Prepared for Ford Foundation Conference: "Social Capital in Poor Communities: Building and Utilizing Social Assets to Combat Poverty
 

Tocqueville's Social Capital

As we approach the new millennium we find ourselves grappling again with the question of social capital. This time the social capital of which we speak (or at least that which will be central in this discussion) consists of the networks, trust, norms and interactions people engage in daily to both survive and to become enriched. For many political scientists, social capital is the building block of associational affiliations and, more broadly, civil society. Through such formal and informal activity residents learn lessons of reciprocity and trust, build networks which can be used to tackle local problems and develop skills and resources that can be deployed in formal political institutions and processes. Thus, for many of us interested in monitoring American political culture, building social capital helps to ensure the richness of civil society which is thought to anchor American democracy.

The idea that civil society, social trust and associational participation are central components in the working of American democracy has a long tradition in American political thought. A fascination with the voluntary associations and social activity of Americans evident in the writings of contemporary scholars such as Barber (1984), Sandel (1984), Putnam (1995, 1996), similarly shaped Alexis de Tocqueville's writing on American democracy over 100 years earlier in his classic Democracy in America (1969). In the pages of this book, Tocqueville describes an American society defined most prominently by its equal condition, resulting in a civic culture distinct in its proliferation of associational groups. He writes, "Americans of all ages, all stations in life, and all types of dispositions are forever forming associations. There are not only commercial and industrial associations in which all take part, but others of a thousand difference types--religious, moral, serious, futile, very general and very limited, immensely large and very minute (emphasis added 513)."

For Tocqueville these associations were no less important to American democracy than equality. He wrote, "If men are to remain civilized or to become civilized, the art of association must develop and improve among them at the same speed as equality of condition spreads (517)." Through associations and associating, Tocqueville believed citizens would learn not only the skills required for effective political participation, but also the social control he perceived as necessary if democracy was to function under citizen control. Thus, for Tocqueville associations signaled and sustained a vibrant civic and political life through which citizens learned social responsibility, turning them into "orderly, temperate, moderate, and self-controlled citizens": "They thus learn to submit their own will to that of all the rest and to make their own exertions subordinate to the common action (522)." Civic engagement, therefore, benefited the populace not only for the skilled participants it brought into the public arena, but also for the stability it generated from citizens knowing what their appropriate role was in the collective unit. For example, it was exactly this concept of complimentary roles that allowed Tocqueville to view women's absence from formal decision-making not as problematic but emblematic of a complimentary system where everyone had a role--and varying degrees of status and power.

I invoke Tocqueville not only to remind us of the connection between what we now call social capital and the working of democracy, largely through associations and organizations in the civic culture. I also reference Tocqueville to remind us of the multiple uses of social capital and civic engagement, not the least of which is political and social control. For through the process of civic inclusion "citizens" are thought to be transformed, submitting their individual will to the desires of the collective body. And while such a transformation may be good for the stability of the state and those who benefit from the current distribution of resources, what does such stability mean for the poor, the disempowered, the marginalized? What does it mean for these residents to submit their individual will to the collective whole?

So as we continue our dance with social capital, I ask: for what purpose? Much of this scholarship professes to be concerned with inequalities between groups as well as overall declining trends in participation. However, I wonder if some are turning to social capital as a way to instill, oh so subtly, the social control of earlier times, when everyone knew or at least was forced into their complementary place. Those who seek to impose greater armed control over our cities are now armed with a burgeoning literature on the "underclass" and their threatening pathologies. Moreover, confronted with real evidence, in the form of the 1992 Los Angeles revolt/riot/rebellion, that poor people of color will burn things down in the face of blatant disregard and increasing systemic inequality, scholars, policy-makers and ordinary folk may be willing to support the expansion of social capital in poor communities if it promises to settle down "those people." Social capital, as a gentler, kinder means of social control, looks much less menacing enmeshed in a political environment where the policies of the "liberal president" sends increasing numbers of poor people and people of color to prison based on a three strikes your out policy; forces poor women, disproportionately women of color, to work in jobs that pay less than minimum wage, provide little training and often expose them to environmental risks; and puts 100,000 more cops into neighborhoods, increasing the risk of brutality at the hands of the police. In such a political atmosphere, is it a far stretch for someone as cynical as myself to wonder if our new focus on social capital has as much to do with social control as community empowerment? This concern should not be read as a wholesale indictment of an effort to build or leverage social capital in poor communities, but instead a caution that we understand the complexity of this effort, resulting in both positive and negative consequences.[1]

Drawing on a case study from the City of New Haven, I will explore the complexities of social capital in poor communities. Receiving special attention will be the avenues through which community-based social capital can be infused with outside resources to concentrate and institutionalize political power in the hands of neighborhood residents. In the New Haven case, community activists were instrumental in electing the first black mayor of New Haven, John Daniels, in 1989. Upon his election the mayor then facilitated the creation of community management teams to help with the implementation and regulation of community policing. From this concretized community-based political structure participants were integrated into the governing structure of New Haven's Enterprise Community governing structure.

The first victory, the election of Mayor Daniels, was accomplished in large part through the informal and pseudo-formal networks, institutions and resources--social capital--of Black and Puerto Rican communities in New Haven.[2]

Not surprisingly, future political battles waged by poor communities in New Haven benefited greatly from the formal structure that accompanied their participation in governing decisions. Resources provided primarily by federal and city institutions would serve as the catalyst in solidifying the political power of community activists in poor communities; facilitating not only their participation in city decision-making, but providing some with a new avenue into electorial politics. Over the years as community members institutionalized their role in the governing structure of the city, neighborhood residents would encounter both the benefits of resource-supported social capital and the unavoidable confrontations to arise from such a consolidation of power. Thus, evident throughout this case study is the often contentious interactions between institutions and communities and among community members as previously financially resource-poor communities develop an independent political agenda.[3]

In many ways this story is reminiscent of the community-control battles of the late 1960s. As Gittell et al, write, "As part of the activist environment of the 1960s, the community movement gave priority to the empowerment of low-income residents through participation in local organizations on the basis of the assumption that their involvement produced better citizens and better policies (533)." However, before I detail the New Haven case, I first want to explore social capital as it is conceptualized today, the tensions and deficiencies that exist in that formulation, and the relationship between poor communities and social capital.

Social Capital Today

Even before Tocqueville, the idea of civic engagement has always been a central component in most thinking about American politics. However, in the last ten years the importance of civic involvement as it is mapped onto the concept of social capital has received new attention. This time its entry is not as glorious or magnanimous as in years gone by. This time scholars are lamenting the disappearance of social capital--that is, the social trust, norms, networks and resulting civic engagement that presumably made democracy work in the United States. Of particular concern is the assumed decline in political activity. Fewer people are going to the polls, less are working on campaigns and some are even bowling alone, reports Putnam (1995a) and other scholars. Thus, in the nation's post-isolationist period, it is argued that Americans (or at least residents of the United States) have become more isolated, autonomous and private entities, shying away in both disgust and disinterest from the state and civic arenas.

