Social Capital and Population Perception on Aspects of Sustainable Development in México’s Central Region, 2018

Abstract: The promotion of sustainable development, an important objective of most societies world-wide today, requires the participation of all members of society, but it is more viable when the populations´ actions and the public policies pull in the same direction, which in turn requires that people know such policies and act accordingly. This paper shows the results of a study realized in 2018 in four urban areas of the Mexican Puebla-Tlaxcala region, based on a survey among the populations of those areas, with the specific objective of detecting those populations’ perceptions of both the implementation of public policies for sustainable development, and its relation to the conditions of their communities, focusing on their social capital and also considering the environmental, economic, technological and institutional aspects of development. With the calculation of Indexes for each one of those development aspects, and the help of Pearson’s correlation analysis applied to such Indexes, the study shows a generally positive relationship among all Indexes, but a low perception of the application of public policies. In particular, social capital relates more to human and institutional capital in the larger cities, although natural capital is the most noticeable form of capital in all cities.

Key words: social capital; sustainability; urban development; social perception; México

JEL codes: O180, Q560, R110, Z130