Timebanking for Social Cohesion in Urban Areas
Community cohesion is a complex entity with varying constructs. A sense of harmony, belonging, and togetherness puts people at ease within a cohesive community. It takes a long time to build; if not careful, it can be fractured quickly. The rapid pace of gentrification policy has turned such neighborhoods with a relatively low socioeconomic status and limited property investment into attractive areas of reinvestment and economic activity within a short time. Such a phenomenon results in incoherency within a community and unintended segregation. It can affect the 'community's social health, leading to non-sustainable social ills and affecting local 'inhabitants' mental and physical health.
This article reviews current timebanking practices to recommend to local authorities how timebanking can be adopted as a model to tap into social capital to dampen the effect of gentrification into community incoherency. Within the context of Timebanking application to the socio-economic framework within Amsterdam, this paper proposes that timebanking can adopt as a policy framework for sustaining community cohesion. It argues that such policy aligns well with 'Amsterdam's 2050 Vision -Omgevingsivie 2050 (Gemeente Amsterdam 2021).