Activity-Space Segregation: Understanding Social Divisions in Space and Time

Most of what we know about spatial segregation centers on where people live, yet many of the consequences we care about depend on where people spend time outside their homes (Matthews, 2011; Basta, Richmond, & Wiebe, 2010; Kwan, 2009). This paper addresses the problem by presenting a new theoretical and methodological framework for understanding systematic differences in the spaces people move through as they go about their daily activities—a phenomenon best described as activity-space segregation (Wong & Shaw, 2011). Activity-space segregation is the separation of social groups in space and time, viewed at the spatial scale of neighborhoods and cities and the temporal scale of hours and days. It can be thought of as a threeor four-dimensional extension of residential segregation, with time added to the Cartesian axes of geographic space. Instead of considering individuals as points on a plane, the activity-space approach treats them as messy, irregular curves that extend over time, tracing circadian rhythms to and from their homes. By analyzing the paths of these curves, we can learn about interaction and barriers between groups of people,

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