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How do natural hazards affect participation in voluntary association? The social impacts of disasters in Japanese society
... Using a national survey conducted in 2013 across Taiwanese cities and counties, this study examined the role of social capital in enhancing individuals' hazard preparedness behaviors. Among various cognitive and behavioral indicators of social capital, it focused on people's involvement in volun-tary organizations, which has been an important indicator of social capital in previous studies (Curtis, Baer, and Grabb 2001;Delhey and Newton 2003;Lee and Fraser 2019;Liu and Stolle 2017;Putnam 2001). The study examined the factors associated with individuals' hazard preparedness behaviors using a two-step process: it first examined how individuals' past experiences of three main types of natural hazards in Taiwan -floods, landslides, and earthquakes -and their perceptions of the risk of natural hazards and selfrated controllability, were associated with their social behavior, as evidenced by their membership in voluntary organizations. ...
... Second, the study compared two slightly different perceptions of natural hazards (perceived risk and perceived controllability) and the comparison helped us to understand which perceptions had practical implications for individuals' behavioral adjustments (see Godin and Kok 1996;Terpstra 2011). Finally, the study examined two dimensions of participation in voluntary organizations: intensity and breadth of participation (see Lee and Fraser 2019). Similarly, people's adoption of preparedness behaviors was examined according to their adoption of preparedness behaviors and the number of behaviors adopted. ...
... According to Aldrich and Meyer (2015), behavioral manifestations of social capital are evidenced by people's participation in various social organizations (such as non-profit organizations, religious groups, and sports clubs) or by the depth of their social connections (such as number of friends and contacts to discuss problems with), while the cognitive and attitudinal aspects of social capital are measured by individuals' levels of trust in various groups of people. Although this study did not use a dataset that offered a well-rounded measure of social capital, which was a limitation of the study, participation in voluntary organizations was expected to have behavioral implications for hazard preparedness, as a few recent studies have shown that participation in voluntary organizations is closely associated with community resilience against various emergencies (Lee and Cho 2018;Lee and Fraser 2019;Lee 2020Lee , 2021. This study first examined how people's experiences and perceptions of hazards were associated with their participation in voluntary organizations, and then investigated how participation in voluntary organizations, in turn, affected people's hazard preparedness behaviors. ...
This study examined how individuals’ past experiences and perceptions of natural hazards, as well as their participation in voluntary organizations, were associated with their hazard preparedness. The study first explored how individuals’ past experiences of three types of natural hazards (floods, landslides, and earthquakes), and their perceptions of hazard risk and controllability, were associated with their participation in voluntary organizations – an important indicator of social capital. This study also investigated how individuals’ experiences and perceptions of natural hazards, and their participation in voluntary organizations, were associated with their adoption of preparedness behaviors for future hazards. The results of this study indicated that residents who experienced a natural hazard in the past generally reported better preparedness behaviors although the results differed according to the type of natural hazard. Both perceived risk and perceived controllability were positively associated with preparedness behavior, but perceived controllability was more strongly associated with participation in voluntary organizations.
... Because more recent studies have found that different types of voluntary associations have different social impacts (e.g. Lee & Fraser, 2019;Moore & Recker, 2017), this study identified the three different types of voluntary associations and tested their different impacts on preparedness behaviours among Taiwanese individuals. ...
... They found that Putnam-type associations without recreational associations are more significant indicators of social capital than those with recreational associations. Finally, focusing on the disaster context in Japan, Lee and Fraser (2019) found that people's disaster experience and risk perception are more closely associated with both civic (Putnam-type) and reward-based (Olson-type) associations than with social/recreational associations. ...
... Furthermore, religious, professional, and recreational associations were the most popular types of associations in Taiwan. The associations were broadly categorised into three types based on previous studies (Lee & Fraser, 2019;Moore & Recker, 2017): civic associations (groups with civic goals and public meetings), rent-seeking associations (groups based on financial or other material incentives), and social/recreational associations (groups without clear civic causes or public goals). ...
This study examined how Taiwanese individuals’ preparedness behaviours regarding natural hazards are linked to their social connections and to their direct/indirect exposure to previous natural hazards. Using 2013 Taiwan Social Change Survey data, this study investigated how the respondents’ membership in voluntary associations, damage experience caused by previous hazards, and perceived risk of potential hazards affect their adoption of hazard preparedness behaviours. The study distinguished three types of associations—civic, reward-based, and social/recreational—and three types of damage from natural hazards—property loss, psychological trauma, and injury—to determine whether they have different effects on the adoption of hazard preparedness behaviours. The results of this study indicate that the members of voluntary associations were more prepared for natural hazards than non-members; the members of civic and reward-based associations tended to take significantly more preparedness measures than non-members, whereas the members of social/recreational associations did not. In particular, the members of reward-based associations were likely to initiate their first preparation measures. Meanwhile, both damage experience and risk perception showed positive effects on the adoption of preparedness behaviours, but these effects were stronger for typhoons than for earthquakes.
... The present study appeals to both extant sociological literature that has investigated social capital's role in reducing suicide rates, as well as extant public policy literature that tests the impact of local governments' policies on suicide rates. Among various cognitive and behavioral indicators of social capital (e.g., Aldrich & Meyer, 2015), this study focuses on people's participation in social organizations or voluntary associations, which are an important indicator of social capital (Brehm & Rahn, 1997;Curtis, Baer, & Grabb, 2001;Delhey & Newton, 2003;Lee & Fraser, 2018;Liu & Stolle, 2017;Putnam, 2001). Moreover, the present study tests some socioeconomic factors that are intertwined closely with municipal-level suicide rates, such as, welfare spending, poverty, and income. ...
... The number of social organizations was measured per 10,000 inhabitants. However, some recent studies have shown that different social organizations serve as sources of social capital in different ways (Knack & Keefer, 1997;Lee & Cho, 2018;Lee & Fraser, 2018;Moore & Recker, 2017;Rupasingha, Goetz, & Freshwater, 2006); therefore, these organizations were also coded separately based on six types: professional, labor, religious, political, social movement, and social/recreational organizations. ...
... The effect of locally based numbers of social organizations was not statistically significant, but when social organizations were broken down into six types, availability of social/recreational organizations showed a significant negative effect on suicide rates. This finding partially supports relatively recent trends in social capital studies that distinguish different types of social organizations (e.g., Lee & Cho, 2018;Lee & Fraser, 2018;Moore & Recker, 2017;Rupasingha et al., 2006). According to these studies, reward-based organizations (such as political organizations and labor unions) or organizations without civic goals (such as sports clubs, social gatherings, or hobby associations) may not be as closely associated with social capital at the community level as organizations with clear civic goals (such as volunteer groups, residential associations, and customer-movement groups). ...
This study investigates social and economic factors influencing suicide rates in 231 South Korean cities, counties, and districts from 2010 to 2015. The results of a panel data analysis indicate that the number of social organizations did not have a significant effect on suicide rates; however, among six types of social organizations, social/recreational organizations showed a strong negative impact on suicide rates, suggesting that not all social organizations equally created social capital that addresses community health problems. Moreover, poverty and income are two strong predictors of municipal-level suicide rates, but municipal governments’ welfare spending was only effective in rural areas. © 2019
... Several studies have analyzed the socioeconomic impact of this rapid spread of ICTs. These studies seem unanimous on the positive effect of these technologies on living standards [4,25], employment [5], productivity [24] and the industrialization of the continent [6]. ...
... Therefore, there is no incidental parameters problem Trivedi, 2005, 2010).4 The study considers five years of average data to avoid too much missing data which could bias the results. ...
The natural disasters caused by climate change (droughts, floods) occur in a way that is unpredictable for humans and cause major destruction. The use of Information and Communication Technologies appears to be an effective way of disaster management worldwide. Shreds of evidence of this statement still lack in Africa, which is considered as the most vulnerable continent. This study empirically analyzes the impact of Information and Communication Technologies on natural disaster management in Africa. The econometric approach is based on the estimation of a panel data model using the Ordinary Least Square (OLS), Generalized Method-of-Moment (GMM) and Fixed-Effect Poisson estimators (FE). The results strongly suggest that cell phone and internet penetration reduce the negative consequences of natural disasters. Thus, it recommends to the governments of these countries to strengthen the creation and diffusion of ICT capacity.
... Several studies have analyzed the socioeconomic impact of this rapid spread of ICTs. These studies seem unanimous on the positive effect of these technologies on living standards [4,25], employment [5], productivity [24] and the industrialization of the continent [6]. ...
... Therefore, there is no incidental parameters problem Trivedi, 2005, 2010).4 The study considers five years of average data to avoid too much missing data which could bias the results. ...
This paper empirically analyzes the contribution of ICTs to natural disaster management in the context of African economies. We capture natural disaster consequences both by the total affected people and the total of deaths. ICT penetration is captured by two variables: the proportion of individuals using the Internet and the proportion of individuals using cell phones. Empirically, our strategy is based on the estimation of a panel data model using the OLS, the GMM and the FE poisson estimators. The results suggest that cell phone and internet penetration reduces the negative consequences of natural disasters. Thus, we suggest to the governments of these countries, as well as to donors to continue the construction of telecommunications infrastructure, especially in rural areas.
... While existing institutions impact disaster recovery, disasters can also impact institutions. 3 They offer opportunities for societies to cooperate, discover social and economic opportunities to rebuild, and overcome collective action problems (Calo-Blanco et al., 2017;Lee, 2019;Lee and Fraser, 2019;Storr and Haeffele-Balch, 2012). These and other challenges associated with postdisaster efforts involve both formal informal institutional channels. ...
