Related papers: Urban highways are barriers to social ties

Barriers in cities, such as administrative boundaries, natural obstacles, railways or major roads are thought to induce segregation. However, the empirical knowledge about this phenomenon is limited. Here, we present a network science…

Mobility is a fundamental feature of human life, and through it our interactions with the world and people around us generate complex and consequential social phenomena. Social segregation, one such process, is increasingly acknowledged as…

Homophily and heterophobia, the tendency for people with similar characteristics to preferentially interact with (or avoid) each other are pervasive in human social networks. Here, we develop an extension of the mathematical theory of urban…

Most cities in the US and in the world were organized around car traffic. In particular, large structures such as urban freeways or ring roads were built for reducing car traffic congestion. With the evolution of public transportation,…

Social networks amplify inequalities due to fundamental mechanisms of social tie formation such as homophily and triadic closure. These forces sharpen social segregation reflected in network fragmentation. Yet, little is known about what…

Millions commute to work every day in cities and interact with colleagues, customers, providers, friends, and strangers. Commuting facilitates the mixing of people from distant and diverse neighborhoods, but whether this has an imprint on…

Great cities connect people; failed cities isolate people. Despite the fundamental importance of physical, face-to-face social-ties in the functioning of cities, these connectivity networks are not explicitly observed in their entirety.…

Urban morphology has long been recognized as a factor shaping human mobility, yet comparative and formal classifications of urban form across metropolitan areas remain limited. Building on theoretical principles of urban structure and…

Urbanization has been the dominant demographic trend in the entire world, during the last half century. Rural to urban migration, international migration, and the re-classification or expansion of existing city boundaries have been among…

Road networks represent a key component of human settlements, such as cities, towns, and villages, that mediate pollution and congestion, as well as economic development. However, little is known about the long-term development trajectories…

Studies using massive, passively data collected from communication technologies have revealed many ubiquitous aspects of social networks, helping us understand and model social media, information diffusion, and organizational dynamics. More…

Disparity in spatial accessibility is strongly associated with growing inequalities among urban communities. Since improving levels of accessibility for certain communities can provide them with upward social mobility and address social…

Urban areas serve as melting pots of people with diverse socioeconomic backgrounds, who may not only be segregated but have characteristic mobility patterns in the city. While mobility is driven by individual needs and preferences, the…

The scaling relations between city attributes and population are emergent and ubiquitous aspects of urban growth. Quantifying these relations and understanding their theoretical foundation, however, is difficult due to the challenge of…

Transportation networks serve as windows into the complex world of urban systems. By properly characterizing a road network, we can therefore better understand its encompassing urban system. This study offers a geometrical approach towards…

Given the rapid recent trend of urbanization, a better understanding of how urban infrastructure mediates socioeconomic interactions and economic systems is of vital importance. While the accessibility of location-enabled devices as well as…

Human mobility in cities is shaped not only by visible structures such as highways, rivers, and parks but also by invisible barriers rooted in socioeconomic segregation, uneven access to amenities, and administrative divisions. Yet…

Despite modest declines in residential segregation levels since the Civil Rights Era, segregation remains a defining feature of the U.S. landscape. This study highlights the importance of considering physical barriers--features of the urban…

In this paper, we combine the most complete record of daily mobility, based on large-scale mobile phone data, with detailed Geographic Information System (GIS) data, uncovering previously hidden patterns in urban road usage. We find that…

The city is a complex system that evolves through its inherent social and economic interactions. Mediating the movements of people and resources, urban street networks offer a spatial footprint of these activities; consequently their…