Socio-spatial channels: segregation and rootedness in Madrid

Contemporary urban societies are increasingly unequal and segregated. In Southern Europe, this process is combined with the search for proximity to the family networks that sustain well-being. In this context, this article reveals the preference of residential and daily mobility for social and geographical proximity. To do so, the case of Madrid in 2018 is examined by combining sources on mobility and income. The results show that mobilities prioritise spatial proximity. However, this does not mean that subjects move to any closeness, given that the city is crisscrossed by both social and physical boundaries between contiguous neighbourhoods that define a map of socio-spatial channels. Moreover, gentrification processes influence these socio-spatial practices of proximity, although in a different way than one might expect, due to the territorial characteristics of the neighbourhoods where they occur.