Institutions matter for postdisaster recovery. Conversely, natural disasters can also alter a society's institutions. Using the synthetic control method, this study examines the effects that Hurricane Katrina (2005) had on the formal and informal institutions in Louisiana. As measures of formal institutions, we employ two economic freedom scores corresponding to government employment (GE) (as a share of total employment at the state-level) and property tax (PT). These measures serve as proxies for the level of governmental interference into the economy and the protection of private property rights respectively. To assess the impact on informal institutions, we use state-level social capital data. We find that Hurricane Katrina had lasting impacts on Louisiana's formal institutions. In the post-Katrina period, we find that actual Louisiana had persistently higher economic freedom scores for both GE and PT than the synthetic Louisiana that did not experience the hurricane. These findings imply that the hurricane led to a reduction in both PTs and GE, which indicates a decrease in the relative size of the public sector as a share of the state's economy. On the other hand, we find no impact on our chosen measure of informal institution.
... There is relatively abundant community involvement in rural areas that older adults can take the initiative in, which not only provides employment support but also a place for social participation, leading to securing income, purpose of life, friend-making, and maintaining and improving health. Community participation was indirectly associated to SWB via community attachment, suggesting that there is a tendency to lower anxiety when the connection with the neighboring community is strong in rural areas, where they are relatively vulnerable to natural disasters (Lee and Fraser 2019). Concerned that there are many challenges such as a shortage of human resources and reduced demand for nursing and medical services, people tend to value not only 'self-help' and 'public assistance' but also 'mutual assistance', that is, cooperation and help from the people around them. ...
This study explored the relationship between community participation/community attachment and subjective well-being (SWB) among Japanese older adults. The study was conducted in Japanese urban (Tokyo and Osaka) and rural (Shikoku region) areas. Structural equation modelling was performed to assess the potential relationship between community participation, community attachment and SWB. Results showed that community participation and community attachment were positively associated in both areas. However, community attachment had a significant impact on SWB only in rural areas with little impact on increasing SWB in urban areas. We conclude that the role of community attachment varies according to regions with different socioeconomic properties. These findings contribute to the design of detailed region-specific initiatives to improve SWB of older adults.
... An example of civil society participation is be found in the neighbourhood associations (chōnaikai or jichikai, in Japanese), that function as a centralized organization established within local communities. In addition to acting as a hub of connections with the neighbourhood, they fulfil a valuable function when disasters such as earthquakes and typhoons occur [60]. ...
Due to its geographical location, Japan is exposed to typhoons, floods, earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanoes. Since time immemorial, the survival of the Japanese people has depended on their ability to prepare for disasters, learn from those painful experiences, and transmit that knowledge from generation to generation as part of their cultural heritage. These elements combined have resulted in a unique Culture of Prevention, known in Japanese as “bosai culture,” encompassing technical measures and requirements, laws, and a strong civic culture that enables the country to face and learn from disasters. Exploring the roots of the Japanese Culture of Prevention by conducting a critical literature review, this article aims to improve our understanding of the Japanese perspective on Disaster Risk Reduction strategies and actions, by focusing on the cultural and religious influences, as well as on the solid national sense of belonging, embedded in the Japanese Disaster Risk Management system.
... based organization, NGOs, disaster-related community-based projects, political events, interaction with political personalities, voting, support by formal and informal organizations, etc. are civic and political factors that contribute to social capital, which in turn could influence resilience (Aldrich & Meyer, 2015;Aldrich & Ono, 2016;Jordan, 2015;Lee & Fraser, 2019;Metaxa-Kakavouli et al., 2018;Poortinga, 2012;Tammar et al., 2020). b) Network, ties, and trust are considered the most important pillar of social capital that is, in many cases, readily available to individuals and communities in case of emergencies. ...
The impacts of climate change and disasters have increased in recent years. Social capital plays a significant role in enhancing community resilience through social networking, information exchange, and resource sharing. This study quantifies the concept of social capital by proposing a social capital index (SCI). The methodology was operationalized and tested in the formal and informal settlements of Islamabad and Rawalpindi in Pakistan. Yamane's sampling method was used to calculate the required sample size of 400 and collected via questionnaire survey. The indicators were chosen through rigorous literature review and categorized into three dimensions of social capital, i.e., civic and political participation, network ties and trust, and consolidated and knowledge resources. Descriptive statistics, chi-square, and independent t-test were used to compare each dimension and overall social capital. Results have revealed that civic and political participation is more or less similar in formal and informal settlements. Informal settlements had stronger social ties, networks, and trust in the community, whereas formal settlements had better access to consolidated and knowledge resources. The study also found a strong positive correlation between actual and perceived social capital. The proposed methodology is tested and found operational for assessing the social capital of hazard-prone areas and communities.
... The impacts of natural disasters have been investigated in extensive studies. The mainstream literature in this field aims to measure the social, psychosocial, and economic damage caused by natural disasters (Botzen et al. 2019;Coffman and Noy 2012;Gorman-Murray et al. 2014;Kalayjian et al. 2002;Lee and Fraser 2019). Among such damage, the economic impacts of natural disasters are profound and notable (Noy 2009). ...
The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has once again made the impacts of natural disasters a hot topic in academia. The environmental impacts of natural disasters, however, remain unsettled in the existing literature. This study aims to investigate the impact of natural disasters on CO2 emissions. For this purpose, we employ a panel dataset covering 138 countries over the period 1990–2018 and two dynamic panel estimation methods. Then, considering the differences in CO2 emissions across various countries, we run a panel quantile regression to examine the asymmetry in the nexus between natural disasters and CO2 emissions. We also discuss the mediating effects of energy consumption between natural disasters and CO2 emissions. After conducting a series of robustness checks, we confirm that our results are stable and convincing. The empirical results indicate that natural disasters significantly reduce CO2 emissions. Nevertheless, the impact of natural disasters on CO2 emissions is asymmetric across different quantiles of CO2 emissions. Furthermore, the technology level serves as an important moderating factor between natural disasters and CO2 emissions. The mediating effect results reveal that natural disasters not only directly reduce CO2 emissions but also indirectly promote carbon reduction by restraining energy consumption. Finally, several policy implications are provided to reduce CO2 emissions and the damage caused by natural disasters.
... Bonding social capital refers to close ties between members of the same social circles, facilitating trust and mutual aid among friends and family members 23,66 . Bridging social capital describes association ties between members of different social groups, built through workplaces 67 , unions 68 , volunteering 17 , sports clubs 14 , and local associations 69 . Bridging ties are the lifeblood of democracy, helping residents build shared stake in their community and enabling close cooperation during and after crisis 24,69 . ...
Over the past thirty years, disaster scholars have highlighted that communities with stronger social infrastructure—including social ties that enable trust, mutual aid, and collective action—tend to respond to and recover better from crises. However, comprehensive measurements of social capital across communities have been rare. This study adapts Kyne and Aldrich’s (Risk Hazards Crisis Public Policy11, 61–86, 2020) county-level social capital index to the census-tract level, generating social capital indices from 2011 to 2018 at the census-tract, zipcode, and county subdivision levels. To demonstrate their usefulness to disaster planners, public health experts, and local officials, we paired these with the CDC’s Social Vulnerability Index to predict the incidence of COVID-19 in case studies in Massachusetts, Wisconsin, Illinois, and New York City. We found that social capital predicted 41–49% of the variation in COVID-19 outbreaks, and up to 90% with controls in specific cases, highlighting its power as diagnostic and predictive tools for combating the spread of COVID.
... In Japan, individuals' past experiences with natural disasters tended to increase both the number of voluntary associations in which they participate and their degree of involvement (J. Lee and Fraser, 2019;Yamamura, 2016). ...
Emerging epidemics have devastating impacts on people's lives and livelihoods. However, acting as a severe health shock, exposure to an epidemic may induce positive changes in health behaviors among survivors, thereby leading to long-lasting improvement in population health. This study examined the long-term association between exposure to the 2002–2004 severe acute respiratory syndrome outbreak and middle-aged and older Chinese adults' cognition assessed in 2011–2015. Drawing on data from the 2011–2015 China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study, we found that community exposure to the outbreak was associated with significantly higher scores on episodic memory, after adjusting for demographic characteristics, adulthood socioeconomic status and health, and community socioeconomic conditions. No such a significant association was found for mental intactness. Mediation analysis showed that community exposure to the epidemic was associated with increased participation in social activities, maintaining close family relationships with adult children and grandchildren, and increased participation in regular physical exercise, all of which were positively associated with cognitive functioning in middle-aged and older Chinese adults. These findings suggest that positive post-epidemic behavioral changes are possible and may have long-term health benefits for survivors.
... In contrast, bridging social capital describes associational ties between members of different social groups, often built through volunteering groups, unions, parent-teacher organizations, and colleagues (Putnam, 2000). Bridging ties help residents find common ground and shared stake in their community, facilitating collective action, civic engagement, and closer collaboration during and after disasters (Smiley et al., 2018;Lee and Fraser, 2019;Ye and Aldrich, 2019). Last, linking social capital describes vertical ties that connect residents, elected officials, and decision-makers, helping residents petition for key public goods and responsive governance during and after crisis (Aldrich 2012(Aldrich , 2019. ...
