Despite the ubiquity of disaster and the increasing toll in human lives and financial costs, much research and policy remain focused on physical infrastructure–centered approaches to such events. Governmental organizations such as the Department of Homeland Security, United States Federal Emergency Management Agency, United States Agency for International Development, and United Kingdom’s Department for International Development continue to spend heavily on hardening levees, raising existing homes, and repairing damaged facilities despite evidence that social, not physical, infrastructure drives resilience. This article highlights the critical role of social capital and networks in disaster survival and recovery and lays out recent literature and evidence on the topic. We look at definitions of social capital, measurement and proxies, types of social capital, and mechanisms and application. The article concludes with concrete policy recommendations for disaster managers, government decision makers, and nongovernmental organizations for increasing resilience to catastrophe through strengthening social infrastructure at the community level.

Despite the regularity of disasters, social science has only begun to generate replicable knowledge about the factors which facilitate post-crisis recovery. Building on the broad variation in recovery rates within disaster-affected cities, I investigate the ability of Kobe's nine wards to repopulate after the 1995 Kobe earthquake in Japan. This article uses case studies of neighborhoods in Kobe alongside new time-series, cross-sectional data set to test five variables thought to influence recovery along with the relatively untested factor of social capital. Controlling for damage, population density, economic conditions, inequality and other variables thought important in past research, social capital proves to be the strongest and most robust predictor of population recovery after catastrophe. This has important implications both for public policies focused on reconstruction and for social science more generally.Keywords Kobe earthquake Á Population recovery Á Social capital Á Disaster Á Resilience Disasters remain among the most critical shocks which impact residents and their neighborhoods around the world. While large-scale crises such as the Indian Ocean tsunami (2004), Hurricane Katrina (2005), and Italy's earthquake (2009) captured media attention, numerous smaller-scale floods, typhoons, earthquakes, and mudslides killed hundreds of thousands of victims around the world and affected far more. Researchers have confirmed an upward trend in the number in the number of disasters, individuals affected by them, and their economic costs over the past two decades (Hoyois et al. 2007). A better understanding of disasters, or more specifically of disaster recovery, will provide policy makers and victims alike with ''usable knowledge''-knowledge that is both accurate and politically tractable (Haas 2004: 572).

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Much research has implied that social capital functions as an enhancing governance, economic performance, and quality of life (