Multi-Dimensional Urbanization Processes and Its Effects on the Extent and Character of Social Ties: A Case Study

 

CHENG WANG

DEPARTMENT OF SOCIOLOGY, UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME

 

The Community Question has been one of the central debates in sociology. Historically there are three perspectives about the Question: arguments that communities are declining, are maintained, or are networked. This paper evaluates these arguments by modeling the prevalence of local vs. non-local social ties. We contend that the main weaknesses of these arguments result from the unidimensional view of urbanization and limited quantitative data. Based on data of a European mobile phone company, we reach three conclusions: 1) Urbanization is a multi-dimensional process and the various dimensions of urbanization have different effects on the extent and character of local and non-local social ties; 2) Self-selected, voluntary and non-place-bound social are important, but geospatial variations still shape social networks; and 3) A "ceiling" effect exists: prevalent social ties are relatively weak while rare social ties are relatively strong.