The forms of neighborhood cohesion: From social contact to symbolic belonging in neoliberal Santiago de Chile

Título

The forms of neighborhood cohesion: From social contact to symbolic belonging in neoliberal Santiago de Chile

Autor(es)

Andrés Señoret, Felipe Link, Sebastián Rodríguez, Luis Fuentes.

ProyectoCiudades Justas
Año de publicación2024
RevistaJournal of Urban Affairs
Palabras claves

Neighborhood social cohesion, neighborhood, urban sociability, urban neoliberalism, Santiago de Chile

ResumenThe purpose of this article is to study the neighborhood social cohesion of the inhabitants of the Metropolitan Area of Santiago, Chile (MAS), considering its recent urban transformations driven by neoliberal urban policies. Using multilevel logistic regressions based on a survey of 401 inhabitants, we identify a symbolic cohesion among residents with higher incomes, which combines a high sense of belonging with low neighborhood sociability, and a relational cohesion among the vulnerable population, based on a stronger neighborhood sociability and a low sense of belonging. These results show an influence of the geographical divide between high and low income inhabitants, accentuated by the socio-spatial segregation of the metropolis in the past decades, in addition to identifying a certain relationship between neighborhood cohesion and two of its major neoliberal trends of urban growth: the densification of its center and the development of peripheral social housing. We argue that a deeper understanding of the distinction between relational and symbolic forms of neighborhood social cohesion is relevant because, as well as allowing us to analyze the MAS case by addressing its current complexity, it provides an opportunity to discuss the way in which the concept is defined and conceived in recent literature.
Doihttps://doi.org/10.1080/07352166.2024.2377213
Autor(es) de correspondencia
Andrés Señoret, asenoret@utem.cl