While the new wave of concern over social capital has often been designated as being initially popularized with the work of James Coleman (1988, 1990), it has been Robert Putnam's formulation of social capital--one that began with his study of Italy and now has been applied to contemporary American politics-- that has become the focus of political scientists like myself (1993a, 1993b, 1995a, 1995b). Putnam has described social capital as those "features of social life--networks, norms, and trust--that enable participants to act together more effectively to pursue shared objectives" (1995b, 664-5). Putnam professes to be concerned with two issues. The first is the general decline in civic engagement and the underlying social capital that drives such activity. From Putnam's view, we are no longer a nation of joiners, in large part because of our eroding trust, interactions and norms. The second concern expressed by Putnam is the effect of a decline in social capital for the political activity of the country. For Putnam, our participation in the civic arena is closely tied to, if not a cause of, our participation in the political arena. He urges us, therefore, to consider how trends marking the decline of political participation result from the "disappearance of social capital."[4]

To investigate these questions and substantiate his concern, Putnam introduces longitudinal aggregate data generated primarily from the General Social Survey (GSS) to map out trends in areas such as political participation, group membership, newspaper readership and daily television viewing. After exploring numerous explanations for the decline in social capital such as changes in the economy, women's entry into the workforce and the disruption of the traditional nuclear family, expansion of the welfare state and even race and the "civil rights revolution" (I think I missed that revolution), he settles on one particularly sinister culprit--television. To paraphrase the Clinton campaign, it's television, stupid, the most notable signifier of the technology revolution, that Putnam reveals to be the most important factor stimulating the decline in social capital.

Data Deficiencies

Not surprisingly, in tandem with this reemerging literature on social capital a small cottage industry has also developed which disputes, in particular, Robert Putnam's conclusions about social capital. First and foremost, the most sustained attack has been on Putnam's empirical analysis. Ladd's article "The Data Just Don't Show Erosion of America's 'Social Capital'" (1996) was one of the most thorough empirical critiques of Putnam's work to be published. In the pages of The Public Perspective, Ladd and his colleagues detail a civic culture in the United States distinctly at odds with Putnam's representation. Instead of the overwhelming decline noted by Putnam, these authors find that numerous data sources (the Citizen Participation Survey, Gallup surveys, the American National Election Survey) suggest that at worst the picture of citizen participation is inconclusive or stagnant; in many cases the prognosis is better than expected. Ladd concludes his analysis by noting, "Again and again these data tell a story of high and increasing engagement (5)."

Similarly, although not directly, Verba et al., in Voice and Equality (1995) present information that suggests that the participatory trends in both electoral and non-electoral forms of political activity between 1967 and 1987 vary by the form of activity and are not indicative of a wholesale decline in participation. The authors write that "Data about a wider range of political acts suggest that the falloff in voter turnout may not be part of a general erosion in political participation...The data point, once again, to the well-documented decline in voting turnout. However, they also indicate that the drop in turnout has not been accompanied by a general decrease in citizen activism (emphasis added, 71)."

Of special interest to those of us concerned with poor communities are the findings generated by Verba et al. concerning the impact of income on political participation. Although, Putnam's overall declining trends seem to be contradicted by the data in Voice and Equality, evidence of clear income differentials in participation is present in Verba et al.'s data. Specifically, the authors found that while those with higher incomes are more likely to participate in both political and non-political activity, once individuals with diminished incomes do make the decision to participate their methods and commitment to participation (ie. hours volunteered) not only equal those who are more affluent, but in some cases exceed the time they give and the proportion of their incomes they donate to different activities. Thus, it seems that while individuals with fewer financial resources are less likely to take that first step toward political activity, once they decide to become involve they find ways to compensate for their material shortcomings, in many cases outperforming those more affluent participants.

Closely aligned with those who challenge Putnam's interpretation of trend data are other empirical detractors who charge that the data sources that Putnam uses mask or miss all sorts of political activity happening at both the national and local level. For example, Debra Minkoff (1997) has argued that the increasing development of social movement organizations (SMOs) stands in direct contrast to Putnam's claims of declining participatory trends. Furthermore, she contends that the proliferation of SMOs suggests that the context of political activity has changed in the last thirty years, moving beyond the boundaries of neighborhood to the more pervasive and expansive field of identity. In her article, "Producing Social Capital: National Social Movements and Civil Society," (1997) Minkoff writes,

In recent debates over the decline in civil society in the United States, there is a notable silence about the coterminous expansion of the citizen's advocacy and social movement sector. At the same time that trust is supposedly breaking down all over, Americans have been establishing and maintaining national advocacy groups and social movement organizations at a phenomenal rate.... My argument is that the growth of a stable sector of national social movement organizations reflects a significant change in how collective identities are constructed and collective action is implemented. Local communities and institutions are no longer the sine qua non of mobilization precisely because identity groups transcend parochial boundaries based on communities of residence, religious or ethnic affiliation, and perhaps even class and race (606-7).

To be fair, Putnam (1995) has suggested that the participatory trends noted by Minkoff are important, but of a significantly different nature than those "classic secondary associations." He concludes on this subject that the ties in these new

tertiary associations...are to common symbols, common leaders and perhaps common ideals, but not to one another. The theory of social capital argues that associational membership should, for example, increase social trust, but this prediction is much less straightforward with regard to membership in tertiary associations. From the point of view of social connectedness, the Environmental Defense Fund and a bowling league are just not in the same category. (71)

While Minkoff is correct in alerting us to developments in participation at the national level, there is yet another form of community-based activism that both Putnam and Minkoff may be ignoring. Here I'm referring to the community-based struggles that do not always show up in our national databases, in part because of the questions that are asked as well as the people who are surveyed. For example, David Wagner and Marcia Cohen (1991) describe the activities of homeless activists as "hidden movements of poor people." They contend that while researchers and federal bureaucrats are engaged in a process of trying to estimate the homeless population in the United States, few if any scholars have recognized and analyzed the activism among homeless people and their advocates. Wagner and Cohen write, "Despite growing protest and political consciousness among groups of homeless people (the pitched battles in New York City's Tompkins Square Park, years of confrontation in Washington D.C., led by the Coalition for Creative Non-violence, and dozens of localized tent cities and sit-ins), neither social scientists studying the homeless nor social movement theorists have investigated the impact of protest on the lives of the very poor (543)."

The authors continue their argument, offering at least two reasons which may account for the lapse in this area of study. First, Wagner and Cohen counsel that researchers often find it more difficult to locate activism among poor people, especially as they look for signs of mobilization most often associated with the struggles of those with greater affluence, namely a permanent organizational structure. They suggest that "since groups like the homeless have only their bodies and time as resources," the nature of their activism may be more episodic, disruptive and local in nature, with little permanent organization to support such activities. Secondly, the authors comment that scholars often encounter poor people and poor communities when they are most disempowered, leading them to miss or devalue the social capital of these groups. They write, "It is not surprising to find that studies, conducted exclusively at soup kitchens, shelters, or hospital emergency rooms, document a high degree of stress, disorganization, and depression. Conclusions are then drawn from such studies--often of the recently evicted, unemployed, or hospitalized--and applied to the entire population, even though the long term homeless or the episodically homeless may not fit the characterizations." (544) In contrast to such assertions, Wagner and Cohen find "the existence of strong social ties and social networks among the homeless and formerly homeless." (547)

Lisa Sullivan (1997) makes a similar argument yet from a different angle. Specifically, Sullivan contends that while social capital in poor communities is underdeveloped, in particular for her case that among young black residents, there still exists ample activity illustrating the social organization and community affiliations of this maligned generation. She writes,

