Meeting Up Together: Economic Embeddedness of Social Capital in America

Abstract

Where do people meet? And how does their region’s wealth effect where they meet? Investigating these patterns across the United States, we explore community organization and association venues based on data provided from Meetup.com. Examining how individuals associate for business, social, and cultural reasons, we discover that a region’s median income significantly affects the type of venue for the meeting. However, certain types of associations centered on a select group of topics mitigate that effect. We discover that in the United States, personal social capital that is built and maintained “in person” is deeply embedded in commercial activities. As a result, access to various types of community is often limited to economically advantaged geographies.