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Comparing communities: social networks in an urban and a rural housing
estate in East of England
John Stevens
Abstract
Popular mythology holds that rural communities experience high levels of social
exclusion compared with urban communities in the UK. Some have described English
rural villages as “white ghettos” (Phillips, 2005). While access to public transport and
entertainment establishments is known to be more restricted in rural settings, these
circumstances do not necessarily reduce access to opportunities to develop the
human and social capital resources needed to avoid or escape social exclusion.
Indeed, some believe that rural communities are as rich in social networks as they
are poor in other resources (Falk and Kilpatrick, 2000). It will be shown that those
living on urban estates have more connections than those on rural estates.
1. Introduction
This paper quantitatively compares social networks in two low income housing
estates built in the 1970s in the East of England of the United Kingdom. One estate is
in a rural area and the other an urban area. The population and housing stock profiles
of the two estates are similar. The two networks have a similar number of nodes (a
definition of network nodes can be found in Scott, 1991). However, the social
network is more dense and connected in the rural estate, while the network in the
urban estate is more sparse with people having contacts with others living farther
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away, although still within the general urban area. The rural network has a more
scattered layout, compared with the linear layout of the urban estate network where
people are more likely to know only their immediate neighbours. While the number
of children living on the estates, and the proximity of the local schools, are factors
which affect the social networks, the findings of this paper demonstrate that people
in the rural network have fewer connections outside their local estate than those
living on the urban estate.
While investigating the rural/urban divide, one of this paper's major aims is to give an
example of how limited current methods are for comparing and contrasting social
networks. This paper describes work conducted by other sociologists on community
and social networks, then applies substantive cross-sectional analysis using
quantitative techniques on original data collected on two individual friendship
networks in two housing estates in the East of England, one rural and one urban.
These housing estates were chosen in part because they were within convenient
reach of the researcher, and because they provide a stereotypical example of a rural
and an urban housing estate in the UK. The paper then qualitatively compares and
contrasts these estates using current techniques developed for analysing social
networks.
The East of England consists of a mixed area of rural and semi-rural locations in the
counties of Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire; while the counties of Essex,
Hertfordshire and, to a lesser extent, Bedfordshire, are more urban and fulfil the role
of dormitory towns and cities for London commuters.
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2. Other work in the area
In their discussions of “our crowd” and “our circle” of acquaintances, (Warner and
Lunt, 1941) developed similar concepts to (Tönnies, 1955) ‘Gemeinschaft’. Warner
and Lunt suggested that contemporary communities arise from people’s social
interactions in locations defined by their interests, as opposed to arising out of
necessity caused by adversity. In previous research, I studied how a cohort of Asian
students, from a social science department at a university in the East of England,
formed friendship networks that served a mutual need to make contact with people
who could assist them with the process of coping with life while living in a new
country. These networks were formed rapidly between the students and remained
firm during their course of study.
The Manchester School drew on Parsons’ (1991) approach to sociology to examine
communities by placing “emphasis on seeing structures as networks of relations”
(Scott, 1991). Barns (1954) described his research similarly: “The image I have is of a
set of points some of which are joined by lines. The points of the image are people,
or sometimes groups and the lines indicate which people interact with each other.”
Barns argued that local social systems are best represented as a network of the
social relationships that can reach beyond the boundaries of a local area. A group of
researchers at Harvard University in the 1970s, which included Harrison White,
established social network analysis as a method of structural analysis. The mixing of
mathematical graph theory with sociological and anthropological methods was
essential in the work of this group. Some of the methods of analysis developed by the
group distinguish egocentric from sociocentric networks, and assess the density of
nets (Freeman, 1979).
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Although the research and observations of the Manchester school continue to be
relevant, this next section discusses some of the literature produced/published by the
post-Manchester school. In the more recent British literature, Crow and Allen (1994)
described communities as “inter-locking social networks of neighbourhood, kinship
and friendship […] not dependent on any notion of locality or place”. In their analysis
of several community studies in the 20th century, they draw extensively on an article
by Wellman (1979) which puts forward the idea that a community can be viewed as a
network of ties. These ties can be with family, kin, friends or people who live in the
same neighbourhood. The strength of these ties varies, as do the network structures,
with the amount of contact with, and distance from, other individuals. In 1990,
Wellman concentrated on the amount of support people received from these ties
and the amount of time these same people spent in the community. He concluded
that the size of the community, the density of its support ties, and the length of its
friendship chains all have a greater effect on a person’s feeling of community than
does the physical boundary of that community (Wellman and Wortley, 1990).
