ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the nature of residents' associations and role in communities in the city of Dublin. It reviews some of the literature relating to social capital as a means of exploring the potential of residents' associations to act as network builders in communities, bonding the community and providing a sense of shared endeavour, while also linking the community to other actors and institutions. The few arenas that enables an opportunity for this layer of informal residents' groups and citizens to become involved in urban and environmental management is the statutory physical planning system. At neighbourhood or community level there is a sense that the interaction and trust that exemplifies social capital and which knits or glues communities together will facilitate good neighbourliness and will inspire collective action to achieve shared goals. In Inchicore the residents' association utilised their social capital to obtain their desired outcome, in the absence of significant amounts of cultural or financial capital.
