The Ties that Bind:
The Central Florida Social Capital Survey
Seven Community Partners
University of Central Florida Metropolitan Center for Regional Studies, Community Foundation of Central Florida, Orlando Regional Chamber of Commerce, Heart of Florida United Way, myregion.org, Central Florida YMCA, and Florida's Blood Centers partnered for a comprehensive Social Capital Study to better understand how connected we are in the region, and how you can help build Social Capital in your neighborhood and across the region.
Overview
Robert Putnam's path-breaking work, Bowling Alone: Collapse and Revival of the American Community, describes how civic ties in American society have weakened over the past several generations. The result in many communities is a shortage of "social capital", the networks of family, neighbors and friends and the trust and reciprocity that flow from them. When social capital declines, the quality of education is threatened, public safety suffers, philanthropy weakens, economic development lags, and civic institutions become less responsive. A community without adequate social capital is distrustful, disengaged and disenfranchised.
What is Social Capital?
Social Capital is a way of conceptualizing or measuring how connected people are to one another. Just as economical capital is a measure of economic health, so is social capital a measure of the health of a community's social fabric. Social capital exists when people enjoy strong connections to family, friends, neighbors, and civic institutions.
Why is Social Capital Important?
Social Capital is the glue that binds us together as families, neighborhoods, and communities. Communities with high social capital are communities where people know and take responsibility for one another, are active in civic projects and organizations, and bind themselves together to get things done.
What Will This Study Show Us?
Because so many people currently living in Central Florida have moved here from somewhere else, creating a sense of community here offers challenges that are different from those confronting other places. Utilizing the Social Capital Community Benchmark Survey created by the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, this study will give an understanding of how people currently residing in Central Florida view community. This in-depth survey probes into many aspects to determine how people spend their time and how they interact with their neighbors and co-workers.
This data PDF's contain hundreds of pages of data and detail that can be used to better understand the results of the Survey. You'll find evidence that will give you, your business, community leaders, and your neighbors a better understanding of how far we've come in building a community of Social Capital. You'll also find data that we hope will spark new tools to help us with the challenges we face as we, the architects of the region's future, answer the question: How Shall we Grow?