Ray Pahl in his initial work on rural villages in Hertfordshire developed the concept
of a “rural-urban continuum” (1965). In his next book he identifies “urban villages”
within British cities, for example, the district of Bethnal green within London (1970).
In his most recent book, “On Friendship”, Pahl analyses the changes in friendship
choices over time and how events have an impact on friendship choices (2000). His
book, together with David Morgan's work on 'Family Practices' (1996), has had an
impact on the study of families worldwide. . In his new book Morgan? details the
theoretical background to his approach, taking into account alternative approaches to
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family life and he also addresses some of the criticisms of it. The work suggests that
there is a continuing need for the 'practices approach' for family studies. Morgan
found the 'practices approach' continues to be relevant and significant. He argued
that there is “still a need for investigation into family life as well as other kinds of
personal and emotional life”.
Many investigations on community have researched trends in voluntary club
membership. This research focuses on whether involvement creates social divisions
or discourages them. Yaojun (2003) researched the level of club membership since
1972, using data from the Social Mobility Inquiry of 1972 and the British Household
Panel Survey of 1992 and 1999 in England and Wales. The investigations examined the
mechanisms of social exclusion in Britain over the three decades; in particular, the
influence of socio-cultural factors on civic participation and on different
organizations. They set out to test the thesis, as argued by Putnam (2001), that there
was a widespread decline in social capital. As noted by Putman in his book Bowling
Alone, over the “last two or three decades […] civic society has grown smaller”. He
also observed that people were watching more television than in the past (Putnam,
1995).
In the book ”To Dwell Among Friends”, Fischer (1982) investigates a personal social
network among mainly Canadians by analysing the joint membership of committees
and clubs using mainly survey methods. He starts with the premise that there is a
rural urban continuum. I agree with this concept but have difficulty in applying it to
the UK as it is based on Canadian communities where people's friendship networks
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typically involve travelling large distances. I also have problems in applying the work of
Robert Putnam, as described in his well-cited book Bowling Alone. Putnam also starts
with the same premise as Fischer, namely that there is a rural urban continuum.
Putnam's work seems to suffer from some of the same problems as Fischer's due to
the research being based upon communities/social networks where the distances
involved are great. Furthermore, the research is based on American
communities/social networks making it difficult to relate to the UK.
Communication can take many forms, including face-to-face exchanges, voice or text
messages, written letters, and, more recently, email and instant messenger. The
network view of community effectively describes how individuals interact within
communities, and also reveals how information and communications technology plays
a significant role in the maintenance of communities (Gurstein, 2000). Nonetheless,
feelings of community held by individuals, and the focus of the network connections
within the community, are also important, as shall be shown in this paper.
There are many types of social interaction represented by these links in social
networks. These range from acquaintanceship links to family and academic links.
Examples of intellectual communities can be found in Crane (1972) Invisible Colleges
and in Elias, Martins et al. (1982), Scientific Establishments and Hierarchies. The strength
of these relationships and their usefulness was first described in a study, Getting a Job
(Granovetter, 1974) which looked at individuals’ distant contacts in relation to their
job-hunting prospects.
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In this paper, I propose that friendships and acquaintances between individuals are the
“glue” that holds a community together. This work supports the existing literature,
which finds that conversation or links between individuals encourages individuals to
come together to form a community.
3. Research Methods and Data Sets
I collected data from two former council estates that were built at roughly the same
time, which have partly been transferred into private ownership (with a significant
minority of properties remaining in the social housing stock). The range of amenities
and size of the properties on the two estates are similar, as are the construction and
general appearance of the properties. The similarities between the two estates
facilitate a more in-depth investigation of the effects of the rural or urban setting of
each estate. For both of these studies, I had a response rate of 25 per cent, although I
am aware that no publication definitively confirms that this level of response is
sufficient for analysis. Ove Frank researched network sampling in Frank (1988) and
wrote a piece for Carrington, Scott et al. (2005) exploring sampling within social
networks.
At all times in the research for this study, I have used the subject's own definition of
friendship and have at no time tried to bias or influence the research with my own,
or a sociological, definition of friendship.
3.1 Methods
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I collected data from two communities in which I already had links with local
gatekeepers. I had also owned property on both estates, and thus had a degree of
credibility and trust among members of these communities before my project began.
I used a combination of self-completion questionnaires and face-to-face interviews.
