In Policy Research Paper 26, the authors explore the meaning and relevance of community and social capital drawing on a wide range of disciplines, in particular economics. The review suggests four key principles for measuring community strength and social capital:

* distinguish between the structure (size, density) of community networks and their content (norms of trust, reciprocity and participation)

* specify precisely the geographical area and/or type of organisation to which measures apply

* develop measures of community/networks/social capital that can be validly presented at both individual and aggregate levels

* always asses the costs and benefits of social capital empirically and never assume that all social capital is benign.