Urban Bonds: Social Relationships in an Inner-City Neighborhood by Blokland-Potters, Talja [1]

 
Urban Bonds: Social Relationships in an Inner-City Neighborhood

Blokland-Potters introduced the concept of “public familiarity” and described it as an in-between kind of relationship, between “anonymity” and “intimacy.” She introduced the importance of “public familiarity” and hypothesized that with frequent exposure to strangers, one secures both a sense of “social identity” and a “feeling of safety”, despite the increased diversity in one’s social environment.

Van Eijk and Engbersen extended this concept of light social interaction into a neighborhood urban design study. Their recommendations included designing public space to ensure that the paths and activities of different categories of people meet at certain points, either through same time use or through observation [2].

 

  1. Talja Blokland-Potters, Urban Bonds : Social Relationships in an Inner City Neighborhood (Cambridge, UK : Polity Press ; Malden, MA : Distributed in the USA by Blackwell Pub., 2003., 2003).

  2. Gwen van Eijk, and Radboud Engbersen, 'Facilitating ‘Light’ Social Interactions in Public Space: A Collaborative Study in a Dutch Urban Renewal Neighbourhood', Journal of Urban Regeneration and Renewal, 5 (2011), 35-50.

 
 
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