Space-Time Behavior Research and Application in China - Space-Time Integration in Geography and GIScience - page 27

Fig. 3.3 Space-time path of typical household in Shenzhen (Source: Chai et al. 2002 , 153)

constraints. In addition, key time-geographic constructs such as space-time paths
and prisms were not fully applied in empirical research in this stage, partly due to
limitations in GIS-based analytic tools.

3.3.2 Understanding Space-Time Behavior in the Transitional

Context of China

The magnitude and complexity of urban transformation in post-reform China
have attracted much scholarly attention in China and abroad. Individual residents
must adapt to the constraints imposed by the changing built environment when
making activity-travel decisions related to trip destination choices, trip frequency,
travel modes, tour patterns, and other space-time patterns (Chai et al. 2010b ). The
space-time activity approach thus enables urban scholars to understand processes
and consequences of China's urban transformation from the perspective of an
individual's daily life experience.
One theme is the impacts of danwei -based urban spatial organization - as
well as its dismantlement - on individual daily activity. In the socialist era,
Chinese urban space was dominated by danwei -based compounds, which were
characterized by mixed land use and high access to workplaces, services, and