Although academics like Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam have warned that our current civic crisis has much to do with a decline in formal associational life, my activism and organizing experience in central cities suggests that informal associational life is alive and well--especially among the poor and young. While Putnam may have observed a general decline in citizen participation in traditional social and civic associations, a significant number of citizens from the inner city are creating and participating in vibrant informal networks of twenty-first century associational life. (235)

Conceptualization Issues: Beyond the Numbers

While many contest the empirical reality that Putnam presents, more troubling may be his conceptualization of social capital as all things good and proper. We can begin this part of the critique by noting the lack of contextualization provided in discussions of social capital. Often lacking in these explorations is any discussion of the way individuals and groups interact with institutions to produce, maintain and deploy social capital. One could read much of the recent literature bemoaning the downturn in participation, marked most significantly by a decline in voter turnout, as devoid of any attention to the structural constraints people encounter when trying to exercise their franchise. Missing from such stories, for example, are the structural regulations which disqualify nearly one-third of African American men from voting because of their status as current or former felons. No amount of social capital is going to allow you to vote when state law says that you cannot.[5]

Thus, by focusing on the social capital individuals control and using aggregated individual-level data to assess the existence and work of social capital, Putnam misses the work of what Portney and Berry (1997) call "structures of strong democracy" and what I call "intervening institutions" which transform social capital into power and access.[6]

Similarly, Putnam and other social capital scholars have also undertheorized the role the state plays in guaranteeing and facilitating the civic and political participation this literature deems so reflective of a healthy democracy. As Jean Cohen (1998) argues, "far too many political theorists and actors pretend that we can have a vital, well-integrated, and just civil society without states constitutionally guaranteeing that universalistic egalitarian principles (open of course to critique and revision) inform social policy regardless of which social institution or level of government carries it out (6-7)." Without some contextual elaboration of the dominant structures and institutions that regulate and guarantee participation, our understanding of the importance of social capital becomes inflated, raising expectations of its ability to cure all that ails our "failing democracy," and making any contribution to be received from such a factor seemingly wanting. Thus, our calls should not be limited to "bringing the state back in," but should include a demand that researchers detail the institutional, formal and informal structures which can bolster or limit the existence and productivity of social capital.

Finally, I am also concerned, as noted above, that as researchers we have not spent enough time detailing the negative consequences associated with social capital, in particular the power to regulate and exclude. I want to be fair and acknowledge that early in his PS: Political Science and Politics article (1995b) Putnam discusses examples of what he considers to be negative social capital. He writes, "On the other hand, groups like the Michigan militia or youth gangs also embody a kind of social capital, for these networks and norms, too, enable members to cooperate more effectively, albeit to the detriment of the wider community (665)." And while, I, too, worry about the deployment of social capital in ways that are "to the detriment of the wider community," I am just as concerned with the deployment of social capital in ways that threaten and police selected more vulnerable segments of marginalized communities. We must remember that community residents exist at all times with multiple identities. Moreover, in the absence of formal and informal democratic structures, there is nothing to preclude a vocal minority or even majority of community residents from engaging in a process of racial or ethnic exclusion in conjunction with their residential identity. For example, how do we evaluate the work and effectiveness of social capital when residents in poor communities bond together to have the homeless removed from their neighborhoods; or to have sex workers arrested; or to ban AIDS education from their schools; or to preclude teaching the home language of newly arrived immigrant groups? Thus, in our march to politically empower communities--in this case poor communities--it seems irresponsible if all of us, including and especially members of those communities, do not discuss what Portes and Landolt (1996) called "the downside of social capital."

As mentioned earlier, at the center of Tocqueville's classic study of American democracy was his fascination with the voluntary and associational life of America. Generated, he argued, by America's egalitarian tradition and condition, Tocqueville surmised that American democracy would find diverse and appropriate "functions" for all of its peoples (603) . However, not too far from Tocqueville's consciousness was the "counterfactual" to his depiction of America as a country committed to true democratic principles, namely enslaved Africans and African Americans and a dwindling population of Native Americans resulting from the genocidal policies of the United States. In contrast to, or maybe in collaboration with, the equality of condition Tocqueville praised among white Americans was the clear domination and exploitation of these two groups of "Americans." Tocqueville thought of the treatment of both blacks and Native Americans as especially troubling, but not an inherent characteristic of democratic culture. These cases of exclusion, exploitation and domination were for Tocqueville statistical outliers. Rogers Smith (1993) has explained this seeming contradiction--ascriptive racial exclusion--as part of the multiple traditions of liberalism.

In contrast to Smith's interpretation, some scholars have argued that far from having multiple and thus divisible traditions, the liberalism of Smith and Hartz as well as Tocqueville's egalitarian democracy may be dependent on the regulation and domination of other seemingly illiberal and unequal groups and individuals (Stevens 1995; Dawley 1991). It is the similar problem of exclusionary community-building that I think we must guard against or at least give voice to when considering the application and promotion of social capital in communities, in this case poor communities. The process of building, whether it be communities, organizations or smaller groups, means making decisions at the very least around such concepts as identity and membership. The contestation over these concepts can be an important stage in the process of community-building. However, all of these decisions can also be said to delineate the boundaries of the group, marking, in particular, acceptable group behavior and norms which can facilitate the policing and, if need be, the exclusion of those that will not conform to "community standards" (Gramsci 1971; J. Cohen 1998; C. Cohen 1999)."

The answer to this dilemma is not to abandon the project of building social capital, but instead to recognize that the institutional framework in which social capital is generated and used must conform to, and be embedded in, the democratic principles that we find so wanting in many of our national and state political institutions. This is, of course, a tall order, requiring poor communities struggling to secure resources to be concerned with principles of full representation and inclusive participation. However, without such a commitment we are bound to replicate biases that will only leave us wondering how to create social capital in a new marginalized community. Truly confronting this issue means understanding the evolving structure of poor communities and the ways social capital works across this segment of the population, which I will consider next.

The Word on Poor Communities: Structure and Behavior

It seems important that if we are going to theorize about social capital and its impact on poor communities that we actually know something about the structure of poor communities. However, most of the recent literature on poverty tells us very little about the operation of these communities: their networks, norms and associational patterns. Instead the expansive literature on poor communities--really, the literature is on the "underclass" since it is hard to find work on poor communities that is not rooted or engaged in some discussion of the "underclass--has focused on aggregate trends, perceived pathologies and structural changes in the economy. Left out of the equation has been individual people in poor communities and the daily acts and decisions that comprise their lives. Nowhere is their absence more evident than in the scholarship on the "underclass."

Generally, the prognosis for poor communities among this group of scholars is discouraging. There seems to be no turning back, given that deindustrialization, the emergence of a service economy, residential segregation and the flight of both whites and middle class blacks have all been determined to be the causes of the economic, political and social isolation said to dominate the lives of people in heavily concentrated poor communities. Furthermore, while each explanation holds some weight, not too far below the surface of each story lurks those uncontrollable pathologies inherent in the norms, behavior and culture of poor communities. Clearly, these pathologies must be inherent since few if any scholars have attempted to test their validity or existence before inserting them into the narrative on poor communities. Thus, in the absence of individual and neighborhood level data detailing the functioning of poor communities, far too many poverty scholars have taken to highlighting broad trends and moral judgements as evidence of the deteriorating status--what some might call the loss of social capital--in these communities.

