Sense of Neighbourhood in a South African Urban Locale

Abstract

ABSTRACT The nature of the unfolding social cohesion in previously racially segregated residential spaces has attracted attention since the collapse of apartheid in South Africa and the subsequent transition to democracy in 1994. This paper uses sense of neighbourhood to investigate the emerging social interactions in Cambridge, a former whites-only residential suburb in East London, South Africa. Fitting a binary logistic regression on survey data from a sample of residents of Cambridge, the paper tests the likelihood of race and gender influencing three indicators of the sense of neighbourhood: the sense of safety, trust and norms of reciprocity. The results show that relational dimensions of the sense of neighbourhood differed along racial lines, with low levels of interracial trust mirroring studies elsewhere in the country, and the national-level South African Reconciliation Barometer survey reports. Due to the voluntaristic nature of relational ties, social integration will remain elusive, and regardless of the extent of racial changes, variations in the sense of neighbourhood will characterise the urban residential spaces.