I would think it does. In a society with greater economic freedom, more people will leave the community, be it ethnic or a small town, and travel to another city of their chosing for an education and wind up working in multiple cities for multiple different companies before they finish. Each person has a more diverse set of experiences and the new lifestyle helps to break down the local sense of community that has more defined characteristics and values. In almost every major US city some of the most socially conservative areas are those with a monolithic ethnic identity that defines that communities values. People not of that ethnic identity are outsiders in the community at least from the outset. If an area is made of business transplants that turnover quicker, the neighborhood has much less of a communal identity and therefore is less picky about who lives around them. Its members are more individualistic in outlook and less invested in the neighborhood. I suspect greater economic freedom leads to greater liquidity in the market of human capital and that drives the process to some extent.
I'll admit I did not muster the will to read the article once I saw it's length, however.