Undoubtedly, the name most often associated with this area of study has been William Julius Wilson, but most who contribute to this literature are guilty of the same failure. According to Professor Wilson (1987), through a process of deindustrialization and the resulting absence of low-skill, living-wage jobs, individuals in poor communities lose their bearing. For example, women unable to find employed men to marry engage in pre-material sex resulting in astronomical rates of out-of-wedlock and teen-age births. Men, unable to find jobs, and thus unable to support the families they create, engage in pathological behaviors ranging from participation in the illegal economy of drugs and crime, to fathering multiple children by different women, to removing themselves completely from the search for work. To be sure Professor Wilson makes central to his analysis the declining work opportunities to be found in America's poor urban areas, but also essential to his work are patriarchal and gendered notions of the traditional family, male privilege and the puritan work ethic. Further, as noted above, one can again see a general pattern in this literature dealing with the poor--namely the absence of individual level data detailing the specifics of their beliefs, their communities and their lives.

Without ever presenting individualized data, Wilson and others are willing and eager to make conclusions about norms, attitudes and individualized behavior. Moreover, they are willing to draw conclusions about what we might label the social capital of these communities. Indirectly, they argue that the social networks and associations of those left behind in poor communities are not up to the task of providing community residents with the economic, political and social opportunities necessary for moving into mainstream society (Saegert et al. 1998). Instead, these networks produce, and more importantly, normalize the pathological outcomes used to mark their deviance. Some attention is paid to those intervening institutions which might help poor communities leverage their social capital, but generally that discussion is framed exclusively around the concept of a government-sponsored jobs program. Fortunately, the yield from such scholars seems to be slowing down after years of great productivity; in the meantime, however, we still know very little about what happens daily in poor communities.

In contrast to the burgeoning underclass literature there has been little scholarship that attempts to explore and detail the structure, norms and behavior of residents of poor communities. That which does exist most often comes in the form of ethnographic case studies such as Tally's Corner (1967), All Our Kin (1974), or Slim's Table (1992). Such work details the existence of extensive social networks and social trust in these communities. Neighbors and families provide each other with food, money, child care and information about jobs. However, participation in structured associations and organizations is usually missing from such accounts. Instead, social networks are presented as informal, constituted in family homes, on street corners, in the local bar or even popular diners. Thus, while each case study provides a different lens into the activity of poor communities, quite often these studies suffer from at least three significant difficulties: 1) they are devoid of structural analysis--at both the neighborhood and national levels; 2) they tend to be gendered in the construction of their subject--they center on men or women, but generally never both; and 3) they seem uninterested in the political actions and agency of their subjects let alone the communities in which they live.

Even those books that have attempted to cross such boundaries by using both ethnographic information and statistical data to detail the larger structural environment--including such classics as DuBois's The Philadelphia Negro (1899) or Drake's and Cayton's Black Metropolis (1945)--are limited in the information they can offer. First and foremost, some of the best of this work is dated. Second, because the authors sought to contextualize the condition of poor communities they often eliminated or limited the actual voices of those who were the subject of examination. Thus, lost are the stories of everyday survival which begin to paint the institutional and informal structure of poor communities. Third and finally, such accounts contextualize the experiences of the poor and people of color, but they are also engaged in a reclamation project which uses a group's experiences with discrimination as a way to explain their seemingly pathological behavior.

Characteristics of Poor Communities

Although the problems listed above continue to plague many of the current studies focusing on poor communities, this body of work provides our only glimpse into the structure, norms and behaviors in poor communities. Considering the dilemmas we face when trying to map the evolving structure of poor communities, I want to highlight briefly some of the complexities of poor communities revealed in this research which I believe are relevant to our concern with the production, maintenance and use of social capital in poor communities. First, the point has been repeatedly made that poor communities are increasingly isolated--economically, politically and socially (Wilson 1987; Cohen and Dawson 1993; Alex-Assensoh 1997). One school of thought sees structural changes in the economy, particularly the depletion of low-skilled, living-wage jobs, as the engine driving the increasing isolation experienced by people in poor communities (Wilson 1987; Wilson 1996). Another framework focuses on past and present residential segregation as it consistently concentrates, in particular, poor blacks in urban areas (Massey and Denton 1993). In both accounts the isolation of poor residents from working and middle-class city residents is thought to have been precipitated not only by structural changes in the economy and residential segregation, but also by other factors such as federal policies surrounding urban renewal and highway construction which destroyed buildings and divided neighborhoods. Thus, for a multitude of reasons poor communities find themselves increasingly removed from the working of cities or what Douglas Glasgow (1981) called "feeder institutions" such as unions, banks, civic organizations, even large chain grocery stores that link residents in a proactive manner to the labor market, social agencies and more generally the public sphere. In the absence of such "feeder institutions" we should not be surprised to find that concentrated in highly impoverished areas are high levels of outcome variables that signal community stress: crime, HIV/AIDS, drug addiction, teenage pregnancy and state assistance. Thus, any attempt to deal with social capital must also deal with the absence of formal institutions and resources which allow social capital to proper.

Second, while poor communities have been experiencing increasing isolation, the changing demographics of these neighborhoods have also significantly changed over the years. Specifically, poor communities have experienced the increasing feminization of poverty, along with a growing population of immigrants. The increasing number of women and children living below the poverty line has been commented on for some time. A statistical brief on poverty areas published by the U.S. Census Bureau in 1995 reported that "Families in poverty areas [where at least 20 percent of the residents were classified as poor] were nearly twice as likely as those elsewhere to have a female householder" (1995, 3). Along with the continued feminization of poverty and poor communities, researchers have also begun to examine the growing number of recent immigrants living in poverty and in impoverished neighborhoods. The Current Population Report, "The Foreign-Born Population: 1996," notes "recent arrivals among the foreign-born are more likely to be in poverty, to have lower incomes, and to have higher unemployment rates that the native born (1997, 1). The authors continue providing more detail: "The foreign-born as a whole have a much higher poverty rate than natives (22.2 compared with 12.9 percent), while the most recent arrivals have the highest rate (33.3 percent)."

Thus, as we continue to think about the existence of social capital in poor communities, we have to explore the degree to which social capital in these communities is not only bounded geographically, but also within racial and ethnic groups. Although residents of poor communities are typically tied together through the lack of resources and services available in their neighborhoods, there is nothing in our explorations to suggest that the use of social capital to alleviate such loss crosses the boundaries of race, ethnicity, language and class. In fact, in city after city we can point to poor census tracts that are segregated, for example, into poor Latino neighborhoods and poor black neighborhoods. It is, therefore, inaccurate and dangerous to assume that the existence of social capital among Latinos in poor neighborhoods is related to or benefits other segments of the same poor community. In order to build social capital in poor communities, we must recognize its multiple forms, locations and sometimes contradictory ends. Additionally, we must also design efforts at leveraging social capital in poor communities to coincide with the gendered nature of social capital in poor communities. It is clear from the demographics and scholarly case studies that women disproportionately populate and sustain poor communities. It is, therefore, necessary to develop a different model of community empowerment than those that point to the election of minority male leaders, for example black mayors, as signifying community empowerment (Bobo and Gilliam 1990; Gilliam and Kaufmann 1998). Instead, we must support a framework of community empowerment that not only priorities the election of political leaders from poor communities, but makes central grassroots systems of participatory decision-making, where significant segments of "the" community can feel ownership over and involvement in the development of their neighborhoods and cities. In the absence of such a grassroots structure, community residents may find it difficult to hold elected leadership accountable and we may miss the political activity of women in these neighborhoods.

