Social Sustainability

This study is working in conjunction with the  Austin Area Sustainability Indicators  (A2SI) project, which “aim[s] to measure quality of life, sustainability trends, and serve as the foundation for a systems approach to address challenges in Central Texas.” Through interviews with various environmental organizations, qualitative data was collected on how these organizations impact the Austin landscape, and in turn impact the communities they serve, during their efforts to mitigate social vulnerability in the face of climate change. 

The research method utilized in this study is qualitative interviewing. 6 semi-structured interviews were conducted with representatives from various environmental nonprofits located in Austin, Texas during the months of February, March, and April of 2020. The sample consists of executive directors, community engagement managers, and program directors of their respective organizations. Interviewees were asked their consent to have the interviews be digitally recorded and were assured confidentiality. Interviews with participants were conducted in an office meeting room, a coffee shop, and virtually through an online conferencing system, and lasted from 40 minutes to 80 minutes. All interviews were transcribed through a software system, edited for accuracy, and then coded for themes.

The guiding interview questions focused on aspects of the nonprofits’ work towards general sustainability, their impact on the physical landscape, and how in turn they would affect the social landscape of Austin. These questions were created in conjunction with the Austin Area Sustainability Indicators project and were meant to further inform that study as well as create a new body of knowledge.  This   approach  of open-ended questions in a semi-structured interview allowed for the nonprofit representative to respond outside or beyond the questions and  organically provide new information . This also allowed the interviewer to create new questions for the nonprofit as a response to new information volunteered. In general, qualitative research is described as “ the organized, systematic exploration of some portion of human experience .” This method of study is the most appropriate for this research because the nonprofit sector also deals in the human experience, and in this case, improving it.

A main focus of this research are the ideas of social capital and social infrastructure and how they are being produced through nonprofits. Robert Putnam’s research from the 1990s and early 2000s has been the foundation for our understanding of the concept of social capital. According to Putnam, social capital is “ networks, norms, and trust that enable participants to act together more effectively to pursue shared objectives ."

“Whereas physical capital refers to physical objects and human capital refers to properties of individuals, social capital refers to connections among individuals — social networks and the norms of reciprocity and trustworthiness that arise from them.” Robert Putnam, 1995

Part of the social capital theory is the idea of  generalized reciprocity . In a society characterized by this idea, a person will do something for another person without expecting anything in return, but they assume that eventually someone else will do something for them. This social trust between society members leads to a more productive community because not every interaction has to be balanced. Social trust signals a united community because it means that community members know each other well enough to place their trust in them. 

Social capital is very important within the nonprofit sector. One of the main tools for success that a nonprofit has at its disposal is its social network. Nonprofits depend on relationships with other like-minded organizations and their own network of people to keep their organization running through engaging with their programs and acting as donors. Social capital is also reproduced through nonprofits because they act as a vessel for social interactions. Nonprofits employ a form of social capital referred to as  bridging social capital . It means just as it sounds: nonprofits are a vehicle for linking different organizations, entities, and populations together to accomplish a goal or diffuse information. Bridging social capital generates more reciprocity because it allows people to make connections outside of their immediate social niche. Volunteers can get to know each other while helping to administer the programming; donors can meet while being honored at a fundraising gala; and anyone can make connections while attending an event hosted by a nonprofit.

In order for social capital to develop, it needs some form of  social infrastructure . This term is not new to the area of urban studies, but it is also not yet widely used. Eric Klinenberg delves more into the concept in his book Palaces for the People, where he explains how important physical spaces and organizations are for shaping humans’ interactions with one another. Social infrastructure is the physical conditions that determine whether social capital develops, so whether connections and relationships are formed. A community with healthy social infrastructure will produce mutual support and collaboration among its members. Weak social infrastructure inhibits social interactions and even isolates community members.

"People forge bonds in places that have healthy social infrastructure— not because they set out to build community, but because when people engage in sustained, recurrent interaction particularly while doing things they enjoy, relationships inevitably grow." Eric Klinenberg, 2018

 Examples of social infrastructure  can be found in many large public spaces such as libraries, coffee shops, or public parks, as well as small public spaces, such as sidewalks. Each of these places draw people from around the neighborhood to come utilize the spaces, thus making social interaction viable. However, many of these instances of social infrastructure fall under the care of public city services, and in the last few decades, the quality of public services have deteriorated in many communities. 

