Where we Turn to

To whom do we turn for support, and where do we turn to others? Sociologists, community activists, and policymakers all work with notions of how support happens and where it ought to be found. Often, they attribute significance to neighborhoods. While scholars increasingly study spatial transformations that they relate to global mobility and digitalization, the study of neighborhoods and networks appears relatively unaffected by these debates. Standard approaches of urban community and networks assume a significance in the closeness of a core network. Many survey-based studies use name-generated questions of pre-defined support to claim this. These equate proximity, frequency, and “strength” of ties. We critically discuss these approaches and argue for a study on social support in urban settings with less European bias, a new understanding of what sort of affiliations matter, and a larger focus on the spatial variability in social networks. We propose a new research tool, which inquires into practices of getting support, after that collects network-ties and geocodes all points of interactions and modes of communications. Not only to whom we turn but also where we turn to others matters for how urban infrastructures provide access to resources in a globally mobile, digital world.