Unpacking neighbourhood effects on social capital: The different ways in which neighbourhood matters for maintaining and expanding networks

This paper examines whether and how neighbourhood composition is connected to, and has impact on relationships and social capital. Three debates in urban sociology engage with this question: studies on poverty neighbourhoods, on gentrification and on gated communities. These debates reveal that in order to understand how spatial segregation matters, the role of place for the networks of both the resource-poor and the resource-rich should be examined. Furthermore, in stead of asking whether the neighbourhood matters, I examine how the neighbourhood matters in network formation. Two questions are empirically examined: first, are local ties formed because of the neighbourhood, or are ties rather maintained (and perhaps intensified) in the neighbourhood, and second, what is the relative importance of local ties given people’s total networks: are they main relationships in people’s lives, or are they a small (and perhaps less important) fraction of their widespread networks? I use a multi-method approach to examine the networks—local and non-local—of both working and professional class people, who live in three differently composed neighbourhoods (in Rotterdam, the Netherlands). I first discuss the three debates from which two mechanisms of how spatial segregation and the reproduction of class inequality can be derived. Based on qualitative data on networks I then present a model of network formation, which represents network formation as a result of involvement in few or many contexts, such as family, school, work, and the neighbourhood. Lastly, I examine how neighbourhood matters using quantitative data on networks