These surveys covered the same topics (friendships that continued after compulsory
and more advanced schooling, employment networks or retirement networks,
depending on the economic activity status of the participant), with only some minor
modifications. As the rural estate included a primary school, I asked residents on that
estate some additional questions regarding this school. I analysed the data using
network techniques similar to those described in Scott (1991). I then used the
software package UCINET to calculate a standard social network measure including
the degree of a node, shortest path and longest non-cyclical path (as defined in Scott
1991). A graphical interpretation of this network data was produced using the
freeware program Netdraw.
I researched the question employing the same techniques as used in connection with
the previous two questions, as detailed above. In addition, I used participant
observation and open interviews with respondents (5 mothers who were selected
for interview via convenience sampling).
As a way of correcting any bias in this article, I have used geodemographic
classifications were possible. In their journal articles which investigated
geodemographic classification Burrows and Gane (2006) and Silva and Wright (2008)
researched some of the effects of sociological analyses of geodemographic
classifications that use different types of software systems designed to analyse places
and people. These review the history and development of classification systems,
stating that classifications are becoming a part of ‘software sorting’ procedures.
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3.2 The Rural Estate Data
The rural estate consisted of 98 properties built during the late 1970s. To collect
acquaintanceship network data, I randomly sampled 10 properties and attempted to
collect data from residents at these properties through face-to-face structured
interviews. I then delivered a self-completion questionnaire, including a stamped
addressed envelope to the remaining properties.
Table 1 - Rural estate sample and response
No. Properties
98
No. Completed questionnaires
24
No. Incomplete questionnaires
1
Reported No. Friendships
185
3.3 The Urban Estate Data
The acquaintanceship network data for the urban estate were collected using the
same technique as for the rural estate. I randomly sampled 10 properties for face-toface structured interviews, and again delivered self-completion questionnaires to the
remaining households. Three households returned partially-completed questionnaires.
As Table 2 shows, the urban sample covers 24.8 per cent of households, which is
comparable to the rural sample.
Table 2 - Urban estate sample and response
No. Properties
137
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No. Completed questionnaires
34
No. Incomplete questionnaires
3
Reported No. Friendships
88
3.4 Comments on data collection
This was a mainly empirical piece of work. The face-to-face interviews were pilot
studies using virtually identical data collection interview questionnaires to the postal
questionnaires. Quantitatively speaking, there are no insurmountable implications
caused by the disproportionate number of responses obtained via questionnaires as
opposed to via interviews. However, qualitatively, this would be a problem if the faceto-face interviews played more than a supporting role for the data collection used in
this research. The small difference in the response rate is not significant for social
network analysis findings.
4.The Rural Housing Estate
This section describes the rural housing estate analysed in this paper. Visually, the
rural and the urban estates look very similar. They were both built during the same
period and in the same architectural style. Roughly 1.38 per cent of the UK
population live in rural estates comparable to the one studied in this paper (Acorn,
2006). Most housing on this estate is terraced, although there are some detached,
semi-detached properties, and 2-story blocks of flats. This estate has an average
turnover of residents each year, comparable to the rest of the country. According to
the Acorn classification system, these are reasonably large council properties (Images
1-3 give a general sense of the neighbourhood). Many of the people who live at this
postcode are low income, large families, earning less than £10,000 a year.
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Unemployment rates tend to be slightly higher than average (Acorn, 2006). Roughly
one-third of the residents are employed work in routine and manual occupations that
do not require high levels of education. While more households include two parents
and a number of school-aged children, over 10 per cent of households are single
parent families.
Images 1 – 3: The rural housing estate
(Source: Author’s own pictures)
Table 3: Summary of characteristics of the rural estate
Family income
Low
Interest in current affairs
Low
Housing – with mortgage
Medium
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Educated to degree level
Very low
Couples with children
Medium
Have satellite TV
Medium
(Source: Acorn classification system http://www.caci.co.uk/acorn/)
There is a generally held perception that an individual’s friendship links within the
neighbourhood have become weaker in the last half century through easier mobility
and better job prospects. Figure 1 illustrates the social network friendship graph for
this rural housing estate, which I prepared from data collected using the methods
described above.
Figure 1 – Plot of friendships on the rural estate
(Source: Output from graph DRAW)
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The more isolated the community, the fewer opportunities residents have to socialise
outside the estate. Individuals living on the rural estate tend to have more
acquaintances within the estate than individuals living on the urban estate. Rural
communities are more integrated. Individuals in the rural estate know more people
from a wider distribution of households than individuals on the urban estate. The
number of local friends and acquaintances an individual has varies between 3.25 and
7.73, depending on the length of time an individual has lived in the community. In
comparison with the urban estate, the rural estate is more integrated, with
friendships that are more widely dispersed across the estate.