The idea of multiple forms of social capital across different segments of poor communities should not be read as signalling the absence of sustainable social capital or social networks and trust. Instead, numerous case studies of poor people and poor communities underscore my third observation, namely the existence of social networks and trust in poor neighborhoods (Stack 1974; Edin and Levin 1997; Seeocmbe 1999). Saegert et al. (1998) argue that the problem is not the absence of social capital in poor communities, but the fact that social capital is being asked to compensate for a lack of other resources in so many areas that it cannot work effectively. These authors and others point to the scarcity of those resources needed to parlay social capital into materialistic benefits and political power. Thus, faced with isolation from dominant and indigenous institutions, what becomes obvious and visible in poor communities is the importance of social capital in ensuring the everyday survival of community residents, especially as it is manifested in both community-based and kin networks. Kathryn Edin and Laura Lein (1997) in their work on poor single-mothers highlight both the existence and importance of personal and community networks for financial survival. After interviewing nearly 400 poor women (half working and half receiving welfare) in four cities, the authors find that "neither welfare recipients nor low-wage working mothers made ends meet on their main income sources alone. (1996, 257)" While these women all engaged in some combination of work-based strategies, a clear majority used family and community networks to compensate for their financial shortcoming. The authors write, "from 69 to 91 percent of the welfare recipients we interviewed in each city used network-based strategies to make extra money (258)." Not unlike the work of Carol Stack (1974), Edin and Lein find a similar use of social networks or social capital by poor women trying to "make ends meet."

Closely aligned with the evidence of social or personal networks in poor communities is the fourth characteristic of poor communities I would draw our attention to--namely, the existence of relatively stable community-based networks, largely through home ownership. Thus, it is a mistake to think that all residential stability ended once significant numbers of working and middle-class residents exited these neighborhoods. Instead, recent research suggests that home ownership, while not at the same level in poor communities, does provide intergenerational stability and social trust in poor neighborhoods. For example, John Hagedorn (1991) in his study of poor African-American neighborhoods with high levels of gang activity in Milwaukee found that while the number of residents living below the poverty line averaged around 30 percent, those neighborhoods were not uniformly "unstable." He notes that:

One quarter of the residents (28.6 percent) owned their own home--fifteen percent less than the city-wide average, but still a stable base within a very poor neighborhood. Half of the household heads lived at their current residence for five or more years. While stable employment had drastically declined in these tracts since 1980, still nearly one third of working respondents had held their current job for 10 or more years (533).

In no way should this information be read as suggesting that neighborhood residents were happy with their conditions. Far from that position, Hagedorn writes that "Less than one fifth (19.7%) [of neighborhood residents] said the neighborhood was a 'good place to live,' and 52 percent said they would move if they could" (534). However, their neighbors, per se, were not the problem. "[R]espondents liked their neighbors [and named them] as the best thing about their community" (534). It is the complex nature of poor communities that I would have our policy-making address. As Hagedorn summarizes:

...while these poor African-American neighborhoods have characteristics of Wilson's notion of the underclass, they also exhibit important differences. ...large numbers of working class African-American families still reside in these neighborhoods. Some want to leave but cannot because of residential segregation (Massey and Eggers 1990) or lack of affordable housing. But many stay because they want to. Rather than neighborhoods populated overwhelmingly by a residue left behind by a fleeing middle and working class, as Wilson described, Milwaukee's 'underclass' neighborhoods are a checkerboard of struggling working class and poor families, coexisting, even on the same block, with drug houses, gangs, and routine violence (534).

It is the topic of intervening institutions that brings me to my fifth characteristic of poor communities, namely the existence of outside, but not necessarily intervening third party resources. As the geographic space of poor communities transforms from markedly poor to intensely blighted areas in need of social services, these neighborhoods are often hit with an influx of government programs, namely those programs that no other community will allow in their vicinity. Anthropologist Ira Susser (1996) writes, "Such invisible and relatively powerless communities concomitantly become sites of last resort for methadone clinics, housing for the mentally ill, and--partially as a consequence of the well-know phenomenon of Not in My Backyard (NIMBY)--industrial waste disposal plants" (415). This suggests that the mere presence of federal, state or city services does not mean that adequate intervening institutions and resources are available to poor communities. Instead, government policies and programs meant to service poor communities may simultaneously destroy social capital.

Historically, numerous scholars have discussed the multitude of federal policies which have both directly and indirectly aided in the deterioration of inner-city neighborhoods. One could point to suburban growth through the lending policies of the Federal Housing Administration and the Veteran's Administration, federal decisions regarding freeway construction, or the destruction of many urban neighborhoods through Urban Renewal as just a few examples of the ways in which federal policies and resources can undermine social networks and community resources (Fox 1986; Keating et al. 1996). More recently, Saegert et al. (1998) make this argument about the effects of public housing on social capital in poor communities. They write, "Public housing developments in themselves have been cast as undermining social capital by selecting the poorest, most distressed, and usually female-headed households as tenants, by locating them away from communities rich in opportunities for productive social engagement, and by the blighting effect it has had on the institutional and economic structure of neighborhoods in which it is located (3)." Thus, the presence of state resources is not a good indicator of the existence of social capital or the effective use of social capital.

Only when "outside," third party, or intervening resources are in a form that residents can leverage for greater power or access can these resources be effective in promoting both the development of social capital and the leveraging of existing social capital for community power and agency. Far too often, federal resources and social service agencies are present in poor communities, but without any connection to or respect for the existing institutional and social networks of community residents.[7]

Intervening institutions must, instead, build on the social capital, stability and infrastructure that already exists in poor communities. Again, Hagedorn writes of the poor gang-ridden neighborhoods of Milwaukee, "Rather than proposing specific new model gang programs or narrowly calling for a federal office of gang control (Miller 1990), our data suggest a focus on strengthening neighborhood social institutions." He continues later, "while very poor neighborhoods have been devastated by economic and demographic changes, they also have important strengths to build on. The residents who live in poor neighborhoods need stable, well-funded agencies and institutions in which to participate (536)."

The call for greater community involvement in federal agencies and decision-making is not new, but implementation remains a pressing issue. When thinking about social capital and poor communities we must confront the question of how to introduce resources to these areas that build on, support and facilitate the infrastructure, networks and resources already present. Instead of conceptualizing poor communities as population groupings geographically bound, isolated and exclusively in need of service, we must provide a more complex understanding of the structure of these areas. Social capital as a concept, if it does nothing else, should alert us to the multiple ways in which groupings of people based on class, race, gender as well as geographic location come together to pool resources and build institutions, organizations and associations necessary for their progress. Few of us doubt that this process happens among affluent individuals; why should we doubt that it happens among the poor?

Finally, I would add that in thinking about intervening institutions that allow poor communities to leverage the social capital they control into political power and economic development, we must use a model that does not begin and end with the federal government. As noted above, institutions such as labor unions, political parties, private foundations and banks all have a role to play in the conversion of social capital in poor communities. For example, almost every current study of political participation points to the importance of mobilization, primarily from political parties, as a or the significant factor influencing participation (Wolfinger and Rosenstone 1980; Rosenstone and Hansen 1993; Verba, Scholozman and Brady 1195).

