RESEARCHABLE QUESTIONS: GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION ANALYSIS AND HUMAN CAPITAL

EARLIER NSF DOCUMENTS (NOTABLY INVESTING IN HUMAN RESOURCES:

A Strategic Plan for the Human Capital Initiative (1994) and its appendices) outline an ambitious and important agenda for research. Many of the specific topics identified as requiring further investigation implicitly or explicitly adopt a geographic perspective. What follows is intended to complement these materials and clarify, by means of sample questions, the potential for research that explicitly adopts a geographic perspective for advancing our understanding in these areas. The list is suggestive rather than exhaustive.

a. Basic Issues

Geographic research into human capital encounters a wide-ranging series of definitional and theoretical questions that span the six research areas defined by the NSF as representing key foci for the research initiative. While hardly exhaustive, the following questions give some indication of the potential of GIS/GIA to contribute to the resolution of some of these generic questions:

  • How can human and social capital best be conceptualized and measured in empirical research?

  • How far do the dimensions of human capital represented by NSF's six key areas overlap and interact in geographic space? Does this interaction vary by type of place? Region?

  • What is the relationship between human and social capital? How far does the social capital endowment of particular places affect human capital decision processes?

  • What kinds of spatial scales are appropriate for a consideration of different human/social capital decisions?

  • How can an inventory of the human/social capital resources of communities be constructed? As a tool for theoretical and policy analysis, can places be typologized in terms of their human/social capital endowments?

  • Are there geographic areas in which there is a chronic problem with under-investment in human capital, and, if so, what accounts for this? Are there areas in which human capital is in particular abundance? Why? What can the experiences of these differentiated types of communities suggest for the other?

    b. Employing a Productive Workforce

    Economic adaptation and enhanced productivity require that economic development build upon the skill base of the labor force. Potential job growth depends on a match with preexisting skills in communities or on the migration of workers to locales where their skills are in demand. Both processes require information on the characteristics of local labor markets (in terms of the demand and supply of human capital) and employment opportunities. With this in mind, the following questions should assume a high priority in a research agenda inquiring into the geographic dimension of employing a productive workforce:

  • Are communities rich in social capital better able to adjust to processes of economic change? Why?

  • How do information flows among individuals and across communities related to the job search affect the decisions of individuals to relocate? Are particular types of social networks more efficacious in this respect than others?

  • What is the spatial pattern of employment by different types of economic establishments?

  • What is the labor market shed for particular communities and/or types of communities?

    What does the changing morphology of communities mean for labor market organization?

  • What is the effect of different forms of infrastructure (child-care facilities, transportation networks, etc.) on the pattern of employment in communities?

  • How effective are policies from all levels of government designed to augment and enhance labor force development and publicize opportunities for employment?

  • To what extent is there a spatial mismatch between job skills and employment needs? Does this vary by type of area?

    c. Educating for the Future

    Successful economic adaptation, either at the individual level or at the community level, depends increasingly on an educated and flexible workforce. Wide geographic variations in access and student performance have long been noted in the educational process. Indeed, enhancing the linkage between schools and their communities has figured prominently in proposals for educational reform. Effective schooling, necessary to enrich a community's human capital, depends in part on strong families and on the quality of local social capital. Geographic research in the following areas can advance our appreciation of how human capital can most effectively be enhanced:

  • What factors account for the educational choices of individuals and families? How do questions of access and distance affect the decision calculus concerning educational choice?

  • To what extent do institutions of basic and higher learning (both technical and academic) constitute resources for communities in enhancing the human/social capital stock?

  • To what extent does the success of an educational institution depend on the quality of the human/social capital stock of the communities in which it is located?

  • What incentive structures are effective in encouraging a disadvantaged population to enrich its educational and human capital stock? How effective have various policy interventions in this area been?

  • Why are educational institutions that are well-integrated into their communities (in terms of student-teacher and teacher-parent relations) more efficacious in enhancing human capital resources than others? How can this integration between education and community be enhanced?

  • How can educational institutions successfully accommodate various forms of diversity in their student body and community context?

    d. Fostering Successful Families

    Human capital decisions reflect closely the socialization experiences associated with early childhood. Changes in the family life of Americans (especially the growth of single-parent and two-career, dual-parent families) are often held responsible for a variety of social problems. Relatively little is known about the spatial dimension of the American family. Research into the following questions was recommended:

  • What is the relationship between family structure and other features of a community's human and social capital stock?

  • To what extent do changes in the structures of American families reflect and affect larger changes in the economic and demographic structures of communities?

