Community Development Myth

This week’s article was “The Myth of Social Capital in Community Development,” by James DeFilippis. In the article, the author takes the stance that the interests involved in social capital or misguided because it else understands the issues of power in the formation of communities, and because of that is divorced economic capital. Further the author defines social capital as simply allowing actions to take place by providing, and further that it is morally neutral and normative. Additionally, the author cites Putnam and his research in declining engagement by individuals in their society. However, the author of the article offers that Putnam misses the concept of promoting community economic development. Moreover, the author offers that communities
However, I do have several issues with the article the first being DeFilippis use of per-capita statistics to deconstruct Putnam’s comprehensive social capital index. While the per capita income and the states being ranked highest in social capital do not match. I believe looking at the economic mobility will be a greater measure of the social capital within the states. This is because per capita’s are skewed to high incomes in the m miss the economic growth from the middle, down. Defilippis’ second argument is that if there was a decline in social capital in the past 35 years, there would’ve been an economic decline in the past 35 years, to which I would agree, in principle, however, in my opinion Defilippis overlooks time as a source of Capital, which is vital in the understanding, in my opinion. Further when evaluating political science you have to understand that there are many different lenses one can wear to view society. Putnam relying on to Tocqueville to understand society would be using society through the liberal lens(not liberal the American ideological way), while Defilippis seems to be viewing society there a realist point of