American Civic Community Over Space and Time

Abstract

The civic community perspective focuses on important community organizations such as locally oriented business establishments, civic organizations, associations, churches, and the body politic. These critical institutions are thought to benefit communities through an enhanced quality of life, more civic engagement by the citizenry, and a strong capacity for local problem solving. This work has been largely cross-sectional and aspatial. The line of work has had limited utility in addressing themes like Putnam’s Bowling Alone hypothesis that social capital is in decline. In the present work, we address both temporal and spatial trends in the U.S. since 1980. We find considerable variation across time and space that cast doubt on notions of a sweeping secular decline in American social capital.