Research on spatial segregation has mainly focussed on the unequal distribution of population subgroups across residential neighbourhoods and the implications of these spatial patterns for social inequality. Recent approaches, however, have increasingly strived to incorporate individuals’ activity spaces, encompassing the various geographic locations that individuals visit as part of their everyday activities. Most research on activity spaces has focussed on the description of segregation patterns but has only rarely investigated how these patterns are related to different dimensions of social inequality. This project leverages smartphone-based data collection for measuring disparities in everyday activity spaces in German cities and their association with social support and intergroup contact. We address the following research questions: (1) To what extent do activity spaces vary by individuals’ sociodemographic characteristics? (2) How are disparities in activity spaces related to access to social support and intergroup contact? (3) How suitable are smartphone data for measuring activity spaces?
In cooperation with: Nihad El-Kayed (Berlin).
