  We prove an equivalence result between the validity of a pointwise Hardy
inequality in a domain and uniform capacity density of the complement. This
result is new even in Euclidean spaces, but our methods apply in general metric
spaces as well. We also present a new transparent proof for the fact that
uniform capacity density implies the classical integral version of the Hardy
inequality in the setting of metric spaces. In addition, we consider the
relations between the above concepts and certain Hausdorff content conditions.
