Abstract
Recently, the term of the social capital (SC) has been used to analyze and evaluate the characteristics of the community. SC is defined as "the characteristic of the society organization like 'trust', 'normal', and 'network' which can raise social efficiency by making the people's cooperative behavior more active" (Putnam, R. ). Civic actions by Non Profit Organizations (NPO) and volunteering are the elements of SC, or one of the indexes of SC. The cultivation of SC and the activation of the civic actions produces is "the positive feedback relation" of mutual benefits. It was found that the relation of SC joint index and perfect unemployment rate and the number of criminal offenses is negative, and the relation of SC and total fertility rate is positive. Therefore, it became clear that SC influenced the health condition, welfare conditions, and the public safety in the community.
It is possible that SC is decreasing in the local citie s that are affluent relatively and SC is either unchanged or growing in the metropolitan area in these twenty years. We must activate the function of the local connecting groups and NPO, which become the bearers of the activities, to strengthen a community function. A key to success is the strong willingness to the local needs.
Because the connecting-type SC has a strong internal loyalty, it t e n ds towards the exclusive behaviors or toward the limitation of the freedom. The bridging-type SC will play an important role in creating trust and cooperation in the community. And it can strengthen the relation with the outside and increase access to an opportunity from the outside.
