Friendship via a bus ride: urban mobility and social life in Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan
Medeuov D.
2024Routledge
Eurasian Geography and Economics
2024#65Issue 3398 - 423 pp.
In social networks research, geographical distance between places of residence partially explains patterns of friendship ties in semi-isolated communities like classrooms or schools. For example, individuals that live close to one another are more likely to be friends than chance alone predicts. Explaining this pattern, researchers often argue that distance approximates meeting opportunities: when individuals live nearby, they are more likely to meet, both by chance and deliberately. This paper discusses the effect of distance in post-Soviet urban space and argues that, at least in this context, shared access to public transit explains the structure of social relationships better than geographical distance. I model the pattern of friendship ties among a cohort of 145 high-school students considering the distances between residential locations and the available public transit. Results suggest that students that live along the same bus routes are more likely to be friends than those who just live close to one another. I conclude with a discussion about how research in the post-Soviet region can enrich debates about the association between the social and spatial.
mobilities , Nur-Sultan , public transit , Social networks
Text of the article Перейти на текст статьи
Department of Geography, University of Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany
Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Nazarbayev University, Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan
Department of Geography
Department of Sociology and Anthropology
10 лет помогаем публиковать статьи Международный издатель
Книга Публикация научной статьи Волощук 2026 Book Publication of a scientific article 2026