Environmental Quality: We adopt an empirical definition of social capital and link it to the environment through neighborhood collective action. Social capital refers to the shared knowledge, norms, rules and networks that facilitate collective action (Coleman 1988, Putnam 1995, Ostrom 1999, Woolcock 2001). We ask two key questions: 1) How do observed variations in social capital affect the likelihood of people engaging in collective action to improve the environmental quality of their neighborhoods? 2) Do neighborhoods with low levels of social capital exhibit higher levels of environmental degradation?
 
Environmental Well-Being: The literature on well-being is extensive and many synonyms are used, i.e., life satisfaction, subjective well-being, and quality of life (Schuessler & Fisher 1985, Hass 1999). Our goal is to understand the subjective sense of satisfaction felt by a community of individuals. We will answer the question: "Is neighborhood well-being higher in neighborhoods with higher levels of environmental quality?" We will use GIS databases to test our hypotheses about social capital, environmental well-being, and environmental quality. From the BES telephone survey, data include measures of social capital, willingness to participate in or support environmental activities, perceptions of environmental quality of life and well-being, and neighborhood satisfaction. The Parks & People Foundation maintains a GIS database of all community stewardship projects in the City. Finally, BES maintains GIS data on air and water quality and vegetation cover.
 
Public Health: Klinenberg (2002) examined social and ecological factors associated with > 700 deaths during a one-week heat wave in Chicago in 1995. One major finding was that variation in neighborhood-level social capital was a significant predictor of mortality for "at-risk" populations. Further, he proposed that social capital is probably a significant factor in survival rates in many types of ecological disturbance. We will test Klinenberg's hypothesis that social capital is an important "resilience" factor in survival rates for "at-risk" populations subjected to ecological disturbances such as heat waves, freezing conditions, epidemics, and floods. To create the necessary record of "forensic social ecology," we will collect data from the following sources: Baltimore City Vital Statistics, data and reports from the Department of Health archives, newspaper accounts, and historic Census data.
 
Conservation of Public Lands: In 1904, the Olmsted Brothers proposed a comprehensive park system for the Baltimore region. The plan was only partly implemented. We hypothesize that conservation of public park and forest lands is significantly affected by the social capital of neighborhoods, enabling them to encourage or block public investments in the conservation of public lands. We will use the 1904 Olmsted plan as a social ecological hypothesis of what should exist now. Where the 1904 plan and the current park distribution do not match, we will classify as residuals (errors) of commission those parks that were proposed but a) not built, or b) if built, not maintained, and classify parks that were built but not planned, as residuals of omission. We will then determine whether residuals of commission are associated with the absence of social capital, and whether the residuals of omission are associated with the presence of social capital.