Much attention on the spread and impact of the ongoing pandemic has focused on institutional factors such as government capacity along with population-level characteristics such as race, income, and age. This paper draws on a growing body of evidence that bonding, bridging, and linking social capital - the horizontal and vertical ties that bind societies together - impact public health to explain why some U.S. counties have seen higher (or lower) excess deaths during the COVID19 pandemic than others. Drawing on county-level reports from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) since February 2020, we calculated the number of excess deaths per county compared to 2018. Starting with a panel dataset of county observations over time, we used coarsened exact matching to create smaller but more similar sets of communities that differ primarily in social capital. Controlling for several factors, including politics and governance, health care quality, and demographic characteristics, we find that bonding and linking social capital reduce the toll of COVID-19 on communities. Public health officials and community organizations should prioritize building and maintaining strong social ties and trust in government to help combat the pandemic.
... These ties are frequently built in the workplace (Granovetter 1973), in unions (Norris et al., 2008), parent-teacher associations, and other community organizations (Pekkanen et al., 2014), and convey information, feelings of shared stake in community, mutuality, and reciprocity (Putnam 2000). Studies in the US (Aldrich & Crook, 2008;Smiley et al., 2018), Japan (Aldrich and Sawada, 2015;Fraser, 2021;Lee and Fraser, 2019), and elsewhere have highlighted that communities with stronger bridging ties and the community organizations that foster them have seen better response and recovery to crisis (Aldrich & Meyer 2015). More recently, scholars have connected bridging ties to better evacuation outcomes after several US-based hurricanes (Collins et al., 2017(Collins et al., , 2018Metaxa-Kakavouli et al., 2018). ...
When crisis strikes, why do some communities utilize evacuation shelters more than others? This mixed methods study draws on a new dataset of almost-daily tallies of evacuees at 660 local shelters following Japan’s 2018 Eastern Iburi Earthquake in Hokkaido to create a large-N time-series cross sectional (TSCS) dataset of local, short-distance evacuation. We pair time-series cross-sectional data models with qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) of nine affected municipalities to examine why some shelters see higher evacuation rates than others. While past studies have used Facebook user data, post-hoc surveys, or ad-hoc roadside interviews to measure evacuation, this study uses meticulously recorded shelter attendance data to draw inferences about evacuation behavior. Controlling for types of shelters, damage levels, infrastructure quality, social vulnerability, governance capacity, and community resources, we find that in affected communities, stronger bridging social ties, especially when aided by linking ties, motivate greater evacuation to shelters. In unaffected communities, stronger bonding and bridging ties encourage potentially unnecessary evacuation, helping spread rumors during blackouts. These results highlight the necessity of clear, transparent communication with the public, and fostering trust in government during crises.
... Bonding social capital refers to close ties between members of the same social circles, facilitating trust and mutual aid among friends and family members (Cox et al. 2011;Hawkins & Maurer 2010). Bridging social capital describes association ties between members of different social groups, built through workplaces (Granovetter 1973), unions (Norris et al. 2008), volunteering (Lee & Fraser 2019), sports clubs (Putnam 2000), and local associations (Smiley et al. 2018). Bridging ties are the lifeblood of democracy, helping residents build shared stake in their community and enabling close cooperation during crisis (Aldrich 2012). ...
Over the past thirty years, disaster scholars have highlighted that communities with stronger social infrastructure - including social ties that enable trust, mutual aid, and collective action - tend to respond to and recover better from crisis. However, comprehensive measurements of social capital across communities have been rare. This study adapts Kyne and Aldrich’s (2019) county-level social capital index to the census-tract level, generating social capital indices from 2011 to 2018 at the census-tract, zipcode, and county subdivision levels. To demonstrate their usefulness to disaster planners, public health experts, and local officials, we paired these with the CDC’s Social Vulnerability Index to predict the incidence of COVID-19 in case studies in Massachusetts, Wisconsin, and Illinois. We found that social capital and social vulnerability predicted as much as 95% of the variation in COVID outbreaks, highlighting their power as diagnostic and predictive tools for combating the spread of COVID.
... Regarding national voluntary organization network(s), many U.S. government documents are generally available [34]. Both research reports and Internet information are available in Japanese networks [35], whereas Internet information is abundant in Korean networks [36]. ...
This research aimed to compare different voluntary organizations in disaster management in the United States, Japan, and South Korea. Comparative case studies were used to evaluate the following: the specialized expertise and unsolicited goods and services approach of the United States, the collaborative relations and small-scale approach of Japan, and the additional support and unsystematic coordination approach of community-based organizations in Korea. Three variables were considered: volunteers and their organizations, financial independence, and preferred strategies. The key findings are as follows: each country has tried to enhance the role of its own voluntary organizations in disaster management; the nations studied have similarities and differences in their strategies and actions; and the specific developments in each country have been varied and reflective of its respective culture. This work, as a pioneering study, evaluated three national cases in terms of voluntary organizations in disaster management in the Asia–Pacific region.
... Fourth, this study integrates the literature on social capital and recovery with literature on solar. While past literature suggests that crisis can actually increase communities' capacity for civic engagement (Kage 2011, Lee & Fraser 2019, our findings suggest that communities' capacity for civic engagement does not necessarily lead them to invest in renewable energy technologies. Past scholarship found that communities with stronger social capital, especially bridging and linking social ties, tend to recover stronger and faster from disaster (Aldrich 2019, Aldrich & Meyer 2015. ...
Do communities struck by disaster build back better, or not? Recent small- and medium- N studies have shown mixed effects. This mixed-methods study tests the effect of disasters on the adoption of solar power as a key form of building back better and adapting to climate change. To test this effect, we applied a large- N longitudinal matching experiment on cities affected and unaffected by disaster paired with qualitative case studies, focusing on the 2011 triple disaster in Japan and Hurricane Sandy in 2012 in the United States. We find that disaster-hit cities adopt more solar farms and rooftop solar than cities unaffected by crisis and that the social capital of these disaster-hit communities shapes their adoption patterns. By clarifying the effects of disasters on the build-back-better phenomenon in comparative cases, this article aims to guide recovery priorities after large-scale shocks.
... 58 Bridging ties help residents find common ground and shared stake in their community, facilitating collective action, civic engagement, and closer collaboration during and after disasters. [59][60][61] Last, linking social capital describes vertical ties that connect residents, elected officials, and decision-makers, helping residents petition for key public goods and responsive governance during and after crisis. [24][25] These three kinds of social capital often carry trade-offs 23 : communities with an excess of bonding social ties while lacking bridging ties may see hoarding of resources during crisis, 60 while communities with strong bonding and linking ties may benefit at others' expense, as occurred when wealthy white neighborhoods offloaded unwanted-but-necessary FEMA trailers into poorer, Black neighborhoods. ...
Background: Much attention on the spread and impact of the ongoing pandemic has focused on institutional factors such as government capacity along with population level characteristics such as race, income and age. This paper draws on a growing body of evidence that bonding, bridging, and linking social capital - the horizontal and vertical ties that bind societies together - impact public health to explain why some US counties have seen higher (or lower) excess deaths during the COVID19 pandemic than others.
Methods: Drawing on county-level reports from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) since February 2020, we calculated the number of excess deaths per county compared to 2018. Starting with a balanced panel dataset of county observations over time, we used coarsened exact matching to create a smaller but more similar set of communities which differ primarily in terms of social capital.
Findings: Controlling for a number of factors, including mobility, politics and governance, health care quality, and demographic characteristics, we find that both bonding and linking social capital reduce the toll of COVID19 on communities.
Interpretation: Our findings bring with them policy implications for public health officials, local government officials, and civil society organizations. Public health officials and community organizations should prioritize building and maintaining strong social ties and trust in government to help combat the pandemic.
... Fourth, this article integrates the literature on social capital and recovery with literature on solar power. While past literature suggests that crises can actually increase communities' capacity for civic engagement (Kage 2011;Lee and Fraser 2019), our findings suggest that communities' capacity for civic engagement does not necessarily lead them to invest in renewable energy technologies. Past scholarship found that communities with stronger social capital, especially bridging and linking social ties, tend to recover stronger and faster from disaster (Aldrich 2019;Aldrich and Meyer 2015). ...
Do communities struck by disaster build back better, or not? Recent small and medium N studies have shown mixed effects. This mixed-methods study tests the effect of disasters on the adoption of solar power, as a key form of building back better and adapting to climate change. To test this effect, we apply a large-N longitudinal matching experiment on cities affected and unaffected by disaster paired with qualitative case studies, focusing on the 2011 triple disaster in Japan and Hurricane Sandy in 2012 in the US. We find that disaster-hit cities adopt more solar farms and rooftop solar than cities unaffected by crisis, and that the social capital of these disaster-hit communities shape their adoption patterns. By clarifying the effects of disasters on the build-back-better phenomenon in comparative cases, this study aims to guide recovery priorities after large scale shocks.
... Although this model is comprehensive and quite convincing, more research is required to distinguish between the short-and long-term timelines following a disaster, and the postulation should be tested and applied in diverse cultural and social settings. In addition, Lee and Fraser (2019) suggest that residents' direct exposure to a disaster and their perceived risk (or fear) of such an event have different effects on various types of social organisations. To confirm their finding, more tests of other social behaviours and attitudes are needed to clarify the social impacts of natural hazards, which is a goal of the current study. ...