Historically, political parties have been important institutions, facilitating the political incorporation of immigrants, women and African-Americans. Whether it be the Democratic machines of urban cities early this century or the Union Leagues in the South after reconstruction, political parties and clubs have been an important source of needed resources when attempting to mobilize resource-poor groups. The importance of mobilization by intervening institutions is even more important in poor communities as Michael Dawson and I (1993) argued in our study on the political behavior of people in severely impoverished areas. Specifically, we found that while living in an impoverished neighborhood had a negative impact over and above individual characteristics on almost every measure of political behavior we explored, mobilization was "one effective way to increase the probability of individuals engaging in political actions (298)."

Essential to understanding this finding regarding the importance of mobilization is the corresponding argument that mobilization from "outside" sources is most effective when run through legitimizing indigenous institutions, elites and infrastructure. For example, institutions such as political parties, civil rights organizations and labor unions have all experienced the greatest success when working in tandem with local neighborhood groups and leaders. It is such a configuration which allows us to view these entities as intervening institutions necessary for transforming the social capital of the neighborhood into increased political participation among individual residents and community representation overall.

On the question and unique importance of mobilization I would make one last point. As I wrote earlier, the process of political empowerment is one that is threatened fundamentally by the possible corruption of political power. Consolidating power, albeit the modest power available in poor communities, in the hands of what often turn out to be the few and relatively familiar can be both beneficial and potentially divisive. Individuals who both know each other and are known to others--because they are long-time residents of the neighborhood, because they have worked on different projects together, and because they are recognized by outside officials as leaders in their community--often come together to lead and participate in struggles around community empowerment, and this is what we hope to engender from our focus on social capital. However, at the same time that we search for ways to leverage social capital into community power, we must always keep our eyes on the means or participatory nature of that movement. That is, we do not want to build power in poor communities at the expense of an inclusive participatory process.

For example, Portney and Berry (1997), in their study of five neighborhood associations, found that the COPS (Communities Organized for Public Service) program in San Antonio was "highly effective in getting government to respond to the needs of the residents in the predominately Hispanic area of the city." They were, however, troubled by the fact that "As a vehicle for involving people in the political process...[COPS] fares poorly (639)." The authors do note that, "In fairness to COPS, because its constituency is relatively low in income and some COPS-area residents are recent immigrants, the organization's task of mobilizing people is more difficult than in many neighborhoods...(640)." Thus, our goal should be not only to facilitate the use of social capital for political empowerment, but to also open up the process of participation, generating greater political activity among individual residents of these communities.

Many suggest that no other city, except possibly Chicago, has been studied as much as New Haven, Connecticut. Known most notably for the community studies that emerged during the 1960s, with Dahl's classic Who Governs? (1961) leading this school of thought, political scientists, sociologists, historians and an army of graduate students across Yale University (not to mention other local campuses) have mapped the development, the depression and reemergence of New Haven as a classic east coast city. It is, therefore, not surprising that I turn my attention to the City of New Haven in an attempt to explore both the constraints and benefits to participation gained from social capital in poor communities.

While concerned with the topic of participation, this section of the paper is not structured around individual behavioral measures of political activity. Instead, I plan to focus my analysis on the political activity, representation and agency of poor communities. Of course, I am interested in whether those who reside in communities with high levels of social capital (however we might measure this) participate at higher levels. Do these individuals go to the polls more often? Do they work for campaigns or participate in boycotts? Possibly more appropriate for our interest in social capital: Do such residents talk to their neighbors and friends more often about politics? However, this level of analysis, which concentrates on individual acts of participation, will be added to future versions of this paper. Currently, I want to address a different component of political participation--namely, the ability of community residents to participate in political decisions regarding the development and future of their neighborhoods. As noted earlier, I am interested in the ways neighborhood-based social capital can be leveraged and transformed by poor communities into community political empowerment. This section of the paper, therefore, will briefly examine New Haven's experience as a federally designated Enterprise Community. Specifically, I will explore the ways some of New Haven's poorest communities used third party resources to continue their march toward greater political access. I should note that this analysis has benefited greatly from Gittell's et al. (1998) analysis of civic opportunity in urban empowerment zones. While I came upon this article toward the completion of my writing, it helped to confirm my beliefs that the infrastructure resulting from the community involvement requirements in EZ/EC legislation can serve to expand the political capacity of poor communities, building on existing social capital.

Generally, the Empowerment Zone and Enterprise Community program attempts to foster public/private partnerships which will significantly support development in poor cities and neighborhoods. A central component of the program is a process of strategic planning that foregrounds community participation. In the case of New Haven, the process of transforming social capital into community empowerment was generated not only by an infusion of federal resources, but also by earlier political victories which began the process of institutionalizing the community's social capital. In fact, the process of community empowerment started long before the federal government entered the picture.[8]

Specifically, New Haven met the requirement of extensive community participation by constructing a community-based administrative structure, one that borrowed and overlapped with an already existing community-based structure--management teams--used in the community policing program. Both the Community Policing Management Teams (CPMT) and the Enterprise Community Management Teams (ECMT) would come to play an important role in the transformation of social capital into increased political access in New Haven. Serving largely as the central political arm of the community--although the crowded field of CDCs are making a claim for that position--neighborhood management teams have begun to move community leaders (in particular women) into formal political bodies, to raise the consciousness of community members regarding government operations and to concentrate community power in the hands of a small group of community leaders. Thus, one unexplored consequence of these community-based governing structures has been the centralization, and more effective use, of political power in poor communities. The possible spill over benefits from such programs is the focus of this brief case study.

Enterprise Communities and Social Capital

In 1989, John Daniels, New Haven's first black mayor, was elected to office on a platform including concerns relevant to black and poor communities. As noted earlier, it was in large part the informal networks and mobilization among the poor, Blacks, Puerto Ricans and white liberals in New Haven that delivered city hall to John Daniels. One of the prominent topics of the campaign that garnered significant press attention was his critique of conventional police tactics (Summers and Klinkner 1996). In an attempt to follow through on promises made during his campaign, Daniels began restructuring the police department as soon as he assumed office. Driving this restructuring was the move from a police force which provided traditional police services to one centered around the idea of community policing. Eventually, Mayor Daniels, New Haven and the newly appointed police chief Nicholas Pastore, would all become poster children in many media circles, representing the success of community policing in urban areas.

A central component of New Haven's community policing plan was the establishment of 13 community-based policing substations. In neighborhoods across the city new physical structures were erected to house the police in the neighborhoods. These substations not only included the essential material and equipment for any policing operation, but also housed extra amenities such as a community meeting rooms. The physical markers of policing were not the only parts of this system to undergo scrutiny and change; also under reconstruction was the hierarchy that existed between the police and community residents. Thus, in each neighborhood where community policing was implemented there developed accompanying community management teams.

Initially, these "teams", comprised of neighborhood activists and long-time residents, focused their attention on implementing community policing in their neighborhood. They had to tackle such questions as: How would police be deployed? How would residents exert (some) control over their neighborhoods while supporting the cops on the beat? Questions detailing the relationship between community residents and this historically brutal institution in minority and poor communities were addressed during this early period of the program. And while this early work would later be heralded as laying the groundwork for an eventual drop in violent crimes in New Haven, what often goes unnoticed is the role of such work in transforming social capital in poor communities. In each community, long-time residents, recognized community-leaders and stable forces within neighborhoods were brought together under the auspices of a community management team (CMT). The institutionalization of community management teams brought with it neighborhood resources and infrastructure such as a regular meeting place and time where community leaders could come together to strategize about how to improve their neighborhoods, an opportunity for community members and leaders to work together building a sense of trust and unified vision, an open meeting process where anyone in the neighborhood could come and talk face to face with each other about important issues, and the opportunity to consolidate power within the community, resulting in increased access to city officials. This work with the police simultaneously serviced the project of community policing and institutionalized the social capital of some of New Haven's poor neighborhoods. As one resident explained it to me, "for the first time in a long-time folks in the neighborhoods felt like someone in city hall was listening to what we said."

