ABSTRACT
This conclision presents some closing thoughts covered in the preceding chapters of this book. The book talks about stating the importance of integrating both social networks and spatial segregation in the study of poverty. The constitution of urban spaces with less segregation and more heterophilic encounters, by contrast, would tend to generate positive relational effects. The relation between segregation and networks proved to be less direct and more complex than imagined by a significant proportion of the literature on urban poverty. In analytic terms, bringing these relational patterns to the centre of the investigation of poverty situations enabled the construction of an intermediary level of analysis. Social situations depend on networks because they mediate access to a variety of socially provided basic goods and services necessary for the welfare of individuals. The absorption of networks as an active element of state policies implies the need to consider them in a diffuse form, incorporating relations into policies.
