On social permeability of municipal borders

Abstract

The article investigates the intensity of social interaction between the population of different municipalities in Russian Federation. This interaction is estimated using user profile data from online social networks: a data source that grows more and more popular in population geography studies. We build a qualitative indicator of social interaction using data on the number of interregional friendship links for «VKontakte» social network users that live in different municipalities and have an open social network profile. We show that the intensity of social interaction is higher on the average for municipalities that share a common border. Social interaction intensity data is then used to characterize the permeability of municipality borders. We choose the least permeable borders among all border segments of municipalities in Russian Federation: those with the smallest transborder interaction intensity values and describe the social barriers that are revealed this way. We describe various configurations of these barriers and suggest hypotheses for the reasons why such barriers appear or do not appear. We also analyze several groups of socially insular groups of municipalities in the Khanty- Mansi Autonomous Okrug and the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug and suggest possible reasons for their insularity.