Social capital had long been used in New Haven's poor communities as a buffer between the brutality of dominant institutions like the police and the resource-poor condition of many residents in these neighborhoods. However, the emergence of community management teams laid the groundwork for what would become the infrastructure of power and influence in poor communities throughout New Haven. Quickly the community management teams moved from an agenda focused strictly on the police to one which was more civic in nature. No longer content to be a regulatory or oversight committee, community management teams in some neighborhoods planned community festivals, sponsored fairs and engaged in other activities meant to service and mobilize community residents.

In 1993, the work of the management teams in some of the poorest neighborhoods in New Haven would crystalize into formal structures meant to transform their communities. It was in 1993 that President Clinton put forth his initiative for cities: Empowerment Zones and Enterprise Communities. In response to the call for applications, New Haven pulled together a meeting of stakeholders believed to be key in submitting a winning proposal. Included were community representatives (many from the community management teams), city officials, representatives from the board of alderman and institutional representatives from Yale, Saint Raphael Hospital and the Regional Workforce Development Board. Consulting services were acquired and an application was submitted.

In this initial round only six cities, Atlanta, Baltimore, Chicago, Detroit, New York and Philadelphia/Camden, New Jersey were awarded an empowerment zone designation which carried with it a prize of $100 million in federal grants and $250 million in tax incentives over ten years. However, 66 cities, of which New Haven was one, were awarded the enterprise community designation. While offered fewer benefits than those awarded to empowerment zones, enterprise communities were provided $3 million in federal aid, eligibility for certain tax breaks and preferred status in the federal grant process (Gittell and Vidal 1998).

New Haven's application was built around seven census tracts in which severe poverty and unemployment were present. The seven tracts/neighborhoods included: Dwight, Hill North, Hill South, Dixwell, Newhallville, West Rock and Fairhaven. Central to the awarding of this designation was the expectation that administrative bodies would be established at both the city and neighborhood level to facilitate strategic planning concerning economic development in these areas. Therefore, in accordance with the city's plan for community involvement, Neighborhood Implementation Committees (NIC) or Enterprise Community Management Teams (ECMT) were established in each census tract. Initially, each NIC / ECMT was structurally distinct from Community Policing Management Teams in overlapping neighborhoods. However, over time the bodies would merge in many communities since many of the same individuals served on both committees. Included in the structure of the NIC's were its own working committees and advisory groups.

At the city-wide level, coordination occurred through the Enterprise Community Council (ECC). This body was composed of 29 representatives: 19 from the seven neighborhoods; six institutional reps, two elected aldermen, and four mayoral appointees. To support the work of the Enterprise Community Council, there were three standing committees: Economic Development and Jobs; Empowering Families and Individuals; and Strengthening Neighborhoods. Additionally, three staff members were hired: an executive director, an administrative assistant and a manager of information systems. The governing structure of the Enterprise Community Council also included two co-chairs and an executive committee. The ECC was responsible for such tasks as distributing funding and tax incentives, overseeing and coordinating the strategic planning at the neighborhood level and providing letters of support for local grant proposals to the federal government. Such letters were necessary if groups and organizations were to receive priority in federal granting included in the enterprise community designation.

Questions of Power

Enterprise Communities were established, first and foremost, to promote economic development in the form of jobs in poor communities. However, I argue that the internal structure associated with many Enterprise Communities, in particular that found in New Haven, can provide an example of how poor communities can begin to institutionalize and concentrate the power of their neighborhoods. For example, in New Haven, while the Enterprise Community Council has been what one alderperson referred to as peripheral to the development process up to this point, he also suggested that the management team structure associated with community policing and the enterprise effort has the potential to empower politically residents who generally have little voice in city affairs.

One visible consequence of the management team structure has been its use as an alternative route into public office. For example, in the last New Haven election four of the six newly elected alderpeople came out of the management team structure. Not surprisingly, considering the feminization of poor communities, this neighborhood-based structure has recognized and promoted the leadership of women in these communities. In fact, of the four management team people elected to office, three were women. On the surface this may seem like an important advancement, but in every case these newly elected women replaced other women. Thus, while the management team structure may work to promote women's leadership, not an unimportant characteristic, what we really need to determine is whether or not the governing styles these women exhibit are different from the women who previously held these positions? Are the newly elected officials more neighborhood-based in their policy agenda? Is there a greater level of activism among community members in their wards? Are they, for example, more sensitive to the plight of women in poor communities, fashioning legislation to address their needs?

In addition to the movement of community members into formal office, management teams may also be instrumental in mobilizing community members around important neighborhood issues. In New Haven, we have already witnessed the use of management teams to mobilize community members in the Fairhaven and Dixwell areas around environmental justice issues. As one neighborhood resident, who occasionally goes to management team meetings noted, "management teams turn out 50-60 people in a meeting, on a good day. It would be ridiculous not to think that they didn't have the power to make a difference politically. The problem is that they don't see that as that important. Folks are so busy tying to create jobs and CDC's they don't care about a lot of other things." While this person does not think that individuals participating in the management teams have an eye on participation, others do. For example, one local stakeholder argued that the politicalization of ECMTs would be a slow process, in which ECMTs might first plan festivals for youth, then try to get jobs for local residents and then use their resources to get people to the polls. Again, as the respondent suggested, the resources and infrastructure that come along with ECMTs--money for mailings, community space for meetings, briefings from city officials--all are potential resources that can be used both to increase the participation of individual residents in poor communities and leverage the social capital of the community into formal and informal political power.

Conflicts of Interests

I would be disingenuous to suggest that there are not serious limitations related to the management structure detailed above. For example, echoing Gittell et al. (1998), who noted that "competition among potential participants for approval of their own project diverted attention from the general need to expand citizen participation (532)," stakeholders I interviewed complained about the narrow construction of interests that developed within neighborhood management teams. One alderman I interviewed stated that the neighborhood ECMTs were limited in their ability to mobilize poor people across the city because they were "always thinking parochially about my block, my block, my block! That type of thinking doesn't allow for big coalitional activism. The problem is that management team discourse puts their block at the center of the universe. They also can't see past development issues." He went on to explain why management team leaders were so consumed with jobs: "Jobs are something you can quantify and participation is something you can't. Also, there is a trade-off, if all of a sudden too many people have their hand in decision-making. Most of the alderman worry about having too many people think they run the ward, because then they can't get anything done." Thus, he suggested that most of the alderpeople support some superficial levels of community participation, but are reluctant to endorse, of course privately, extensive community involvement in political decision-making, suggesting that such involvement would make it too hard to get anything done. One management team member confirmed the difficulty in getting anything through the ECC because of narrow neighborhood interests. He suggested that almost everything that developed out of the neighborhoods was killed because the other neighborhoods would not vote for the allocation of resources to other communities if they thought their neighborhood had similar needs. Eventually, the most successful proposals would flow from the ECC to the neighborhoods for discussion and then back to the ECC for a final decision.

