While a substantial amount of research has been devoted to showing what social capital does, research explaining social capital itself lags behind. The literature has a long tradition of examining the effect of social capital on local economic growth and development. In this paper we examine whether local economic development can explain the variation in social capital across various geographical clusters in the state of Georgia. We begin by devising a measurement tool, a Human Development Index (HDI), to measure community development. Our social capital measure includes associational memberships, voluntary activities, and philanthropy obtained from the Georgia Social Capital Survey. The findings show that even after accounting for various demographic and economic characteristics, the HDI explains the variation in a number of social capital levels (especially those measured by associational involvement) across various geographical clusters in the state of Georgia.

Von Thünen's monocentric model is considered as one of the foundations of spatial economics. Most of its assumptions have been transfered from agricultural to urban space by New Urban Economics. This transposition gave new impetus both to the monocentric model and to urban economics. Yet the urban monocentric model, because of its strong economic and spatial assumptions, fails to explain the formation of cities. The economics of agglomeration, and more generally New Economic Geography, propose to solve this problem by considering endogenous formation of spatial concentrations, i.e. by changing radically the approach of space. We attempt to identify the lines of continuity and the main changes from von Thünen to contemporary urban microeconomics, and to understand in what way continuity is an obstacle to innovation, and how change has made it possible to renew urban economics.