This study aimed to assess the multilevel effects of natural hazards on trust in Chinese society. Using the Chinese General Social Survey conducted in 2012 as well as provincial disaster damage records, the study examined how individuals' past experiences of disasters and province‐level damage (measured by the number of affected people, deaths, and economic loss) are associated with various forms of trust: in‐group, out‐group, generalized, and political trust. The results indicate that Chinese individuals with experience of disaster demonstrate higher levels of out‐group trust but lower levels of political trust. Similarly, at the province level, damage from the previous 3 years of disaster events (2009–2011) was positively associated with residents' out‐group trust while negatively affecting their political trust. However, when provincial damage was aggregated for the past 5 years of disasters (2007–2011), which included the historic Sichuan earthquake of 2008, only total deaths showed a positive effect on generalized trust. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
... On the other hand, fear positively influence the altruistic behaviors of people [43]. Individuals' perceived risk and fear of victimization from disaster increased their intentions to participate in civic and reward-based associations [52] people having silent self-protective motives are more altruistic to others [15]. ...
Natural or man-made disasters generate fear among people who experience them directly or indirectly by exposing to disasters related news on media. Based on cultivation theory, our proposed model suggests that exposure to media and the perception of people about the media on which they exposed to disaster related information affect their fear of victimization and altruistic behaviors. To test the proposed model and hypothesis, data were collected through questionnaire from 210 newspaper readers in the rural areas of Pakistan. Findings show that high exposure to disaster related news and individuals' perception about the media contributed more fear of victimization. Moreover, fear of victimization from disaster significantly influences the altruistic behaviors of people. Our study suggests that newspapers still paly critical role in cultivating fear of victimization and motivating people towards altruism. Theoretical implications for future research are also discussed.
... The experiences and perceived risks of disasters were included as explanatory variables (see Chang, 2010;Lee & Fraser, 2019;Toya & Skidmore, 2014). Regarding experiences of disasters, the respondents were asked what formal and informal channels they used for help when they encountered disaster situations in the past. ...
The purpose of this study is to examine the social impact of natural hazards in Japanese society. Using the Japanese General Social Survey, this study examines how citizens’ previous experiences and perceived risks of disasters are associated with their levels of four different forms of trust: in-group, out-group, generalised, and political trust. Furthermore, as the survey was conducted a year after the devastating Triple Disaster in 2011, the study examines the residents of the Tohoku region, who were the primary victims of the Triple Disaster. The results of this study suggest that the disaster experience is positively associated with trust: Japanese citizens with disaster experience had higher levels of in-group and out-group trust than those without disaster experience, and Tohoku residents showed higher levels of out-group, generalised, and political trust than the residents of other regions. Contrarily, citizens’ perceived risks of disaster showed negative relationships with trust: the Japanese citizens who perceived higher risks of disasters had lower levels of out-group, generalised, and political trust. However, the negative effects of the perceived risks of disasters significantly reduced among Tohoku residents.
... These are important modes of supporting both, the individual's well-being and community's resilience [33,34 ,35-39]. Postdisaster studies show both increases [40] and decreases in participation in social activities [23], and either can be an asset or a lability. Coping with disasters ultimately creates a shared 'energy field' wherein reactions and efforts of so many people inadvertently rub off on each other. ...
The most essential, and possibly the most reliably present, characteristic of all disasters is that they exert strong impact on social relationships. Two very different, at times conflicting, dynamic processes emerge in their aftermath: the initial outpouring of immense mutual helping and solidarity, followed by a subsequent sense of loss in the quality of interpersonal and community relationships. This review of recent findings in the area of disaster mental health confirmed two major patterns of social support dynamics following disastrous events resulting from natural hazards: a mobilization of received social support and deterioration of perceived social support and sense of community. Social support is a critical resource helping people cope with natural disasters. Its psychologically and socially protective functions for survivors and their communities unfold in a complex matrix of benefits and liabilities.
... Moreover, this study did not distinguish different types of associations. As some studies have pointed out, different associations may have different social impacts (Lee & Cho, 2018;Lee & Fraser, 2019;Rupasingha, Goetz, & Freshwater, 2006). Further studies might delve into the mediation effect of the frequency or intensity of disasters on social capital and community resilience and types of associations. ...
The purpose of this study is to test key social capital indicators in a disaster context by considering the bonding and bridging types of social capital. Using the East Asian Social Survey, this study chooses three behavioural/cognitive elements of social capital—social trust, voluntary association membership, and personal networks—and divides them into bonding and bridging social capital, in‐group and out‐group trust, homogeneous and heterogeneous membership, and strong and weak ties to test their effects on self‐evaluated community resilience to natural hazards. The results showed that social trust and personal networks had strong positive effects, but the effect of voluntary association membership was positive in societies with high rates of membership (Japan and South Korea) and negative in a society with a low rate of membership (Taiwan). Furthermore, while bonding social capital generally showed a stronger effect than bridging social capital in East Asia, a society with more frequent and intense disasters (Japan) showed a strong effect of heterogenous membership on self‐evaluated community resilience. This study connects two aspects of social capital studies—the elements and the types of social capital—and the findings imply that the relationship between social capital and community resilience may have some mediator variables.
Through online surveys, this study examined both cross-national (U.S. vs. China) and intra-national (i.e., community size) cultural differences in social capital and community resilience perceptions during the COVID-19 pandemic. Across both U.S. and China, offline bonding social capital was found to be a crucial prerequisite for community resilience perceptions. Besides offline bonding, Chinese participants relied more on social media bridging social capital while U.S. participants relied more on social media bonding relationships to develop community resilience perceptions. Though the U.S. sample exhibited higher social capital, Chinese sample reported higher community resilience perceptions. Within each country, individual differences and community sizes made a difference in cultivating social capital and community resilience perceptions.
Zusammenfassung
Bereits vor der Corona-Pandemie berichteten immer mehr Sportvereine von zurückgehenden Mitgliederzahlen, episodischen Engagements und Schwierigkeiten bei der Gewinnung und Bindung von freiwillig Engagierten. Angesichts der komplexen Einschränkungen der Sportvereins- und geselligen Aktivitäten während der Corona-Pandemie stellt sich die Frage, wie diese außergewöhnliche soziale Situation die Mitgliederbindung in Vereinen beeinflusst hat und welche Bedeutung dem Sozialkapital zukommt. Der vorliegende Beitrag, in dem die Mitgliederbindung nach der Corona-Pandemie abgeschätzt werden soll, greift eine Forschungslücke auf, wobei v. a. die Relevanz von verschiedenen Sozialkapitalindikatoren betrachtet wird. Basis der empirischen Analysen bildet eine repräsentative Bevölkerungsbefragung, die Ende 2020/Anfang 2021 durchgeführt wurde. Die Mitgliederbindung der Sportvereinsmitglieder ist nach wie vor recht hoch. Sozialkapitalindikatoren, die sich eng auf den Sportverein beziehen, erklären wenig zur Vorhersage der Mitgliederbindung. Neben den im Verein wahrgenommenen Reziprozitätsnormen erhöhen Hilfsbereitschaft und Ingroup-Vertrauen die Bindung an den Verein, während Geselligkeitsorientierung und Outgroup-Vertrauen die Wahrscheinlichkeit verringern, auch nach der Pandemie noch Mitglied im Verein zu sein. Unter Einbeziehung aller Prädiktoren erhöht sich die Modellgüte auf knapp 26 %. Neben wenigen soziodemographischen Merkmalen tragen v. a. mitgliedschaftsbezogene Merkmale (z. B. Krisenmanagement des Vereins) zur Varianzaufklärung bei. Hilfsbereitschaft, Outgroup-Vertrauen und tendenziell auch Geselligkeitsorientierung stellen im Gesamtmodell die einzigen bedeutsamen Sozialkapitalindikatoren dar, wenngleich sie mit beachtlichen Gewichten zur Varianzaufklärung beitragen.
About ten years have passed since the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami. In the context of Japan, neighborhood voluntary civic associations (NVCA) play a significant role in communicating, sharing, and building consensus at grassroots level in Japan, though it is unclear what are the elements for the successful engagement of disaster survivors at the neighborhood level. This study examined whether community activities with the direct participation by disaster survivors enhance DRR activities, or external stakeholders strengthen those activities. Through the field survey in Kesennuma City, asymmetric results imply that the NVCA activities diverged from sociohistorical background.
According to the first generation of theories of collective action, utility-maximizing individuals encountering conditions of nonexcludability and nonrivalry free ride rather than cooperate as their dominant strategy. But scholars have documented innumerable successful and unsuccessful collective action efforts after disasters around the world that contradict that idea. We square the findings of disaster research with the second generation of collective action research by demonstrating how important social capital is for understanding voluntary collective action. We apply structural equation modeling and mediation analysis to data we collected from Sindhupalchowk, Nepal, after its 2015 earthquake to show that bonding social capital has the mediated effect of engendering mutual trust and in turn enabling collective action. Further, we demonstrate direct effects of both bonding and bridging/linking social capital on collective action following disasters. We portray social capital as essential in enabling self-governance and fostering resilience in postdisaster scenarios in which the collective burdens of reconstruction and recovery necessitate concerted efforts on the part of the private sector, citizens, and public institutions.
Objective
Facing increasingly frequent disasters, the resilience concept can make up the limitations of traditional community disaster management. This article evaluated the disaster resilience in an urban community from the perspective of capital, and provides measurements for stakeholders to enhance the community resilience.
Methods
On the basis of selected capital indicators using systematic literature review, the urban community resilience framework is established based on analytic network process and fuzzy comprehensive evaluation. Finally, the results are analyzed using the importance–performance analysis.
Results
First, 12 indicators within three dimensions of community capitals are identified. Then, the weights of social, economic, and natural capital are calculated as 33, 41, and 26 percent, respectively. Afterward, taking a waterlogging disaster as an example, an aged community acquired a 46.57 score of resilience. The importance–performance quadrant shows the priority of factors to be improved.
