Bridging and bonding social capital in gentrifying neighborhoods: “Yeldeğirmeni district in Istanbul”

This paper aims to evaluate spatial reflections of social relations and cross-cultural interactions in social-mixed neighborhoods from a social capital aspect. While social diversity has been praised as a possible tool for community development by many, more recent gentrification literature also questions whether different social groups actually interact with each other or not in social-mixed neighborhood settings. The research presented aims to contribute to this debate by analyzing the social ties and neighborly interactions of a small creative community in Yeldegirmeni; one of the gentrifying inner-city districts of Istanbul. Based on social network mapping and face to face interviews, the bonding social capital, which is constituted by close-knit homophilous relations within this group and bridging social capital, which is constituted by interclass heterophilous relations has been put under scope. Creating interaction opportunities between social groups is often suggested as a possible way to cope with devastating negative effects of gentrification. Therefore a better understanding of how more fluid mid-income classes interact with their surrounding local environment in gentrifying neighborhoods is important, as such social mixing can sometimes be unavoidable.