Social Capital and Urban Networks of Trust

This is the first book on social capital and trust informed by a critical geographical perspective. The authors examine the role of social capital in the constitution and reproduction of urban networks of trust in different places and contexts. They explore how social capital and trust are reflected in the capacity of these networks to achieve their goals and to deliver specific forms of urban development in a number of Finnish and Italian cities. Finland and Italy present, in many ways, two almost paradigmatic cases of how social capital and trust can work in extremely different and yet very effective ways in the production of the urban. They are two almost ideal laboratories for experimenting new definitions and new understandings of the concepts in question.For this reason each chapter emphasizes theoretical work on the key concepts of trust, urban networks and social capital, and explicitly tie these into the institutional structures of different local 'societies'. Each author contends with the importance of place and stresses how the functioning of urban networks necessarily reflects the particular historical, cultural and political contexts of the locality in question.

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