Does the spatial distribution of social ties impact neighborhood and city attachment? Differentials among urban/rural contexts

Using social network data from the American Social Fabric Project (ASFP), this study examines how the distance to social alters may lead to different perceptions of neighborhood and city attachment among urban versus rural residents, and considers which types of relations play influential roles in shaping attachment. Overall, a key finding is that having more local neighborhood ties is positively associated with attachment at both the neighborhood level and city level, holding for any social relationship in our sample and for urban and rural environments. Notably, long distance ties are not irrelevant for attachment; rather, we see that long distance ties are associated with greater neighborhood and city attachment. Among different social relations measured, neighborhood safety ties consistently show the strongest positive relationship with neighborhood and city attachment. Surprisingly, we find that the spatial distribution of social ties appears more consequential for attachment in the rural sample than it does in the urban sample. Further, geographically dispersed ties also matter for urban versus rural settings: physically close and midrange core discussion ties are associated with weaker attachment for urban residents, whereas they do not affect rural residents' perceptions of attachment.