Social environment and local communities: city, suburb , countryside

Since the 19th century, the processes of modernization, industrialization and urbanization have fundamentally impacted the spatial organization and the actual contents of social ties. In particular, the role of place of residence in everyday life has significantly changed. Compared to the past, the spatial distance is less relevant for maintenance of interpersonal ties and non-local social relations are of growing importance. This process has been recently enhanced by development of communication technologies and the Internet in particular. The Internet has transferred many social ties into virtual communities without any spatial reference. The dissertation deals with the consequences of the above indicated changes for the social environments in urban, suburban and rural localities and it is built on the geographic perspective of social network research. The theoretical framework of the research is based on combination of the concepts of social environment and the concept of local community. Further, the conceptualization of the study of local social environment is presented. In addition, the factors undermining the differentiated social environment and the character of community ties in various types of geographical contexts are discussed. The attention is also paid to the importance of population..