Bowling Alone by Robert D Putnam

Bowling Alone by Robert D Putnam is about the decline of civic engagement in the USA.
It's an important topic and has some useful data but is not very well written.
There are lots of statistics showing how people are less involved with communities and civic groups.
The reasons for this are never easily identified but a reasonable summary would be partially due to the move to suburbs and greater use of the auto and the rise of TV and now the internet as easy solitary entertainment, but mostly it seems to be a generational shift beginning with the baby boomers: young people just are less interested in local communities. (Correlations are found but of course cause/effect is unknown here.)
The author likens civic involvement with social capital and deems it an obvious good that should be restored.
A concluding chapter about what to the decline is disappointing, with no real ideas other than a nostalgic wish that the clock could be turned back somehow.