Connection beyond borders: exploring sense of belonging across urban satellites conurbed by a medium-sized Mexican city

Urbanization influences the social dynamics of periurban settlements, altering the sense of belonging among residents in areas conurbed by expanding cities. However, the role of the conurbing decade and settlement type in this process remains largely unexplored within the Latin American context. In this study, we analyzed the urban expansion and resulting conurbing of the urban satellites of Morelia, a medium-sized Mexican city, during the 1970-2010s. Furthermore, we conducted 120 in-person, on-site surveys in settlement types such as colonias, pueblos and fraccionamientos conurbed by the city, focusing on residents who had lived in these areas prior to their integration into the city. We employed generalized linear models to identify the relationship between the sense of belonging and the decade when the settlements were conurbed by the city, the settlement type, and repondents' sex, age, and length of residence in the settlement. During 1990-2010s, Morelia conurbed 20 colonias, 8 fraccionamientos, and 13 pueblos. Our results show that the conurbing decade, settlement type, and length of residence were the main determinants of the sense of belonging. The inhabitants of settlements conurbed longer time ago and with a larger length of residence showed the strongest sense of belonging. This might be related to the higher number of traditions and festivities which are preserved in pueblos, which promotes local identity and social cohesion. Our findings highlight the varied levels of sense of belonging that exist within cities and emphasize how settlement type continues to shape social bonds even after having been incorporated into a larger urban conglomerate.