When investigating this further, using the qualitative means of interviewing
respondents, I found that the rural, more isolated setting has a positive effect on
friendship; with people meeting at the rural bus stop and sharing lifts to and from
shops and work. Individuals with no private transport tend to rely on public
transport and often chat while waiting for a bus and this, in turn, can often lead to
them socialising at a later date by meeting up for shopping trips, or just to have
coffee. This analysis confirms work published by Robert Redfield (1955) and Ray Pahl
(1965) which views rural communities as close knit, although they rely on nearby
towns and cities for employment and services.
5.The Urban Housing Estate
This section describes the urban housing estate analysed in this paper. A local
resident informed me that the original planning had intended for the site to be
developed in the 1940s, but because “war broke out, preventing the bricks from being
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imported from Belgium, the [larger] estate was not completed”. Some of the houses
nearby had flat roofs; others were prefabricated. Many of these post-war houses
were demolished for the building of the present estate, which includes some
detached bungalows, 2/3-storey flats, but mostly terraced brick houses.
Images 4 – 6: The urban housing estate
(Source: Author’s own pictures)
Acorn has suggested that this type of neighbourhood has a higher level of home
ownership than the sample rural area and that roughly 1.94 per cent of the UK’s
population live in similar conditions (Acorn, 2006). The highest concentration of
young working families is found in this type of neighbourhood. The houses tend to be
small, terraced houses, with two or sometimes three bedrooms, and at the lower end
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of the house price scale. Seventy per cent of households are owner-occupied, and
most of these homes are lower priced and mortgaged. A minority of householders in
such neighbourhoods typically rent from the local authority.
Young families with two children under the age of 10 characterise this type of
postcode. Adults tend to be aged between 20 and 40, and there are fewer older and
retired people. In the case of this estate, the bungalows also cater for younger people
with disabilities. There are some single parent households, but most families have two
parents with school-aged children. As on the rural estate, relatively few people have
formal educational qualifications beyond a few GCSEs. Employment prospects tend to
be in the manufacturing, construction and retail sectors. As a result, family incomes
are lower than the national average, while unemployment and part-time working are
above average. Consequently, there is little scope for investments or savings, and car
ownership may be below the national average, as many people travel to work on foot
or cycle. Typically these families have one car, often purchased second-hand, but they
may use a motorbike or scooter as a second vehicle (ACORN classification system
http://www.caci.co.uk/acorn/).
Table 4: Summary of characteristics of the urban estate
Family income
Low
Interest in current affairs
Low
Housing – with mortgage
Medium / High
Educated to degree-level
Low
Couples with children
Medium / High
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Have satellite TV
Medium
(Source: ACORN classification system http://www.caci.co.uk/acorn/)
The social network friendship data for the urban housing estate was again collected
using the methods described in section 4 and was also analysed using UCINET. The
graph of this data is shown below in Figure 2. It is noticeable to the casual observer
that the linear or chain line in the urban graph follows the geographical structure of
streets in the urban estate, and that very few residents, if any, know individuals on
their estate beyond their own property, except their close neighbours. Participants
report that their friends are dispersed throughout the urban area and not on the
estate. This contrasts with the pattern on the rural estate, in which people on the
estate are more integrated.
Figure 2- Plot of friendships on the urban estate
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(Source: Output from graph DRAW)
On the urban estate, individuals generally only know their neighbours, but overall
they have roughly the same number of friends as people on the rural estate. This
could be because the urban estate is less isolated and individuals have more
opportunities to socialise outside the estate. There were more isolates and
dependants in the urban estate (as shown in Table 7), which could be because
respondents on the urban estate had fewer friends on their estate than those on the
rural estate.
Table 7 - Number of dependants and isolates
Number of isolates
Number of dependants
Rural estate
0
45
Urban estate
64
20
The average non-cyclical path length in the social network for reachable pairs was
1.547 for the urban estate and 3.16 for the rural estate.
6. Similarities and differences between the estates
I used Acorn, as it is a Standardised UK web-based computer package taken from The
Office of National Statistics data. This was to rule out any bias of my own that might
have arisen from having owned properties on both estates. For these reasons, I am
positive about using the Acorn tool.
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There are many similarities between the urban estate and the rural estate. The street
layouts are similar. Both estates have a number of cul-de-sacs, and both are located
off a busy main road and neither estate has a post office or shop close by. Both rural
and urban estates analysed would benefit from having local shops and amenities such
as post offices to help build a sense of community and friendship links; however, I
cannot see a way of this being a commercially viable proposition. The architecture of
these estates is very similar, consisting of mainly terraced properties with small front
gardens. The houses are designed for families on low incomes. A few residents own
their property. A lot of families on the estates show no interest in current affairs and
most people have little or no higher education. Nearly all the families have satellite
television.
