Abstract
Living in segregated areas with concentrated neighbourhood poverty negatively affects the quality of life, including the availability of local jobs, access to services, and supportive social relationships. However, even with similar neighbourhood poverty levels, the degree and structure of spatial separation vary markedly between such areas. We expected that the level of spatial segregation aggravates the social exclusion of its inhabitants by negatively affecting their social capital. To test this hypothesis, we identified three low‐income neighbourhoods with high poverty rates (78%) in a medium‐sized town in Hungary, with different levels of integration in the city (based on characteristics such as the degree of spatial separation, infrastructure, and availability of services). The three neighbourhoods were located in two areas of differing degrees of integration in the fabric of the city: fully integrated, semi‐integrated (integrated into the surrounding residential area but isolated from the city), and non‐integrated. 69% of the 394 households in these areas were represented in our sample (one respondent per household). We interviewed respondents regarding the size and composition of their personal networks. Our results, which also distinguished between Roma and non‐Roma inhabitants, showed that those living in the spatially more integrated area not only have the largest and most diverse networks but seem to have a strong, “bonding‐based” cohesive community network as well. Even the non‐Roma who live there have ethnically heterogeneous—in other words—Roma network members. The disintegrated area, on the other hand, is characterised by both spatial and social isolation.
Highlights
Social capital is embodied in interpersonal relationships (Bourdieu, 1986; Coleman, 1988; Portes, 1998)
Spatial integration is just as important concerning a stable social position as, for example, labour market integration (Massey, 2001), and we may expect that spatial separation reduces the chances of social integration by marking physical bound‐ aries for inhabitants of segregated areas and produc‐ ing more homogenous interpersonal networks
For non‐Roma respondents, we found a signifi‐ cant difference in in the three areas: The core networks are ethnically more homogenous in the non‐integrated neighbourhood (N#2, 67.59%) and the most heteroge‐ neous in the case of the non‐Roma living in the inte‐ grated area (S#1, 25.69%)
Summary
Social capital is embodied in interpersonal relationships (Bourdieu, 1986; Coleman, 1988; Portes, 1998). Numerous studies have examined the relationship between inter‐ personal social networks and poverty (Albert & Hajdu, 2020; Böhnke & Link, 2017; Eckhard, 2018) and found a negative link between them (e.g., the quantity and quality of interpersonal relations). This finding supports the so‐called accumulation hypothesis and warns of the “downward spiral of social exclusion” We found subtle differences concerning the degree of spatial disintegration
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