When Alexis de Tocqueville offered his famous observation about the “spirit of association” he found on his journey across America, he did not view the work to build civil society and its communal institutions as confined to specific income groups. Similarly, when contemporary social scientist Robert Putnam lamented the decline of civil society participation and the rise of “bowling alone,” his concern was a general one. But there’s reason to believe that the relative health of American civil society today may represent another version of inequality — that higher-income communities are homes to a wide range of charitable and volunteer-supported groups while poorer neighborhoods suffer from a lack of them, and the levels of cooperation and social trust they nurture.
Those who need communal support the most are also more likely to be deprived of it. In America, civil society isn’t dead — it just might have become another luxury good.
Based on an analysis of census and postal code data that can be used to link the presence of local nonprofit groups with levels of income, park conservancies, parent-teacher organizations, scholarship funds, garden clubs, historical societies, and more look to be more present in wealthier communities. Civil society appears to be flourishing in some places thanks to, and to the benefit of, those with higher incomes and residents with higher education.
Places with wealthier households are still able to call on the volunteer labor and charitable contributions that both create the very sense of community itself and that make for a better place to live.
In a forthcoming paper for the American Enterprise Institute, I look at whether there are more local nonprofit organizations in wealthier census tracts compared to lower-income ones. Without belaboring the methodology (based in an “analysis of variation” approach), it turns out that although civil society is not exclusively a luxury good, wealthier communities have much more of it, and the presence of even some higher-income households in sustaining it in a given community matters significantly. This must be viewed as a departure from the American past. Tocqueville saw civil society as ubiquitous in America.
And it suggests that we should consider personal and policy interventions, or changes in voluntary charitable giving practices, that could restore the civil society balance.
Make no mistake: This is a worrisome additional face of inequality. The role of civil society in social health, especially in low-income neighborhoods, matters. The sociologist Robert Sampson, after examining South Side Chicago neighborhoods, concludes: “Lack of social capital is one of the primary features of socially-disorganized communities.” That concern has been expressed more specifically by Mark Warren, J. Phillip Thompson, and Susan Saegert in “The Role of Social Capital in Combating Poverty,” in which they write: “Evidence has been mounting that social relationships and community action matter for family well-being, even where communities lack many financial resources.”
In other words, civil society is something a neighborhood should want to have. Without it, neighbors are less likely to know each other, less likely to trust and help each other, less likely to recognize and report thieves, less likely to work together to improve neighborhood schools, and less likely to pool their resources to start new businesses. Famously, it’s the difference described in an early Putnam book about Italy, Making Democracy Work, in which he linked the presence of such groups as choral societies in the country’s north to its greater prosperity and better governance compared to the south. (Edward Banfield had made a similar point in his brilliant but now obscure book about southern Italy, The Moral Basis of a Backward Society.)
There was a time, prior to the advent of the social safety net, when poor communities relied on communal organizations for protection against accidents and burial expenses. My own paternal grandfather, a sweatshop clothing presser in Philadelphia, made regular payments to his “hevre kadisha,” a Jewish burial society. The advent of social insurance has many benefits, but it may have helped crowd out low-income civil society, a trend that does not appear to be easily reversed.
We can actually measure this kind of inequality. In New York, census block groups in the lowest income category have an average of 1.16 nonprofit organizations, while those in the middle income category have an average of 1.62. On average, in the upper income category, block groups have 1.97 nonprofit organizations. The story is similar in Texas, generally considered quite different from New York. Block groups in the lowest income category there have an average of 1.27 nonprofit organizations, while those in the middle income category have an average of 1.44. On average, in the upper income category, block groups have 1.88. Low-income neighborhoods do better in California — but chiefly in areas that include at least some higher-income households.
What does this inequality mean? Consider two independent municipalities that border closely on Chicago — Harvey to the south, Wilmette to the north. Both are politically independent. In other ways, however, they differ dramatically. Wilmette, a municipality of 27,000 with a single zip code, has a median income of $164,000 and a poverty rate of 3.1%; 83% of its adults have at least a bachelor’s degree. In contrast, Harvey, with a similar population (24,000), has a median income of $30,000, just 9.6% of adults have a bachelor’s degree, and 32% of the population lives in poverty.
