The Empirical Study of Community Safety from the Perspective of Social Capital

Abstract

There is a proposed model that 1)informal social activities such as residents participation, community events, and say hello increase community social capital, 2)community incivility increase crime, and 3)community social capital decline incivility. This model was tested on 2007 and 2008 "Fundamental Research of Neighborhood Community and Management Association in Kobe city" and 2009 "A Survey of 10,000 residents in Kobe city" by structural equation modeling. This causal modeling was confirmed and founded that informal social activities increases social capital and social capital had direct effect to community safety.