Does it have any sense talking about «neighborhood» in the global city? Reflections on the relationship between sociology, urban community and place

Abstract

The urban community as traditionally understood, based on face-to-face relationships at neighborhood level, is falling into crisis due to the fact that urban communities can be created and subsists with no need of continuous physical proximity. The contemporary urban residents have a wide range of media to interact with others, their social ties grow but these are often fragile and supported by multiple communication forms. Although people’s daily realities are with increasing frequency less connected to the neighborhoods where they live, in some cases it remains an important source of value and a sense of belonging identity attached to the neighborhood where they live.

The increasing use of communication and information technologies has also questioned traditional urban sociability sustained by simultaneous co-presence and face-to-face meetings. But the widespread use of these technologies does not reduce the need for human interaction in the city, but rather transforms the ways in which these are performed. The co-presence, the barrier that the virtual reality hasn’t yet overcome, is and will continue to be a basic condition for social life in cities and, therefore, in the configuration of the urban community.