ABSTRACT
That society is composed of complex layers of overlapping and interlocking social relationships is said to be an important source of its stability and integration (Simmel 1955: 140). What is important, so the argument goes, is a set of close and intense personal relations with family and friends, and a looser and wider web of social networks that spans the larger groups of society. The first create strong ties of thick trust in small communities, and the second weaker ties in wider society. In this way large scale urban society is integrated by strong primary relations and by a broader but weaker network of relations that cut across and integrate a diversity of social groups (Granovetter 1973).