If one of the keys to a healthy community is an abundance of social capital, then there needs to be adequate social infrastructure to make that possible.  This is where nonprofits can step in , especially those working in environmentally-related fields. By integrating elements of social infrastructure into their programming, nonprofits can help fill the gap left by inefficient public services. Nonprofits who work to increase the social capital in the communities in which they serve ultimately help those communities in the journey to resilience against climate change.

The idea of resiliency and being a resilient community has only recently come to the forefront of the discussion around climate change. Communities have always found ways to be resilient on their own, but the concept has not been widely articulated, studied, and understood in the way we are coming to now. An important distinction being made is the difference between  risk and resilience . Risk has traditionally been used to describe the degree of potential exposure to hazards or disasters and what that would mean as an impact on physical infrastructure, economies, and human casualties. In contrast, resiliency is how a community would be prepared to absorb those changes and adapt in the wake of them. As this idea grows in importance,  community organizations are beginning to think more about how they can assist their communities  in preparing to be resilient through their programming.   

Many of the interviewees hold the same definition of resiliency as discussed above, and several introduced new ideas on resiliency:

“A resilient community to me is a community that has the capacity to endure a change or something that affects the community as a whole. Thinking about environmental resilience, you know, obviously different types of environmental and climate issues, whether it's a flood, whether it's big storms, thinking about drought, thinking about food access, thinking about all of those things....”

“I like a nuanced definition of [communities] also being able to recover and do even better than they were doing before. So it's, it's not just making it through that, it’s how can we prepare for this in the future? How can we prevent something like this from happening again, and how can we be better off in the future so that we aren't as affected by this disturbance?"

“A resilient community is healthy, strong. It's very supportive and we support them. It's constantly open to change for the better. It loves the arts. It loves the type of work we are trying to do."

One interviewee even addressed the confusing language that often comes with discussions around resiliency and how their organization has attempted to change the language:

“A resilient community would be one that has strong social cohesion, has the green infrastructure but also other elements that help adapt to our changing conditions….We do have a specific strategy that is called nature-based solutions for climate adaptation...we're using the term adaptation, rather than resilience, because people are like, What is resilience really?”

Resiliency and the ideas that come with it are making their way into the vocabulary of the environmental nonprofits interviewed in this study, but that does not mean the general population of Austin knows what it is. However, it is very promising that these nonprofits are thinking about how resiliency fits into their programming, especially when the communities they serve can benefit the most from resiliency to climate change.

Austin, like many other growing urban areas, seems to be constantly under construction. From bigger highway lanes to new luxury apartment buildings, every corner of the city is getting something new. However, not all these changes benefit every resident of the city. The neighborhoods to the east of Interstate 35 have undergone the most transformation in the past two decades, slowly shedding their reputation as the “worst” parts of the city. This opinion, formed by people who did not live there, can be traced back to the racial geography of Austin during the Jim Crow era of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

The environmental nonprofits working to improve the lives of these East Austin communities feel the effects of gentrification too. As the constituencies they serve are being pushed further out, it can impact how they implement their programming. For example, one organization built their brand new office building within the community they serve, but the surrounding area has now become gentrified:

“...we did a capital campaign to build this building, which when we built it was kind of in the heart of the communities that we work with the most. And as Austin has changed, a lot of those communities are now a lot further out. So we have this building in an area that's not always accessible to the communities that we serve.”

In the same way, organizations are basing their programs around certain communities and residents, but if those people are being forced, what would that mean for the nonprofits? One interviewee made a similar observation:

There's a lot of gentrification that is beginning to happen. There's displacement; that has to do with resiliency. And a lot of this has to do with climate change.”

Fractured neighborhoods do not lend themselves well to resiliency because part of being a resilient community is being a united community. Another organization who works primarily in the downtown area of Austin has had to think of ways to draw pushed-out communities back to the area they serve:

“...We're also thinking about how we can bring more families back into downtown because there's so many things that have moved away. It's so focused on the working community and, you know, young professionals that come and work downtown, or older folks. So as we've done outreach and engagement with families in particular, we want to address the things that are keeping them away from coming to downtown.”

