The City is my Church. Constraints and opportunities of urban and rural environments for social capital in contemporary society

Traditionally, rural environments have been celibrated as fertile grounds for social solidarity, while urban places were accused of being obstacles for building close and helpful ties. These traditional views have been challenged by authors emphasizing the positive aspects of large settlements and others denying the relevance of the rural-urban divide. The central concern of this dissertation is to find out to what extent rural and urban environments represent constraints or opportunities for accumulating social capital in contemporary society. Our study makes use of data gathered from students at the universities of Ghent (Belgium) and Granada (Spain) and of the EU-SILC, a dataset containing information gathered through a nations-wide survey in Belgium. Through empirical analysis this study takes scientific knowledge on the matter one step further.