Similarly stark differences are found in the extent and character of their nonprofit groups. Of the 132 in Harvey, 61 are religious organizations, primarily small churches. The only large nonprofit groups in Harvey are healthcare providers (both hospitals and free-standing medical practices) that rely on insurance-based payments, notably Medicare and Medicaid, as major sources of income. These are examples of so-called “eds and meds” nonprofit groups, rather than examples of grassroots civil society. Virtually no organizations focus on the general community. One notable indicator: There are almost no organizations that include the city’s name in their own. A sense of localism does not appear strong.
Comparing two communities in metro Los Angeles, wealthy Santa Monica with nearby, low-income Compton, leads to the same sort of findings. The two have nearly equal populations (96,000 in the former, 90,000 in the latter). In other ways, they differ dramatically. Santa Monica is predominantly white (64.6%, with significant percentages of Hispanics, Asians, and African Americans comprising the remainder), while Compton is overwhelmingly Hispanic (68%) and black (28.9%).
The share of Santa Monica’s adults with a college degree (67.9%) is greater than the percentage of Compton adults with a high school diploma. Compton’s poverty rate is 20.5%.
Surprisingly, however, downtown Santa Monica (zip code 90401) has 152 nonprofit groups; downtown Compton (zip code 90220) actually has more (171) — but, as in Harvey, there are far more churches (61), most small, than there are organizations dealing with the general welfare of the city as a whole; only seven organizations include “Compton” in their name, and one is a religious group. Except for two museums that have no content tie to Compton (one a historic ranch, the other an aeronautical institution), the only nonprofit organization reporting significant income is a health center, as in Harvey. Its average income ($66,755) is only slightly higher than its median income ($57,0784), and only 2.2% of its households earn more than $200,000.
Not all poor communities are bereft of civil society. Peru, Indiana, a small, poor white town that serves as a county seat, boasts everything from college alumni fundraising groups to fish and game clubs. Clarksdale, Mississippi, a poor black Delta town that’s also a county seat and geographically isolated, not only has a profusion of churches but a local blues museum, started by community leaders. Wealth does not determine everything about civil society, but having at least some committed local higher-income households matters. That doesn’t mean that these lower-income locales don’t have significant problems. Clarksdale’s public schools perform poorly. The city struggles with crime.
Civil society may correlate with other civic positives, but there is no guarantee. It can, in other words, best be viewed as an end in itself, one that, common sense would tell us, is better to have than to have not.
But even if a more robust civil society would inevitably improve the quality of life in lower-income areas, there is no easy way to make them appear where they are not.
One must, then, be modest in suggesting any steps to correct the civil society imbalance.
An “above the line” charitable tax deduction could help, providing an incentive for lower-income households that do not itemize their tax returns to get a break for charitable giving, now realized only by 10% of households. One could imagine, too, a special tax incentive for affluent charitable donors to target giving to organizations in lower-income areas. This could take the form of an enhanced tax deduction or even a tax credit for those who provide financial support for nonprofit groups in lower-income areas. Think here of residents of Santa Monica being encouraged to support the closest YMCA to Compton, or residents of Wilmette supporting a library friends group or parent-teacher organization in Harvey.
Not everything can be addressed by public policy. Small steps in truly independent civil society can make a big difference — and are actually taking place. In New York, Heather Butts, a Harvard School of Public Health graduate teaching at Long Island University, has co-founded HEALTH for Youths with Anthony Antonucci, a former New York Port Authority police officer. The two bring together young adults from the city’s housing projects with local police to build “little libraries” — those small outdoor bookshelves where books can be borrowed or donated.
Butts is clear that their goal is both to promote literacy and “social trust.” During the pandemic, neighbors spontaneously left canned goods for those in need. Books are donated from around the New York metro area. In Yonkers, New York, where the poverty rate is almost 15%, a local architect successfully raised funds, including from some A-list New York celebrities, to restore Untermyer Gardens, a mansion grounds replete with stunning sculptures, which had fallen into decay and dangerousness. Today, households of all types enjoy the park.
The fact remains, however, that if a robust civil society makes for a healthier community, there is no simple way for those who don’t live in distressed communities to improve matters for those who need it. Americans have become deeply accustomed to a belief that a new “program” can ameliorate any identified problem. That this is not true, though, should not deter us from indirect policy changes, as well as, most importantly, our own efforts, however modest, to make a difference.
Howard Husock is a senior fellow in domestic policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute.
