Citation

Greenbaum SD, Greenbaum PE. Soc. Netw. 1985; 7(1): 47-76.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1985, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/0378-8733(85)90008-5

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

This paper re-examines the question of the social "fabric" of urban neighborhoods on the basis of residents' personal networks. Data were collected on the number, relative intimacy, and spatial distribution of social relationships among residents of two ethnically homogenous and two ethnically heterogenous neighborhoods in a medium-sized city in the midwestern United States. The analysis focused on spatial distributions and variables associated with differences in the average number or intimacy of neighborhood network ties. Herbert Gans had predicted that in heterogenous neighborhoods residential proximity would be a less important factor in social network formation than has previously been reported for socially homogeneous residential settings (especially Festinger et al. 1950). The results from this study indicated that the effects of proximity were more, rather than less, reflected in the spatial distribution of social relationships in the ethnically heterogenous neighborhoods. The face-block was identified as an important socio-spatial unit in all four neighborhoods.