  • How does the concentration of family types - in particular communities: urban ghettos, suburban bedroom communities, etc. - exacerbate or meliorate dysfunctions in the family-centered socialization processes?

  • How do families and networks of kinship constitute tools for effective human and social capital development? Are communities characterized by close family ties advantaged in other aspects of human capital development?

  • What is the contribution of family-based support networks (for care of children, the elderly, or infirm, or for financing employment or educational opportunities, for example) to the enrichment of a community's human capital stock?

  • Is the internal structure of families related to the prevalence of criminality and violence in particular communities or types of communities?

  • What forms of public investment and intervention are most effective in strengthening the vitality of American families?

    e. Building Strong Neighborhoods

    Neighborhoods are central to America's social structure. They serve as sources of personal identity for their residents and as containers for the kinds of family and educational environments that are obviously critical to the human capital equation. The geographic nature of neighborhoods invites a range of inquiry of relevance to human and social capital:

  • How best can neighborhoods be defined in theoretical and operational terms? How significant are different kinds of geographic and natural boundaries for the social construction of neighborhoods? What is the correspondence between physical and mental or perceptual maps of neighborhoods?

  • What are the social and institutional characteristics associated with strong and weak neighborhoods? What factors combine to make neighborhoods a positive point of reference and psychological identification for their residents?

  • How effective are neighborhoods in serving as repositories and incubators of various forms of human and social capital? Can different neighborhoods be characterized in terms of their boundedness for social and human capital processes in the realms of employment, kinship, educational institutions, etc.?

  • What kinds of interventions are effective in halting the spiral of decline associated with many neighborhood contexts?

  • How do human and social capital endowments affect the capacity for democratic self-governance and successful public policy development and implementation in America's neighborhoods?

  • What factors affect the ability of neighborhoods to deal creatively and effectively with such negative externalities as pollution, crime, congestion, etc.

  • What effects does neighborhood change have on the capacities of communities to experience economic development?

    f. Reducing Disadvantage in a Diverse Society

    Social diversity and economic opportunity are powerfully organized by geographic space. In part, this reflects the role of property and labor markets in segregating Americans and differentiating neighborhoods by social class and race. Research and policy aimed at understanding and reducing disadvantage can benefit from a geographic perspective that recognizes the cumulative nature of disadvantage in particular places, and the role and function of the mobility of labor and capital as a factor affecting the life chances of individuals and communities. Research into the following questions holds promise for understanding and encouraging imaginative policy interventions to reduce disadvantage:

  • How far does inequality cumulate in America's communities? To what extentare policy interventions targeted at one form of inequality affected by persistent inequalities in other spheres?

  • What is the character of economic change in American society, and how does this affect the human capital stock of declining and ascending communities over time?

  • How do the investment decisions of individuals, businesses, and, in particular, banks and other financial institutions exacerbate the challenges of economic development of declining communities?

  • How does the geography of disadvantage affect group identifications and potential for individual or group action? What factors affect the potential for grassroots responses and condition their effectiveness? For example, is residential differentiation by race and/or class an impediment or an inducement to effective economic bootstrapping?

  • What kinds of policy interventions that deal with the causes and consequences of disadvantage have been effective in America's communities?

  • How does exposure to economic dislocation and social deterioration at the community level affect the human capital decisions of residents? To what extent to comparable families located in neighborhoods characterized by different types and levels of deprivation adopt different human capital decisions?

    g. Overcoming Poverty and Deprivation

    Research into subcultures of poverty have emphasized the cumulation of deprivation in particular communities. Such settings are likely to be characterized by shortcomings in each of the preceding five areas of human capital; that is, they are likely to contain disproportionate numbers of unskilled individuals and low-income jobs, weak family structures, poor schools, and a weakly integrated and crime-ridden social structure. These communities pose particular challenges for policy aimed at enriching human capital. As such, these environments draw attention to the interrelatedness of the various research areas previously identified in geographic space. Research from a geographic perspective in this key area might focus on the following:

  • What is the psychological impact of prolonged exposure to the pathologies of poverty and deprivation on the residents of affected communities?

  • What role do spatial barriers to access to health care, employment, education, public services, etc., play in contributing to community poverty and deprivation? What policy interventions might be appropriate to overcoming these barriers?

  • What patterns of public service usage are associated with residence in areas of persistent poverty and deprivation?

  • How can the social capital stock of deprived communities be enhanced so as to render development and self-help schemes more efficacious?

  • What formal and informal mechanisms are utilized by residents of impoverished communities as they struggle to survive?


    Forward NSF Recently Funded Projects Related to the Human Capital Initiative

    Backward Conclusion

    Table of Contents