Whether they have to go to the people or bring the people to them, nonprofits have had to navigate the effects of gentrification on downtown and East Austin and adapt their programs accordingly. 

When considering how to best prepare their communities to be resilient in the face of climate change, the interviewees kept returning to the idea of reinforcement through their organizations’ programming. The nonprofits interviewed work in a variety of spaces under the umbrella of “environmental,” but their responses were markedly similar. Within the scope of their individual missions, the nonprofits try to add to the landscapes of their communities in the hopes that the additions would promote sustainability and begin to create more social cohesion. When asked about how their organizations impacted the physical landscape, interviewee’s responses fell into two categories: temporary changes or permanent changes.

The ways in which the nonprofits implement temporary changes to the urban landscape come in a variety of ways. One nonprofit hosts weekly farmers’ markets every Saturday in a public square downtown. Another organization performs place-making initiatives and art showcases in vacant lots or alleys on the east side. Several of the organizations put on regular events in city parks for their communities. 

“With farmers markets, people are getting to connect not only with friends and neighbors, but also the people who grow their food, which is a unique opportunity.”

“We have vacant lot initiatives...turning the lots into something really cool with art or sports in something, for the most part temporary, for communities to use it to come together.”

Each nonprofit also permanently impacts the physical landscape in different ways. One nonprofit is revitalizing creek banks through adding native vegetation and erosion prevention. Another nonprofit works to mitigate flooding in Austin through floodplain buyouts. Finally, another recruits local artists to paint murals on walls and highway pillars on the east side.

"[The structures we removed] were previously residences that flooded regularly. And so with those removed, it does create more floodable space. So you are, in theory, creating more opportunities to flood in place rather than shuttling that water downstream, creating more flood storage capacity.”

“We fund student projects that are frequently physical projects. They'll build an outdoor classroom or some sort of green facilities enhancement on their campus and sometimes in their communities at large as well.”

These two kinds of changes have two different effects on communities in Austin. The temporary changes encourage the formation of social capital within the communities, while the permanent changes can give the communities more tangible infrastructure for resiliency.

When asked about the concept of social infrastructure, interviewees were split on if they had heard of the term or not. Regardless of their familiarity, each person was able to provide their own definition of social infrastructure that was more or less identical to the one read out loud to them afterwards. Likely the reason that these leaders were able to articulate a term they were unfamiliar with is because their organizations already provide elements of social infrastructure through their work. Some may not have realized that their programming could be categorized in this way, but it is an important distinction to think about.

After being introduced to the term, several interviewees provided examples of how social infrastructure has already manifested itself through their organization’s programs:

“...with the outdoor amphitheater that we’re building, some of our thinking is that folks will go for shows, but then come back and they realize it's a little park. And maybe that's a way that we can connect with folks across town that might not normally go to the park, but if we can entice them with some programs, then we can start to make those connections.”

“I think of pocket parks and all sorts of really engaging beautiful examples of physical infrastructure that encourages communities to connect and build relationships. And that, again, has been embedded in our curriculum as something we want to train students on so that they're aware and conscious of, you know, what service does a mall provide versus a community park versus community gardens versus an empty parking lot?”

Both of these responses mention the idea of connections, which are at the heart of social infrastructure. If nonprofits can find ways to provide places of connection for their communities, that will have a profound impact on the people within them. Several organization leaders spoke about how instrumental social infrastructure could be to creating cohesive and sustainable communities:

“I think having ways for communities to get together to brainstorm about their own means to have collective power to make change makes a huge difference.”

“Socially, our neighbors are very strong in that infrastructure because it’s unity and it’s that trust that brings us together. And it's a strong bond. I think that is infrastructure. It comes from the heart...if you have a strong social infrastructure, you're able to do anything.”

“For green spaces, it seems like there are ways to kind of bolster those informal kinds of trust building connections that happen over time, where you see your neighbor walking the dog every other day. And it's like, you're just saying, Hi, but you are kind of building trust over time.”

