Social Capital: Helping Hand or Source of Friction? A Case Study of Knoxville, TN

Social capital is defined as the use of social substitutes for resources that usually must be purchased. Social capital can be an impetus for upward residential and social mobility or a source of friction that leads to stagnation. Social capital is often considered as a valuable resource with a potential to lift the urban poor out of poverty, putting them into more equitable housing situations. In low-income communities, however, this resource has the potential to suppress mobility as the quality of such social relationships is affected by fault lines of society like racism, gender disparity, and the increasingly unequal distribution of wealth in the United States. This project uses observation, interviews, and focus groups in low-income communities within the Knoxville Metropolitan Statistical Area to examine the ways low-income apartment residents develop and use social capital resources. This study determines that there is little evidence to suggest that social capital in Knoxville can be used to encourage or suppress upward mobility, but can be used to create systems of social support in low-income communities. This empirical analysis contributes toward the body of literature concerned with the policy and planning aspects of designing a sustainable urban community using elements of the social capital framework.