Conclusion
Relationship, norms, demographic characteristics, voluntary activity, physical facilities, communication system, general property, dedicated assets, resources, energy, ecological environment, and artificial environment are considered as key capitals of community resilience. In addition, a general framework to calculate and evaluate the resilience in a community is established that provides a benchmark for rating the resilience of urban communities.
While the majority of studies on community crime have focused on socio-economic characteristics that lead to high or low rates of crime, the impact of crime on community residents’ social ties has received less attention. This study examines the impact of district-level crime rate, experience of crime, and fear of crime on individual community residents’ participation in association—which has been widely seen as an indicator of social capital—in the city of Seoul, South Korea. Moreover, as recent social capital studies look deeper into the different types of neighborhood crime connected to different types of associations, this study separately examines the impact of total crime, violent crime, and property crime on the respondents’ social, civic engagement, reward-based, and online associations. We find that district-level crime rates negatively correlated with all types of associations, but the difference between violent crime and property crime was minimal. Additionally, individual-level experience of crime significantly decreased residents’ participation in social and online associations. However, fear of crime did not show a significant effect on any type of association.
The social capital theory holds that there is a positive relationship between social and political trust; however, despite the prominence of this postulation, this relationship has often been disputed among political scientists. While recent studies on advanced democracies have shown a strong positive relationship between social and political trust, studies on East Asian democracies, which previously showed a weak or negative relation, remain scant, separating these countries into their own category of new democracies. The motivation of this study is based on the importance of revisiting the relationship between social and political trust using recent data from one such country—South Korea—to determine the nature of this previously studied negative or weak relationship. The results of this study indicate that generalized social trust in South Korea is positively associated with political trust. This result is in line with recent findings in advanced democracies. While this positive relationship is consistent and significant across models, a greater portion of political trust is explained by economic and political performance, including factors such as the economy, corruption, inequality, and the welfare system, making institutional performance a critical predictor of political trust.
Since the 3/11 compounded disasters, Japanese energy policy, especially its nuclear policy, has been paralyzed. After the Fukushima disasters, public opinion turned against nuclear energy while the central government continued to push for restarts of the many offline reactors. Based on nearly thirty interviews with relevant actors and primary and secondary materials, we use qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) and five case studies to illuminate the impact of conditions influencing reactor restarts in Japan after 3/11. We investigate which local actors hold the greatest power to veto nuclear power policy, and why and when they choose to use it. Key decisions in nuclear power policy involve approval from multiple institutions with varying legal jurisdiction, making vetoes the result of multiple actors and conditions. Certain legal and political factors, such as court, regulator, and gubernatorial opposition (or support), matter more than technical factors (such as the age of the reactor or its size) and other political factors (such as town council or prefectural assembly opposition or support). Local politics can stymie a national government’s nuclear policy goals through combinations of specific physical conditions and vetoes from relevant actors, rather than through the actions of local opposition or single “heroic” governors. Our findings challenge the assumption that utilities unilaterally accept a governor’s vetoes, but reinforce the notion that specific judicial and electoral veto players are blocking an otherwise expected return to a pro-nuclear status quo.
The theory of change behind this project draws on multiple constructs, including elder empowerment, community bonding, social capital, and community resilience. We use qualitative and quantitative data to show that: 1. Empowering elders changes the way they feel about their role in their community 2. Creating the Ibasho Cafe (both physical and social infrastructures) with elders in a leadership role increases the community bonding among the members of all ages 3. A strong sense of community bonding increases the level of social network and community participation, enhancing the sense of belonging and trust, and developing reciprocity between neighbors 4. An enhanced sense of social capital strengthens the community’s resilience so it is better prepared to withstand future natural disasters and the impacts of global aging.
Social capital has produced a large amount of research in many different academic disciplines. Several studies demonstrate a relationship between social capital and reductions in crime. Recent research has begun to demonstrate that social capital may affect violent and property crime differently and that specific aspects of social capital affect crime differently. This study examines social capital’s effect on crime for urban counties in the United States using Olsen-Type groups, Putnam-Type groups, and Recreation-Type groups. Findings indicate that the only the Putnam-Type groups were a significant indicator of reduced crime.
Despite the ubiquity of disaster and the increasing toll in human lives and financial costs, much research and policy remain focused on physical infrastructure–centered approaches to such events. Governmental organizations such as the Department of Homeland Security, United States Federal Emergency Management Agency, United States Agency for International Development, and United Kingdom’s Department for International Development continue to spend heavily on hardening levees, raising existing homes, and repairing damaged facilities despite evidence that social, not physical, infrastructure drives resilience. This article highlights the critical role of social capital and networks in disaster survival and recovery and lays out recent literature and evidence on the topic. We look at definitions of social capital, measurement and proxies, types of social capital, and mechanisms and application. The article concludes with concrete policy recommendations for disaster managers, government decision makers, and nongovernmental organizations for increasing resilience to catastrophe through strengthening social infrastructure at the community level.
We investigated the trust in institutions, social values and personal attitudes of individuals in a part of Greece, after a wildfire disaster. The design of the study was a cross sectional, case-control study. Data collected were trust in institutions, social and personal attitudes, type and number of losses. The results show that victims and controls have low trust in all the institutions and share similar social and personal attitudes. Controlling for other variables, victims of the wildfires were less likely to appreciate stable social rules, to value the dialogue, autonomy, mutual support, modesty, wealth, equality, compliance with law, devotion, public recognition, safety and less likely to trust the government but more likely to trust church. This study suggests that victims of the wildfires in Greece did not appreciate important social values which bring a society together, they have a low trust in institutions, and they have a weak social cohesion which perhaps pre-existed the disaster; just the disaster has made all of them worse.
The human consequences of the 3.11 tsunami were not distributed equally across the municipalities of the Tohoku region of northeastern Japan. Instead, the mortality rate from the massive waves varied tremendously from zero to ten percent of the local residential population. What accounts for this variation remains a critical question for researchers and policy makers alike. This paper uses a new, sui generis data set including all villages, towns, and cities on the Pacific Ocean side of the Tohoku region to untangle the factors connected to mortality during the disaster. With data on demographic, geophysical, infrastructure, social capital, and political conditions for 133 municipalities, we find that tsunami height, stocks of social capital, and level of political support for the long-ruling LDP strongly influenced mortality rates. Given the high probability of future large scale catastrophes, these findings have important policy implications for disaster mitigation policies in Japan and abroad.
We investigated the trust in institutions, social values and personal attitudes of individuals in a part of Greece, after a wildfire disaster. The design of the study was a cross sectional, case-control study. Data collected were trust in institutions, social and personal attitudes, type and number of losses. The results show that victims and controls have low trust in all the institutions and share similar social and personal attitudes. Controlling for other variables, victims of the wildfires were less likely to appreciate stable so-cial rules, to value the dialogue, autonomy, mutual support, modesty, wealth, equality, compliance with law, devotion, public recognition, safety and less likely to trust the government but more likely to trust church. This study suggests that victims of the wildfires in Greece did not appreciate important social values which bring a society together, they have a low trust in institutions, and they have a weak social cohesion which perhaps pre-existed the disaster; just the disaster has made all of them worse.
Chile has a long-standing history of natural disasters and, in particular, earthquakes. The latest big earthquake hit Chile on 27 February 2010 with a magnitude of 8.8 on the Richter scale. As an event that had a profound impact on significant portions of the population, the earthquake could theoretically have served to build trust by promoting new trust networks through the enhancement of distant family ties and the interaction between affected neighbours. This study offers an empirical analysis of this theory in the Chilean case. It finds that if initial social capital is very low (thus allowing for post-disaster looting and violence), then the impact of the trust-increasing effect is smaller. It also shows that the effect of the disaster was not transitory, but that it persisted and actually increased over time.
The Great Hanshin-Awaji (Kobe) earthquake struck Japan in 1995, causing devastating damage to the economic landscape of South-central Japan. This study investigates how the earthquake enhanced participation in community activity. The key findings are: (i) people were more likely to participate in community activities in 1996 than in 1991; (ii) the effects of the earthquake on community participation decreased as the distance of one's place of residence increased from Kobe; and (iii) the earthquake significantly increased the community participation rate of Kobe residents, whereas it had no significant influence on the investment rate of residents of large cities close to Kobe.
This article examines persistent social impacts of the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill (EVOS) by focusing on the relationship between social capital and chronic individual stress and collective trauma, using Hobfoll’s (1988) conservation of resources model of stress as an organizing framework. Data are based on in-depth personal interviews conducted 14 years after the disaster. Analyses focus on the ways in which stress-related behaviors associated with loss and threat of loss of various forms of resources have affected social capital in the renewable resource community of Cordova, Alaska. Findings reveal lower levels of trust, disruptions in associations, weakened social connections and networks, altered social discourses, diminished feelings of good will, and violations of norms of reciprocity. Behaviors associated with long-term stress related to the EVOS and to the associated protracted litigation are indicative of diminished social capital. This research highlights the critical importance of social capital as a collective resource and illustrates the ways in which decreased social capital can exacerbate individual stress and collective trauma.