The Omni Hotel

Competition between neighborhood management teams was not the only tension to develop from the EC project. Neighborhood management teams would also find themselves matched against local civil rights and, in some cases, labor unions for control of limited resources. The struggle over a jobs training program at the Omni Hotel in New Haven is probably the clearest example of the newly institutionalized interests of the ECMTs were attempting to redefine the political spatial landscape. This struggle was set in motion in 1996, when Omni Hotels agreed to become a partner and hotel operator with Baltimore developer David Cordish, who was taking over the then bankrupt Park Plaza Hotel. The Park Plaza Hotel sits directly across the street from Yale's campus and was thought to be a major piece in the redevelopment of New Haven and the servicing of Yale. In the 18 months between their signing on as a partner and the opening of the hotel, the Omni management would find itself in numerous battles with community groups and labor unions ranging from a struggle over their requested rerouting of the buses away from the hotel, to one centered on their unwillingness to agree to a neutrality agreement with the union, to questions over their commitment to training and hiring New Haven residents, particularly people of color. In fact, it would be the struggle over what type of training program the Omni would offer potential workers that pitted the Enterprise Community Council against a coalition of unions, civil rights organizations and community activists.

Specifically, the coalition of community activists argued that the Omni had designed a job training program that would focus on soft skills, relegating participants in the program (largely minority) to "back of the house" jobs. Roger Vann, chair of the New Haven NAACP, succinctly delineated the boundaries of this battle: "They're interested in having people who don't necessarily have any skills training but have 'good attitudes'....We're asking them to buy into a process that will ensure that people of color will be able to get jobs, not just in the back of the house, but in the front of the house as well."[9]

Ironically, the city and the Enterprise Community Council would end up defending the Omni's proposed jobs training program against the protests of this coalition, since unbeknown to many, they had developed the program--to be called the Enterprise Program--in conjunction with the Omni, as a way of guaranteeing that jobs would be funneled into their poor communities. Enterprise Community Council chairman, Bill Battle of Newhallville, was reported to be a staunch supporter of the program, arguing that the program should have been strictly limited to EC residents. While the fight was never formally settled, on February 24, 1998 the Omni "graduated" 85 New Haven residents from its newly titled Career TEAM training program. Not surprisingly, a substantial number of the new employees came through the Enterprise Community Council.

The Omni Hotel struggle in New Haven is clearly one example of how interests can be narrowly constructed, pitting organizations thought to represent the poor and poor communities against each other. This example also illustrates the dangers of concentrating power in the hands of a few individuals. People argue rather consistently, but out of the ear-shot of anyone with power (thus they were happy to say it to me), that part of the reason the Omni struggle took the direction it did was the inability of some on the ECC to effectively challenge the leadership of a conservative minority controlling the ECC. I cannot comment on the extent to which power has been concentrated on the ECC without extensive data; however, the centralization of power in the hands of a small minority in any body responsible for decision-making should concern us. This scenario only underscores the importance of developing a community infrastructure that encourages and mandates extensive community involvement in decision-making as well as rotating terms in the leadership of the organization.

Again, this very brief discussion of the neighborhood structure of ECMTs in New haven is not meant to serve as a perfect example of the conversion of social capital into political power. As we have just seen, there are significant liabilities attached to the current structure of New Haven's ECs. Instead, I hope this example can help illustrate the type of interventions, with regard to resources and infrastructure, that are possible and necessary if poor communities are to expand their participation, access and power. Repeatedly, as I talked informally with a people to figure out the working of the EC project in New Haven, it became clear from their comments that many believed that ECMTs could potentially become an important political institution. However, it was also evident from their comments that this transformation would not occur unless some outside force, possibly the federal government or a private funder, mandated attention to the political empowerment of poor communities.

Notwithstanding the urgent need for such an intervention, there seems to be a few research agendas that must be pursued first if resource-rich third parties are to be responsible in such an endeavor. First, we need to know more about poor communities. How does social capital operate within neighborhoods, across racial and ethnic groups and in relation to formal political institutions? This means more case studies, surveys and general mapping of the structure, interactions and needs of poor communities. Second, there also needs to be an in depth assessment of what resources, institutions and infrastructure are needed to leverage existing social capital in poor communities into political power? Third, we need to closely detail the relationship between community empowerment and individual participation by residents in poor communities. Does expanding power at the community level spill over into individual acts of participation? More basically, do individuals in enterprise communities and empowerment zones participate at higher rates than others living in poor communities that have not been awarded an EZ or EC designation? Fourth, how can we promote and ensure accountability and participation within governing structures instituted in poor communities? More specifically, how do we minimize the process of exclusion? Fifth and finally, what is the goal of this work? It is important here to distinguish between the goal of limited community input in a program and the goal of politically empowering communities so that they might develop their own agendas.

Therefore, we find ourselves confronting the question I began this paper with: Social capital for what purpose or why? Are we interested in facilitating a form of community involvement that legitimizes and possibly minimally influences the development of policies and strategic plans, while securing stability and protection from the growing inequality between the poor and the affluent? Or are we prepared to develop policies and programs that facilitate and support community empowerment without any guarantee that this newly formed power will not turn against us? Answering these questions will give us a clearer focus on the types of policies and interventions poor communities can pursue regarding social capital, intervening institutions and political power.
 

1. Xavier de Souza Briggs in his article "Social Capital and the Cities: Advice to Change Agents," National Civic Review. Vol. 86 (Summer), 1997, pp. 111-117, discusses two uses for social capital. One is "to get by (for social support)." The other is to "get ahead." He details what he means by getting ahead, writing, "Social Capital is used for social leverage, that is to change or improve our life circumstances or 'or opportunity set' (112)." In my use of the idea of leverage I am interested in the ability of communities to use the social networks and resources indigenous to the community in conjunction with "outside" resources to empower themselves, over and beyond the advancement of individual community residents. This is a topic I return to later.

2. White liberals also played an important role in Daniels's election. The fact that significant numbers of white liberals did not flee to support more conservative white candidates helped Daniels significantly in his bid to be mayor (Summers and Klinkner 1996, 132).

3. I must caution the reader that the case as it is presented in this paper is in draft form and will be significantly supplemented with additional interviews in future versions of the paper.

4. Jocelyn Sargent has argued astutely that what may have been lost in poor communities is not social capital based on informal neighborhood associations, but institutionalized forms of social capital (ie. political machines) that were instrumental in mobilizing voters and facilitating other forms of participation.

5. Here I'm referring to social capital in its current state, not the preventative social capital that might have worked to keep the individual from being arrested in the first place.

6. By "intervening institutions" I mean state agencies and programs, labor unions, political parties, private foundations and other sources or resources, outside the neighborhood, that can be used to leverage community social capital--what Xavier de Souza Briggs (1997) calls "resources to get by"--into community power (significant involvement in decision-making regarding the distribution of resources). I will expand further on this idea below.

7. Undoubtedly, the reasons for the misplacement and misuse of federal resources can result from, at one extreme, a real ignorance about how to work with communities to, at another extreme, a desire to keep communities quiet and unproblematic by servicing them, attempting to maintain the status quo. Most often, I suspect, the reasons fall somewhere in between these two extremes.

8. In January of this year, New Haven's federal status was "upgraded" when it was awarded the designation of an enterprise zone.

9. Mark Zaretsky, September 16, 1997, "Job Issue Next for Omni Hotel," New Haven Register.ý
 
 

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