CENTROS COMUNITARIOS Y CAPITAL SOCIAL: LA DEUDA PENDIENTE

Inhabiting becomes a strained and difficult experience in a society with high rates ofviolence. As of 2003, the creation of Community Centers (CC) in Mexico mainly attemptedto tackle urban poverty challenges, although without losing sight of the necessarystrengthening of communities’ social fabric. The emphasis placed on the first objective,which was mostly addressed through human capital formation, relegated social capitalcreation to the background, causing the latter to not go beyond fostering social ties throughdaily interactions among those attending the centers. The incentive that CCs could provide to any progress in social fabric’s strengthening should translate into greater effectiveness inthe struggle against violence, which has been bleeding Mexico out for a long time.Although this analysis would apply to the whole country to a large extent, we focus on theparticular case of Nuevo Leon.