Acts of mass violence such as terrorist attacks or school shootings victimize more than those directly involved. Witness to these acts and members of the attacked community are at risk for increased levels of PTSD, depression, and other forms of mental distress. Research has clearly established that social support is critically important for recovering from such traumatic events (Galea et al. 2002; Johnson, North, & Smith, 2005; Ruzek et al, 2007) as being imbedded in a strong private network of friends and family can provide the emotional support survivors need to effectively cope with the tragedy (Hawdon and Ryan 2011). Given the increased use of e-mail, text messaging, and social networking sites among youth (Hinchcliffe & Gavin, 2009), it is likely that survivors of mass violence use technology to communicate with the members of their private networks (Dutta-Bergman, 2004). However, it is unclear if this “virtual interaction” can be as effective as face-to-face interaction in providing the needed support. Our research addresses this question using data collected after the 2007 mass murder of 32 people at Virginia Tech. Using data collected from 543 Virginia Tech students, we predict levels of emotional and behavioral well-being five months after the shootings. Our central independent variables include measures of how frequently the students communicated with their friends and families in the week following the tragedy and if these communications were in person or “virtual.” Results indicate that face-to-face interaction significantly improved well-being; however, interacting with friends and family members through e-mail, text messaging, or some form of online communication was unrelated to well-being. Our findings highlight the importance of face-to-face interactions after acts of mass violence.
The study of community resilience is a relatively under-explored area. Accordingly, in an attempt to further our understanding of community resilience, we present a study focused on the development of a questionnaire to assess and delineate the nature of community resilience across three low socio-economic neighbourhoods in the Western Cape. The study embraced a participatory framework that incorporated several phases. Data indicated significant associations between some of the dimensions of community resilience, namely, neighbourhood cohesion and community hope (p<0.001, Fisher-Exact); community structures and leadership and social supports (p<0.05, Fisher-Exact); the ownership of a business and physical security (p<0.001, Chi-squared); and the ownership of a business and social supports (p<0.05, Chi-squared). However, some of the community resilience measures, such as the knowledge of treatment of injuries yielded no associations with any of the other measures. Using the Chi-squared test, it was found that there were significant differences between the three communities on three of the resiliency measures: neighbourhood cohesion (p<0.001), knowledge of treatment of injuries (p<0.001), and community structures and leadership (p<0.001). The results suggested that communities may have the capacity to develop resilient responses and that these responses differ across neighbourhoods. By way of conclusion, we discuss the findings and review the implications for the further conceptualisation and operationalisation of the notion of community resilience.
Post-disaster recovery processes should be considered as opportunities for development, by revitalizing the local economy and upgrading livelihoods and living conditions. Social capital, which is defined as a function of trust, social norms, participation, and network, can play an important role in recovery. This paper examines the role of social capital in the post earthquake rehabilitation and reconstruction programs in two cases: Kobe, Japan and Gujarat, India. The Kobe case study shows that the community with social capital and with a tradition of community activities can pro-actively participate in the reconstruction program, and thereby can make a successful and speedy recovery. A model for bonding, bridging and linking social capital was developed from the Kobe experience, and was applied to Gujarat in four different communities. It was observed that the community with social capital records the highest satisfaction rate for the new town planning and has the speediest recovery rate. The role of community leaders has been prominent in utilizing social capital in the recovery process, and facilitating collective decision-making. Thus, although the two case studies differ in socio-economic and cultural contexts, the community's social capital and leadership are found to be the most effective elements in both cases in enhancing collective actions and disaster recovery.
In the past decade, social capital has been explored internationally in the disaster and social work literature, particularly in terms of historical oppression and limited economic resources of disadvantaged communities. Social capital in the United States, however, has had less integration. Using a qualitative grounded theory approach, we examine the different types of social capital (bonding, bridging, and linking) through a social work lens. We examine how social capital operated in the lives of 40 families following Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, Louisiana. We attempt to understand how residents utilized their social capital to survive the storm, relocate, and rebuild their lives and com-munities. Results indicate residents, especially those with low incomes, relied on, built upon, and collapsed all levels of social capital for individual, family, and community sur-vival. Participants described a process through which close ties (bonding) were impor-tant for immediate support, but bridging and linking social capital offered pathways to longer term survival and wider neighborhood and community revitalization. This paper also discusses how social capital inclusion in social work can strengthen or hinder individual and community development following a catastrophic event.
Hurricane Katrina's impacts have been debated and discussed as resulting from either natural forces or from the failure of man-made levees. However, both the immediate (3 years) and, most important, long-term (20 years or more) social and health consequences of Katrina must be understood in terms of natech disasters. Natech disasters combine etiological elements of both natural and technological disasters, and this conceptual framework forces a recognition of the risks of toxic contamination. A review of available information on the air quality and sediment contamination in New Orleans following Katrina's destruction and subsequent flooding provides data for justifying this natech classification. Furthermore, data on the awareness of contamination for residents of Orleans parish are presented, revealing that a majority feel they have been exposed, and one out of three are worried about neighborhood contamination. Suggestions for changes in risk assessment and public policy are also provided to mitigate the impacts of future natech disasters.
This article identifies six main theories of the determinants of social trust, and tests them against survey data from seven societies, 1999-2001. Three of the six theories of trust fare rather poorly and three do better. First and foremost, social trust tends to be high among citizens who believe that there are few severe social conflicts and where the sense of public safety is high. Second, informal social networks are associated with trust. And third, those who are successful in life trust more, or are more inclined by their personal experience to do so. Individual theories seem to work best in societies with higher levels of trust, and societal ones in societies with lower levels of trust. This may have something to do with the fact that our two low trust societies, Hungary and Slovenia, happen to have experienced revolutionary change in the very recent past, so that societal events have overwhelmed individual circumstances.
This prospective longitudinal study examined stress-mediating potentials of 3 types of social support: social embeddedness, perceived support from nonkin, and perceived support from kin. As participants in a statewide panel study, 222 older adults were interviewed once before and twice after a severe flood. It was hypothesized that disaster exposure (stress) would influence depression directly and indirectly, through deterioration of social support. LISREL analyses indicated that postdisaster declines in social embeddedness and nonkin support mediated the immediate and delayed impact of disaster stress. No evidence was found for the mediational role of kin support. Findings are in accord with conceptualizations of social support as an entity reflecting dynamic transactions among individuals, their social networks, and environmental pressures.
This study investigates if and to what extent natural disasters affect social capital. Twelve different events in Europe are examined in a quantitative analysis, using data derived from the European Social Survey and the EM-DAT International Disaster Database. The study uses social trust as an indicator of social capital and offers evidence that a change in social trust is a possible occurrence during or after a disaster, but that it is not an inevitable consequence of it. The results reveal that social trust decreases after a disaster with a death toll of at least nine. Changes in social capital, therefore, are found to be more probable as the severity of the event increases. National, rather than regional, disasters lead more frequently to significant shifts in social trust. This evaluation of 12 separate cases pinpoints several disasters that have had an effect on social trust, but it does not identify any general patterns, underlining the significance of contextual dependency.
The Hanshin Earthquake was the largest disaster to affect postwar Japan and one of the most destructive postwar natural disasters to strike a developed country. Although the media focused on the disaster’s immediate effects, the long-term reconstruction efforts have gone largely unexplored. Drawing on extensive fieldwork, David Edgington records the first ten years of reconstruction and recovery and asks whether planners successfully exploited opportunities to make a more sustainable and disaster-proof city. This book is an intricate investigation of one of the largest redevelopment projects in recent memory.
This article documents 24 years of social science research on sociocultural and psychosocial impacts of the Exxon Valdez oil spill (EVOS) on the community of Cordova, Alaska. This study began in August 1989 and officially ended in 2013?making it the longest running study of a technological disaster in U.S. history. We followed a longitudinal field experiment design using Petersburg, Alaska as a control community. Our research utilized a mixed-methods approach that included document review, observations, interviews, and surveys. Serial cross-sectional community surveys were used and we developed a panel design for surveys of commercial fishermen and Alaska Natives. Inquiries into sociocultural and psychosocial impacts of the EVOS were guided by theories and concepts emerging from studies of numerous technological disaster events. These included ecological symbolic theory; renewable resource community; conservation of resources theory; recreancy; corrosive community; individual, collective, and secondary trauma; lifestyle and lifescape change; social capital theory; and contextual constructivist approaches to risk. Results focus on four areas: event-related psychosocial stress as measured by the Impact of Event Scale; litigation impacts; resource loss; and beliefs about recreancy. Findings document acute and chronic psychosocial stress within the community and identify involvement in litigation, resource loss, and perceptions of recreancy as significant contributors to high levels of stress. Further, the loss of the herring fishery has had adverse economic and sociocultural effects on Cordova that may persist.
A key theoretical concept in the study of technological disasters is “recreancy,” which refers to perception that institutional actors have failed to carry out their responsibilities in a manner that engenders societal trust. Using household survey data from the Community Oil Spill Survey (COSS) to assess recreancy in the context of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, we analyze four waves of the COSS collected between 2010 and 2013 to explore respondents’ perceptions of blame and distrust in relation to key institutional actors associated with the disaster, paying special attention to the influence of time and employment in natural resource occupations. We show that BP is clearly viewed as the principal responsible party at fault for the disaster and that the odds of blaming BP and the federal government have held relatively steady over time, while the odds of blaming state government increased over time. We find high levels of distrust of BP and the federal government, but show that odds of being distrustful of both institutional actors was significantly lower three years after the spill. Fishing households were significantly more likely to blame and be distrustful of institutional actors, a finding that is strongly consistent with theoretical expectations.
