Neighboring Patterns, Social Support, and Rapid Growth

Abstract

Recently sociologists have devoted considerable attention to the consequences of rapid community growth and change on social relations and social integration, adding to a long tradition of scholarly concern with the social effects of urbanism and modernization. As was characteristic of much of the traditional literature on urbanization, the recent discussions of rapid community growth have tended overwhelmingly to assert various “social disruption” consequences, including a deterioration of the importance of neighboring as a source of both primary interaction and localized informal social support. In this study we examine data on neighboring phenomena from three small towns in the western United States that in recent years have experienced substantially different rates of population growth. Although the results suggest that rapid population growth in small towns is indeed accompanied by an apparent decline in reliance on neighbors as sources of social support, the data indicate no support for the hypothesized deterioration of neighboring as a form of primary interaction in rapidly growing small communities. We conclude by noting the consistency of these findings with alternative interpretations of the effects of urbanization on localized social interaction and social support.