Linked Activity Spaces: Embedding Social Networks in Urban Space - Computational Approaches for Urban Environments - page 303

Chapter 13
Linked Activity Spaces: Embedding Social
Networks in Urban Space
Yaoli Wang, Chaogui Kang, Luís M.A. Bettencourt, Yu Liu, and Clio Andris
Abstract We examine the likelihood that a pair of sustained telephone contacts
(e.g. friends, family, professional contacts, called “friends”) uses the city similarly.
Using call data records from Jiamusi, China, we estimate a proxy for the daily
activity spaces of each individual subscriber by interpolating the points of geo-
located cell towers he or she uses most frequently. We then calculate the overlap
of the polygonal activity spaces of two established telephone contacts, what we call
linked activity spaces.
Our results show that friends and second-degree friends (e.g. friends of friends)
are more likely to geographically overlap than random pairs of users. Additionally,
individuals with more friends and with many network triangles (connected groups
of three friends) tend to congregate in the city's downtown at a rate that surpasses
randomness. We also find that the downtown is used by many social groups but that
each suburb only hosts one or two groups. We discuss our findings in terms of the
need for a better understanding of spatialised social capital in urban planning.