The primary objective of this study was to evaluate the physical health impacts of Hurricane Katrina among survivors in the severely impacted contiguous states of Louisiana and Mississippi. It has been recognized that major disasters have adverse effects on the physical and mental health of survivors both initially and over time. Using a comprehensive survey of Katrina survivors in affected Gulf Coast parishes (counties) of Louisiana and Mississippi, the pre-Katrina and Post-Katrina morbidity prevalence as reported by respondents is examined. Also assessed are the demographic and social factors predicting the likelihood of adverse health consequences of exposure to Hurricane Katrina. In a series of multivariate binary logistic regression models, gender (female), older age, and lack of social capital significantly predict the odds of Katrina-related health problems. Race (African American) is only slightly significant in predicting the odds of Katrina morbidity in one out of the three logistic regression models estimated; however, significant racial differences persist in specific Katrina-induced health symptoms with African Americans displaying higher incidence of health dysfunctions. The theoretical and policy implications of these findings are discussed.
Natech risk refers to risk originating from conjoint natural and technological hazards. In this chapter, we are concerned with risk governance of Natechs involving technological hazards arising from the processing, handling and/or storage of hazardous materials (hazmats), as well as the transportation of oil and gas by pipeline. Examples of Natechs include large fires at an oil refinery in Chiba following the Great East Japan earthquake and tsunami in 2011; multiple oil spills from offshore platforms following the passage of Hurricane Katrina in the US Gulf of Mexico in 2005; or the multiple fires and hazmat releases triggered by the Kocaeli earthquake in Turkey in 1999. Risk governance of Natechs presents particular challenges. Natech risk originates from the overlapping of natural, environmental and technological causes, making it predominantly complex and uncertain. Growing urban populations, industrialization, and globalization have resulted in more people and property at risk from natural hazards and secondary effects such as major Natech accidents. While concern over Natechs has been on the rise among researchers and government officials, a general framework for the governance of Natech risk is lacking in most countries. This chapter provides an overview of Natech hazards, their characteristics and the problems associated with Natech risk governance. We use the IRGC risk governance framework for guidance.
To what extent does community context affect individuals' social ties and levels of community attachment? The authors replicate Sampson's multilevel version of Kasarda and Janowitz's systemic model of community using data from a survey of nearly 10,000 people residing in 99 small Iowa communities. They improve on Sampson's work by using multilevel statistical tools, better measurement of community attachment, and data from 99 actual communities. While the authors find general support for the systemic model, their results suggest that the community one lives in actually has little effect on one's level of community attachment, calling into question many of the basic assumptions and findings of past community research.
We extend the research on the individual and community-level impacts of rapid growth development (boomtowns) to include communities that have been affected by a short-term, yet large-scale “mega-event”—the Olympics. Testing the assumption of generic similarities of social impacts between these two types of communities, we examined longitudinal survey data from six survey years (between 1999 through 2003, and 2007), gathered in Utah's Heber Valley (the site of the February 2002 Soldier Hollow Salt Lake City, Utah Olympic cross-country skiing venue), to test for differences across established indicators of social disruption. We find that the Olympics had an important positive effect on residents’ community satisfaction during the year of the Olympics. While the literature on rapid growth communities provided a useful framework for the study of mega-event impacts on communities, our conclusions indicate a need to establish a more robust model for assessing how hosting an event can potently alter the relationship residents have with their community. Specifically, future research should focus on understanding the social-psychological effects of mega-event social disruption.
Objective
Whether a community can demonstrate resilience following a disaster largely depends on the pre-disaster context. Community disadvantage, the concentration of vulnerable and ethnically diverse groups, and high levels of residential mobility in the pre-disaster environment make it difficult for communities to “bounce back” following a disaster. The lack of social capital in the pre-disaster context also hinders community resilience. Yet there is scant research that assesses the extent to which pre-disaster structural conditions and the availability of local social capital influence community resilience post-disaster.Methods
We use administrative and longitudinal survey data from over 4,000 residents living in 148 urban communities in an Australian capital city (Brisbane). The survey data were collected before a major flooding event in 2011 and again 15 months post-disaster to examine the influence of prior levels of social capital on community resilience. Our indicator of community resilience is an index of perceived community problems before and after disaster.ResultsCommunity problems were significantly lower in flooded communities when compared with nonflooded communities. Although higher levels of social capital were associated with lower community problems post-flood, the effect of social capital on these problems did not differ in flooded and nonflooded areas. However, the concentration of vulnerable groups did lead to greater problems in flooded communities post-disaster.Conclusion
Although social capital may reduce local community problems under normal conditions, it may have a limited effect on reducing community problems in a post-disaster environment. In contrast, the structural conditions of a neighborhood before flood have lasting and negative effects on community problems.
Social capital is the web of cooperative relationships between citizens that facilitates resolution of collection action problems (Coleman 1990; Putnam 1993). Although normally conceived as a property of communities, the reciprocal relationship between community involvement and trust in others is a demonstration of social capital in individual behavior and attitudes. Variation in social capital can be explained by citizens' psychological involvement with their communities, cognitive abilities, economic resources, and general life satisfaction. This variation affects citizens' confidence in national institutions, beyond specific controls for measures of actual performance. We analyze the pooled General Social Surveys from 1972 to 1994 in a latent variables framework incorporating aggregate contextual data. Civic engagement and interpersonal trust are in a tight reciprocal relationship, where the connection is stronger from participation to interpersonal trust, rather than the reverse.
Abstract Social capital helps reduce adverse shocks by facilitating access to public transfers. This study examines how various measures of social capital are associated with disaster recovery from 2008 Sichuan earthquake. We find that households having a larger Spring Festival network in 2008 do better in housing reconstruction. A larger network significantly increases the amount of government aid received for housing reconstruction. With regards to how Spring Festival network channels more government aid to the household, the results show that a larger network increases the number of people showing up to offer monetary and material support after the earthquake, which also leads to more government aid received. This suggests that Spring Festival network members may assist the earthquake-affected households to apply for and obtain more government aid. As for other measures of social capital, connections with government officials and communist party membership do not significantly contribute to disaster recovery. Human capital, measured by the years of schooling of household head, is also not positively correlated with housing reconstruction.
We address the research question: 'Did the 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill have similar psychosocial impacts as the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill?' We answer this question by comparing survey results from a random sample of Cordova, Alaska, residents collected 18 months after the Exxon spill with a random sample of residents in the Alabama coastal counties of Baldwin and south Mobile 1 year after the BP disaster. Analysis revealed similarly high levels of psychological stress for survivors of both disasters. For residents of coastal Alabama, the strongest predictors of psychosocial stress were exposure to oil, ties to renewable resources, concerns about their economic future, worries about air quality, and safety issues regarding seafood harvests in oiled areas. Differences between south Mobile and Baldwin counties were related to the former community's economic ties to renewable resources and Baldwin County's dependence on tourism for economic sustainability.
Levels of voluntary association membership for 33 democratic countries are compared using data from surveys of nationally representative samples of adults from the 1990s. Four explanations of national differences in association involvement are identified and tested: economic development, religious composition, type of polity, and years of continuous democracy. The analyses consider total and working association memberships, both including and excluding unions and religious associations. Americans volunteer at rates above the average for all nations on each measure, but they are often matched and surpassed by those of several other countries, notably the Netherlands, Canada, and a number of Nordic nations, including Iceland, Sweden, and Norway. Hierarchical linear models show that voluntarism tends to be particularly high in nations that have: (1) multidenominational Christian or predominantly Protestant religious compositions, (2) prolonged and continuous experience with democratic institutions, (3) social democratic or liberal democratic political systems, and (4) high levels of economic development. With some exceptions for working memberships, these factors, both separately and in combination, are clearly important predictors of cross-national variation in voluntary association membership.
Recent events in the United States have generated considerable discussion about dealing with emergencies. Such discussion has produced congressional investigations and governmental reorganization while blaming victims for their own ineptness. Much of that discussion misses the point. Every community shows evidence of past problem solving and many of those problems were considered emergencies. Everywhere, people solve their problems within their own social and cultural context. Cities that experienced traumatic damage in World War II – London, Hamburg, Dresden, Hiroshima, and Tokyo – are still vibrant communities. 1 San Francisco recently celebrated the 100 th anniversary of the 1906 earthquake. Some celebrated the city's continuity but others predicted a dangerous future. We easily recall the disasters but forget the continuity and creativity of these communities. When new threats appear, they are usually seen as more deadly and more disorganizing than those that have come before. On the other hand, we often miss the effectiveness of individual communities in addressing these threats. In 1995, when the federal building in Oklahoma City was bombed by domestic terrorists, the city was home to a population of 450,000 and had fifteen hospitals. Within ninety seconds after the blast, emergency medical services had seven ambulances and two supervisory vehicles en route to the scene. The final report indicated that by 9:45 a.m., there were more medical personnel, drivers and people wanting to help than the site could handle. By 10:30 a.m. there were 442 people treated at various emergency rooms, eighty-three hospitalized and 243 treated by private physicians; all live victims, with perhaps two exceptions, had been removed from the damaged building. This effort – centering on a bomb-destroyed building – involved 167 deaths and 675 non-fatal injuries. The unanticipated emergency response from the community dealt with the immediate injuries in a little more than an hour. 2 Of course, the central symbol of international terrorism in the United States was the collapse of the World Trade Towers in New York and the perhaps 3,000 deaths that resulted from the collapse. Often overlooked, however, is the fact that at the time of impact there were an estimated 17,400 occupants in those buildings and eighty-seven percent of them evacuated successfully. Most of the deaths were on the floors or above the floors where the planes hit. It is now determined that ninety-nine percent of those below the impact floors successfully evacuated. 3 This successful evacuation was not accomplished by conventional search and rescue groups; it was the result of people on site helping others and themselves to take protective action to get out of the towers and to a safe location. While the loss of property and life occurring on 9/11 is frequently recalled, the protective actions of the other "victims" in the building are often overlooked. Much of the contemporary discussion about emergency planning assumes that community members "panic" and that strong authority is necessary. The vocabulary of "command and control" suggests chaos rather than citizen adaptability and creativity. Such assumptions can be questioned by the research evidence accumulated in recent years. 4 While we calculate damage to physical and human capital, we usually ignore the social capital available within communities to deal with emergencies. Social capital is our most significant resource in responding to damage caused by natural and other hazards, such as terrorism.
