WW-07565     2000  

Just in Time Research: Resilient Communities

Introduction

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Minnesota is confronting change. There is more diversity of income, race, ethnicity, and religion than ever before in the state’s history. Communities need to draw upon the resources that diversity affords. Even though diversity sometimes brings more polarization, resilient communities should be able to capitalize on their differences in a way that improves living conditions for everyone in the community.

Sustainability is a long-term process, requiring attention to equity, ecosystem, and the economy. For sustainability to thrive, all three issues must be addressed equally. Sustainability depends on how communities of interest and place use their resources. Resources can be consumed and therefore unavailable to generations of today or tomorrow, stored and potentially available for future generations, or invested, which can provide new resources for meeting present and future needs of all people. When resources are invested to create new resources, they can be termed "capital." Sustainability means investing in various forms of capital in ways that do not deplete other resources.

As we see in the papers in this publication, there are different forms of capital that resilient communities can draw upon, and ways of utilizing these forms of capital that sustain the communities’ resources. Specifically, there are four forms of capital that seem most essential to the well-being of healthy communities and people. The papers show how different forms of capital can be used to enhance - or deplete - each other.

Forms of Capital

Human capital consists of such individual resources as education, skills, health, values, and leadership. Communities see human capital as being sustainable when there is increasing use of the skills, talents, and knowledge of local citizens. Investing in human capital includes identifying local skills, talents, and knowledge, enhancing them, and recombining and using them in the community context. Investing in one type of human capital - early literacy training for teachers and parents - can increase both the human capital of the next generation and the financial capital of the community, as Ginsburg-Block and Casey demonstrate.

Social capital consists of mutual trust, reciprocity, a sense of a shared future, and collective action. Social capital, as I use it, is a property of communities of interest and place.

Our research with communities found two major areas of sustainability that are related to social capital: strengthened relationships and communication, and improved community initiative, responsibility, and adaptability.

Strengthened relationships and communications include increased interactions among unlikely groups within the community, increased interactions among unlikely groups outside the community, and increased availability of information and knowledge. Ziebarth and Hwang show that when these groups do not come together, housing development can focus only on maintaining an ideal middle-class community appearance, and cause real hardship on low-income individuals who form a vital part of the community economy. Davidoff et al. show how attention to human capital of excluded groups within the population - in this case, Latinos - can increase social capital and community financial capital.

Improved community initiative, responsibility, and adaptability includes a shared vision, building first on internal resources, looking for alternative ways to respond to constant changes, and loss of the "victim" mentality. Fennelly et al. stress the importance of coordination and partnerships among agencies and local communities (social capital) to integrate new immigrants in Minnesota communities by building human capital and financial capital.

A critical aspect of social capital for sustainable communities is the increased sense of personal ways of effecting change, which is related to quality of life. Instead of the traditional response to change of "If only someone would...", communities with high levels of social capital are much more likely to say "We can...". Masten’s discussion of children at risk shows how social capital can contribute to human capital to instill resilience in children at risk. She also shows the importance of the multiple forms of human and social capital to enhance each other.

Natural capital consists of air quality, water quality and quantity, soil quality and quantity, biodiversity, landscape, and ecological knowledge. A healthy ecosystem with multiple community benefits is critical to community sustainability.

We operationalize sustainable, healthy ecosystems with multiple community benefits through three major general sets of indicators:

1. Human communities plan and act in concert with natural systems;
2. Ecosystems are used for multiple community benefits;
3. Those with alternative uses of the ecosystems seek common ground.

Peters et al. show how the Regional Agriculture and Natural Resources Sustainable Development Partnerships build social capital to enhance natural capital and how the public work resulting from social capital enhances financial, built, and human capital. Financial capital includes debt capital, investment capital, taxes (and tax relief), and grants. Financial capital is important for sustainability because it allows for the creation of built capital. Built capital includes such things as barns, sewer systems, factories, housing, farm machinery, and chemical inputs.

Financial capital is sustainable when localities have an appropriately diverse and healthy economy. Four aspects and ways to measure them include: reduced poverty, increased firm efficiency, increased firm diversity, and increased assets of community members. Kriz et al. present an important mechanism of using social capital to generate equity financial capital to increase the business sustainability of rural Minnesota. Stone et al. demonstrate the importance of social capital in impacting positively community human capital and financial capital through youth run enterprises.

Working toward community resiliency and sustainability requires a collective vision of the future. Peters et al. explain how the Sustainable Development Partnerships increase and sharpen a vision of sustainability. By providing a venue in which all citizens can participate, social capital can enhance all forms of capital in Minnesota communities.

Yet social capital is not always considered part of the equation when making public policy. The new transaction cost economics suggest how important it can be to make firms competitive. And local participation has been shown to be critical in environmental protection. Schools in communities with high levels of social capital have higher graduation rates than schools with a similar socioeconomic mix with low levels of social capital.

The secret of resilient communities, as with resilient children, is to understand that there is no single way to success and sustainability. The rapid changes of globalization require strong communities. Investment in all community capitals - and understanding the balance and trade-offs among them - is critical. These investments need not be large, but should be balanced. The challenge for Minnesota in the face of change is to maintain and enhance social capital so that all the other forms of capital can be enhanced.

Cornelia Butler Flora

Director
North Central Regional Center for
Rural Development, Iowa State University

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Produced by Communication and Educational Technology Services, University of Minnesota Extension.

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