This research project will examine how urban spatial structure affects social interaction potential (SIP), the ability for people to make face-to-face contact. The project's primary goals are to determine which elements of the urban spatial structure restrict or support SIP and to quantify the degree to which SIP affects social and economic vibrancy. The researchers will develop a new metric for measuring SIP and will use it to discover how SIP varies within and between metropolitan regions, to determine how spatial structure influences these measurements, and to quantify the intra- and inter-regional socioeconomic outcomes attributable to SIP. The SIP metric will quantify the opportunities for social interaction using the time-geographic concept of joint-accessibility, the ease with which two people can be at the same place and time given a set of constraints. Using large, readily available sample travel behavior data, the metric will be computed for all metropolitan regions in the United States with populations greater than one million people. The role of regional-scale spatial structure on social interaction opportunities has seen only limited attention in the literature, yet understanding the complexities of this relationship will greatly advance basic knowledge of how the geography of urban regions can foster vitality in an increasingly competitive, globalized world.
This research requires intensive computation and will apply massively parallel computational resources to enhance basic knowledge about urban social and economic processes. The output of these computations will show how elements of the urban spatial structure relate to SIP and will enable tests of whether SIP is statistically associated with indicators of social and economic vibrancy. The project will provide new perspectives regarding how spatial aspects of the human environment affect regional societies and economies. It will help assess whether urban spatial structure can be used to make cities more innovative, integrated, interactive, and inclusive. In addition, time geography, a method originally developed to explore individual-level time-space trajectories, will be used to investigate regional-scale outcomes, thus expanding and potentially transforming how time geographic methods can be applied in urban analyses. This project will provide new information, insights, and methods that may enhance the socioeconomic vibrancy of metropolitan regions through better land-use and transportation policy. The project also will provide education and research opportunities for graduate and undergraduate students.
