Is social capital eroded by the state-led urbanization in China? A case study on indigenous villagers in the urban fringe of Beijing

•Chinese urbanization is both policy oriented and migration driven.•We analyze the relationship between social capital and urbanization for indigenous villagers.•Bottom-up urbanization measured by migrant-local ratio weakened social networks and trust.•Top-down urbanization measured by policy zone promoted social networks and trust.

In the rapid urbanization process, indigenous villagers' social capital might be affected by the flooding-in of rural migrants and more importantly by the government's urbanization policies. Based on survey data collected from fifteen Beijing villages in 2011 and 2012, we study the relationship between social capital and urbanization for indigenous villagers in the urban fringe of Beijing. We find that the bottom-up urbanization measured by migrant-local ratio weakened social networks and social trust. However, the top-down urbanization measured by designating policy zone promoted social networks and social trust.