the professional curriculum in the next century. The universities will reach out to organised civil societies to create a synergic partnership.

Professional education will bring together in creative tension both theory and practice, intellect and intuition, thoughts and feelings, values and objectivity, the personal and the professional, the individual and the group, the classroom and the community. Citizenship skills will be an integral part not just of professional education but of the entire academic curriculum at all levels. Schools and universities will play an important role in building social capital for the next century.

Social capital is free, requires no natural resources, machines, bricks and mortar, advanced degrees, or paid labour. It is invisible but it is real. And now it is recognised as a major determinant of a community’s wealth and prosperity. The social capital boom may be the wedge in mainstream economics that finally breaks an opening for post-industrial economics to move centre stage – the economics of sustainability. The concept of the social capital also lends legitimacy to the idea of the individual in the community: each person is defined not just alone but in relationship to others. The successful community is not a collection of atomistic individuals bumping into each other’s self-interest, but rather is a network, a web of individuals-in-community.

The communities that successfully build or rebuild productive social capital will be those best positioned for prosperity and adaptability in the coming century. Although social capital is not being built by social engineering, experts and professionals have their role and opportunities to be catalysts for productive social capital, facilitators and coaches. Those professionals who learn the tools, skills and values of social capital building will lead their communities and their professions. Those schools and universities that educate their students with the values and skills to build social capital both in the work-place and in the community will help to set the standards, the pace and the vision.

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What was the most interesting part for you? What questions did arise for you? Do you have any follow up question? Let me know on Twitter at WTF4Cities or on the wtf4cities.com website where the transcripts and show notes are available! Additionally, I will highly appreciate if you consider subscribing to the podcast or on the website. I hope this was an interesting paper for you as well, and thanks for tuning in!

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Finally, as the most important things, I would like to highlight 3 aspects:

1. Social capital is the propensity for individuals to join together to address mutual needs and to pursue common interest and it is needed because it increases a community’s productive potential and the cultural will to solve community problems collaboratively.
2. The concept of the social capital also lends legitimacy to the idea of the individual in the community: each person is defined not just alone but in relationship to others.
3. The successful community is not a collection of atomistic individuals bumping into each other’s self-interest, but rather is a network, a web of individuals-in-community and experts and professionals can help such networks with proper tools and skills.

Additionally, it would be great to talk about the following questions:

1. How have we fulfilled the prediction in the last 25 years so far to become more trust-based communities and education preparing the professionals for building social capital? The article was written 1997, so we have had time to adjust our processes.
2. Have you met a great reflective professional? How was working with them compared to more traditional approaches?
3. What do you give to your community’s social capital?
4. How are you part of your community’s social capital?

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