There are two minor dissimilarities between the urban estate and the rural estate.
First, there is a primary school on the rural estate, whereas there is a local secondary
school on the urban estate. The second minor dissimilarity is between the local bus
routes on the estates. Although both estates have a bus service, the buses on the
urban estate run to a regular timetable, whereas on the rural estate the bus service
is limited.
Due to the limitations of the social network data presented, I draw the following
conclusions tentatively, as the data is not robust enough to make any big claims. I
disagree with popular mythologies which hold that rural communities are at a
disadvantage compared to urban communities. Rural communities do not have fewer
social capital resources to escape isolation and social exclusion. This analysis
cautiously confirms work published by Robert Redfield (1955) and Ray Pahl (1965)
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who have stated that rural communities are close knit, although they rely on nearby
towns and cities for employment and services.
Using social network analysis for analysing individual estates was successful for
investigating friendship networks. These findings show the usefulness of social
network techniques for researching communities. The subsequent social network
comparison highlights that there are limitations to comparing social networks.
Contrasting Figure 1 (see section 5), which maps the friendship networks on the
rural estate, with Figure 2 (see section 6), which shows that individuals in the rural
estate know many more individuals from a wider dispersal of other households. One
reason for this is that the children on the rural estate attend the local primary
school, proceeding to the same secondary school together, and retain more school
friends than children on the urban estate. A second reason is that parents (most
often mothers) meet at the school gate each morning, which provides more
opportunity for families to meet and integrate. The third reason is the isolation of the
estate. Those who have no private transport chat together while waiting for a bus,
and socialise together by meeting to have coffee (as I found out through drinking too
much coffee while doing this research!). The isolation of individuals, particularly on
the rural estate, is compounded by the lack of either a post office or local shops in
the village as a means of meeting other individuals.
Please note the network of this community is inter-connected, that is, more dense. A
comparison of the friendship data from both estates reveals many similarities
between the two. This is to be expected considering the many elements that the two
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estates share (as former council estates of a similar age with a similar demographic
mix of residents). However, the two have completely different social network
structures.
For this section, I represented a community as a collection of individuals. Table 5
shows a comparison of the two networks. They have roughly the same number of
nodes, but the network is denser for the rural estate compared to the urban estate.
The urban estate's network has a lower average shortest path than that of the rural
estate as the rural estate's network is more centralised. The rural estate’s social
network demonstrates that it has a more scattered layout, while the urban estate’s
social network has a more linear layout. Individuals make more friends locally in the
more isolated rural setting.
Social network modelling highlights further differences between the estates. The
average non-cyclical path length in the social network for reachable pairs was 1.547
for the urban estate and 3.16 for the rural estate. When children are removed from
the friendship graph of the rural estate, as shown in Figure 3, the rural estate follows
the street structure more closely but still has a number of friendship links reaching
across the whole estate. The rural estate represents more accurately the geography
of the street structure.
Table 5 – Comparing the two estate social networks
Data set No of
nodes
Mean
No of
Density of Mean
Network %
degree of Edges
social
Shortest centralization
node
network
Path
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Rural
housing
24
7.73
185
0.0451
3.160
19.84
27
3.25
88
0.0116
1.547
5.78
network
Urban
housing
network
(Calculated using UCINET)
The rural estate had a higher degree of nodes (number of individuals) and a much
higher number of edges (number of friendships) than the urban estate. These
differences can be explained in part by the varied methods of data collection, ranging
from face-to-face interviews to surveys. Face-to-face interviews gave a more
comprehensive result.
7. Conclusion
Substantively this paper confirms a rural/urban divide in the East of England. Within
rural communities I found evidence that disagrees with popular perceptions that
rural communities are at a disadvantage when compared to urban communities. They
are rich in social networks which are the glue that avoids social exclusion and holds
white rural communities together; so much so that some refer to them as “white
ghettos”. Within urban communities I found no lack of human and social capital
resources, with individuals reporting as many friendships as individuals on the rural
estates. However, the majority of these friends live in the greater urban community,
not on the individual's home estate, where people tend to know predominately only
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their own neighbours. These results are tentative; firm conclusions could only be
drawn on the basis of further research.
Methodologically speaking, this paper reaffirms that there is value in representing
communities' social networks to investigate communities; however, it also highlights a
satisfactory method for comparing social networks is lacking. This problem is
explored further in Stevens (2010).
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