Charles Perrow is famous worldwide for his ideas about normal accidents, the notion that multiple and unexpected failures--catastrophes waiting to happen--are built into our society's complex systems. In The Next Catastrophe, he offers crucial insights into how to make us safer, proposing a bold new way of thinking about disaster preparedness. Perrow argues that rather than laying exclusive emphasis on protecting targets, we should reduce their size to minimize damage and diminish their attractiveness to terrorists. He focuses on three causes of disaster--natural, organizational, and deliberate--and shows that our best hope lies in the deconcentration of high-risk populations, corporate power, and critical infrastructures such as electric energy, computer systems, and the chemical and food industries. Perrow reveals how the threat of catastrophe is on the rise, whether from terrorism, natural disasters, or industrial accidents. Along the way, he gives us the first comprehensive history of FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security and examines why these agencies are so ill equipped to protect us. The Next Catastrophe is a penetrating reassessment of the very real dangers we face today and what we must do to confront them. Written in a highly accessible style by a renowned systems-behavior expert, this book is essential reading for the twenty-first century. The events of September 11 and Hurricane Katrina--and the devastating human toll they wrought--were only the beginning. When the next big disaster comes, will we be ready? In a new preface to the paperback edition, Perrow examines the recent (and ongoing) catastrophes of the financial crisis, the BP oil spill, and global warming.
Is the ‘1960s' a useful concept for understanding postwar Japanese history and, if so, what kinds of changes resulted and how might we chronologize the period? This article proposes the idea of a ‘long environmental sixties’ in Japan stretching from around 1959 to 1973. The article argues that this period marked important milestones in environmental protest, public opinion, and legislation. By the early 1970s Japan had addressed many of its most pressing industrial pollution problems, in the process placating protest, compensating victims, and establishing an environmental leviathan staffed by hundreds of bureaucrats nationwide. Japan's sixties were a moment of social upheaval, transformation, and new aspirations but, as this article shows, the country's long environmental sixties bequeathed a complex legacy, combining new forms of civic engagement with administrative programs and corporate initiatives to carefully manage the human–environment nexus.
SUMMARYA resilience index is used to quantify preventive measures, emergency measures, and restoration measures of complex systems, such as physical infrastructures, when they are subjected to natural disasters like earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, etc. Interdependencies among these systems can generate cascading failures or amplification effects, which can also affect the restoration measures right after an extreme event and generate a reduction of the resilience index. In this article, a method is proposed to evaluate the physical infrastructure resilience of a region affected by a disaster considering infrastructure interdependency. It is illustrated using available restoration curves from the March 11 2011 Tohoku Earthquake in Japan. The weights assigned to each infrastructure, which are used to determine resilience, are evaluated using the degree of interdependency indices which are obtain by time series analysis. Results show that the weight coefficients thus obtained do not influence the resilience index significantly; however, the methodology proposed is unbiased from subjective judgment and is able to identify the critical lifelines. Furthermore, the results of the case study presented here suggest that to obtain meaningful estimation of the weight coefficients, it is necessary to consider the period range between two perturbations (e.g., main shock and aftershock). Future infrastructure disruption data (from this and other earthquakes) would be needed to generalize this finding that will allow also to quantify the changes in the restoration curves caused by the magnitude and distance of the shocks from the epicenter, as well as the intrinsic properties of the physical infrastructures. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
After visiting his home in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the author is confronted with a newly configured landscape and a new social reality marked by a culture of distrust and a decline in social capital among residents. The comments here view one aspect of the corrosive community impact: the decline in civic trust, more specifically, trust and interaction among neighbors. One indicator of this distrust is evidenced by signs posted to limit illegal activity. These signs are posted throughout New Orleans and the surrounding areas to deter looters from the outside and looters from “within.”
There is growing concern about the potential effects of natural disaster‐triggered technological (natech) disasters. The chlorine releases in the Czech Republic following the floods that swept across Europe in the summer of 2002 and the multiple hazardous materials releases triggered by the Turkey earthquake of August 1999 were examples which showed the potential danger of a natech disaster occurring near populated areas. However, there is scarce information available on the actual risk of natech disasters and on what communities are doing to prevent or prepare for these types of events in Europe. This paper provides a careful look at how selected countries in Europe are currently addressing natech risk and describes recent natech incidences. Initiatives taken at the European Community (EC) level to address natech risk are also discussed. The paper includes the results of a workshop on natechs held at the Joint Research Center in Ispra, Italy in 2003. The workshop aimed to create awareness of the natech problem, and through guided exercises assess natech hazards and vulnerability to natechs in participating countries. The workshop sessions facilitated the identification of a set of five consensus key strategies for natech risk reduction including emergency planning specific to natechs, education and awareness campaigns, public participation in risk reduction planning, natech planning at industrial facilities, and the use of land use restrictions as a regulatory tool to limit the siting of industrial facilities. The paper concludes with recommendations by the authors, including suggested directions for further research to support natech risk reduction.
Each year, natural disasters threaten the strength and stability of communities worldwide. Yet responses to the challenges of recovery vary greatly and in ways that aren't always explained by the magnitude of the catastrophe or the amount of aid provided by national governments or the international community. The difference between resilience and disrepair, Daniel P. Aldrich shows, lies in the depth of communities' social capital. "Building Resilience" highlights the critical role of social capital in the ability of a community to withstand disaster and rebuild the infrastructure and ties that are at the foundation of any community. Aldrich examines the post-disaster responses of four distinct communities - Tokyo following the 1923 earthquake, Kobe after the 1995 earthquake, Tamil Nadu after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, and New Orleans post-Katrina - and finds that those with robust social networks were better able to coordinate recovery. In addition to quickly disseminating information and assistance, communities with an abundance of social capital were able to minimize the migration of people and resources out of the area. With governments increasingly overstretched and natural disasters likely to increase in frequency and intensity, an understanding of what contributes to efficient reconstruction is more important than ever. "Building Resilience" underscores a critical component of an effective response.
Change is a constant force, in nature and in society. Research suggests that resilience pertains to the ability of a system to sustain itself through change via adaptation and occasional transformation. This article is based on the premises that communities can develop resilience by actively building and engaging the capacity to thrive in an environment characterized by change, and that community resilience is an important indicator of social sustainability. Community resilience, as defined herein, is the existence, development, and engagement of community resources by community members to thrive in an environment characterized by change, uncertainty, unpredictability, and surprise. The U.S. Roundtable on Sustainable Forests commissioned a research project to develop a theoretically and empirically based definition of community resilience as well as an associated measurement instrument. In this article, the research is presented, the emergent definition and dimensions of community resilience are posited, and the Community Resilience Self Assessment is introduced.
While the social capital theory, popularized by Putnam, expects that associational life and social trust promote civic participation in political processes, some studies have demonstrated weak associations between social capital and political engagement. By applying these arguments of the limited impact of social capital, this study examines the relationship between social capital and political trust in South Korea. Survey data were analysed and it was found that both associational involvement and social trust were negatively related to trust in political institutions and commitment to voting. Furthermore, these negative relationships were mediated by citizen perceptions of poor institutional performance such as political corruption, suggesting that institutional performance is a crucial determinant of political engagement.
Applied Hobfoll's (1988; 1989) Conservation of Resources (COR) stress theory to the instance of traumatic stress. COR theory posits that stress occurs when resources are threatened, when resources are lost, or when individuals invest resources without gaining adequate resources in return. Traumatic stress is seen as particularly threatening to resources and results in rapid resource depletion when it occurs. The rapidness of resource loss is related to the fact that traumatic stressors (1) often attack people's basic values, (2) often occur unexpectedly, (3) make excessive demands, (4) are outside of the realm for which resource utilization strategies have been developed, and (5) leave a powerful mental image that is easily evoked by cues associated with the event. Results from research on traumatic stress are used to illustrate these points and implications for treatment are discussed.
This paper selectively summarizes and highlights basic substantive and structural trends from literature that assume that a disaster is primarily a social phenomenon and identifiable in social terms. Among major structural trends have been the institutionalization of disaster are search in academic settings, the perceived relevance of disaster research to public policy and agency responsibility, and the development of a "Critical Mass" of social and behavioral scientists interested in disaster research. The paper concludes by making explicit some of the many gaps and challenges that future disaster research ought to tackle
This paper argues that a neighborhood's resiliency depends on the stability of its initial equilibrium state. A neighborhood that possesses a large stock of social and physical capital is not easily dislodged from its beneficial equilibrium, but if dislodged by adverse shocks, its reservoir of capital enables it to return to its initial equilibrium. In the opposite case, a neighborhood severely deprived of social and physical capital and which crosses a critical threshold is not easily dislodged from its harmful equilibrium.The paper first analyzes the properties of resilient neighborhoods, arguing that an increment in any one of them will increase resiliency. Then it argues that ceteris paribus, public and corporate policies that result in an increase in resources will strengthen these properties, while opposite policies will weaken them, and beyond a critical threshold, will result in a “lock-in” effect whereby the neighborhood loses its capacity to bounce back from adversity.