Social infrastructure could be the key for a community to unlock their own power to create change within themselves. It is not a nonprofit’s responsibility to come into a community to deliver solutions from the top down, but rather to meet the communities where they are and work alongside them to help them reach their own form of sustainability and resiliency.

Austin, like many urban cities in the U.S., has been thinking more about what the effects from climate change will look like on their physical landscape. Austin faces particular challenges such as increased flooding, fires, and heat, and with a large population that continues to grow, more people than ever will be greatly affected by the consequences of climate change. In the face of these challenges, nonprofits and community organizations focused on environmental causes are stepping up to prepare Austin for climate-related disasters. Austin has a surplus of these organizations who operate across a spectrum of fields, from food and agriculture, to parks and green spaces, to arts and beautification. The nonprofit leaders who were interviewed view Austin as a city growing in sustainability and resiliency, but it still has a ways to go.

The original purpose of this study was to understand how nonprofits impact the physical landscape of Austin as they prepare communities for climate change, and how in turn that affects the social landscape within these communities. The results from the interviews with nonprofit leaders did not reveal a straightforward answer to these questions, but rather a much more nuanced look of the relationship between social capital and resiliency in these communities, and how changes to the physical landscape help them achieve that. The results from this study could be summarized as a concept of “social sustainability,” taken from a quote from a nonprofit leader regarding the importance of social infrastructure for a sustainable community:

“I think healthy public spaces are what a sustainable, healthy community looks like. Because sustainability is not just environmental sustainability. This is...equity and social sustainability.”

The components of social sustainability for communities in Austin, as detailed earlier in this report, are a definition of resilience, provisions of social infrastructure, additions to the landscape, and solutions for working through gentrification.

Social capital seems to be the key to success for these nonprofits and their programming, as well as for individual communities and their resiliency. Community members respond positively to these nonprofits when the organizations engage with the members and first earn their trust. Several interviewees spoke about how their organization values “trust-building” and that their programs are “community-led.” These nonprofits have realized that they can most effectively impact residents in these neighborhoods if the people who live there are driving the changes, while the nonprofits simply help to make them happen.

Social capital and the connections between community members are a crucial part of developing resiliency. Just as the organization leaders remarked in their interviews, a resilient community is one that has a strong social fabric, and people being able to connect with each other is everything. One interviewee even noted how social cohesion can support the ability to adapt and increase capacity and resilience, further emphasizing that these nonprofits have recognized its importance and are working to help the social cohesion and trust increase.

All this being said, what is the link between nonprofits, social capital, and community resiliency? The combined interview results point to how elements of social infrastructure can be the vehicle that takes a community with abundant social capital to becoming a resilient and sustainable community. As previously discussed, when nonprofits make temporary changes to the physical landscape through their programming, they are providing space for community members to come together, thus generating social connections through instances of social infrastructure. The permanent changes the nonprofit makes to the landscape are still crucial for resiliency because they reduce the chances of the community being affected by flooding or wildfires. However, the social cohesion of the neighborhood is the most important component of resiliency. 

Resiliency comes from within a community. It cannot be brought from an outside source or created from a distance. Communities in Austin have found ways to be resilient for decades, and they will continue to do so in the face of climate change. However, nonprofits in Austin have discovered ways to help communities foster and reinforce their own resiliency. These nonprofits have built relationships with the communities first, and are now helping the community members make connections among themselves. Through this, the city of Austin is achieving resiliency and eventually a kind of social sustainability. 

This study faced limitations resulting from the COVID-19 crisis and shelter-in-place mandates in the city of Austin. The main limitation faced was access to organizations to interview. This study was a qualitative interview analysis and had a goal of conducting at least 10 interviews with environmental nonprofits in Austin. However, only 6 were conducted because several organizations had to decline interviews due to lack of capacity and availability in the face of the COVID-19 crisis. This placed another limitation on the study because it decreased the sample size, although it is less relevant in qualitative studies. However, this research certainly could benefit from an increased number of interviews because Austin has so many nonprofits who would have different viewpoints on the research topics. A recommendation to improve this study would be to increase the period of conducting interviews from 3 months to 6 months and to conduct 15-20 interviews. This should allow ample time to reinforce conclusions already made in this study, as well as bring forth new ideas and opinions.