A City in Motion: Time-Space Activity and Mobility Paterns of Suburban Inhabitants and Structuration of Spatial Organization in Prague Metropolitan Area

NOVÁK, J., SÝKORA, L. (2007): A City in Motion: Time-Space Activity and Mobility Paterns of Suburban Inhabitants and Structuration of Spatial Organization in Prague Metropolitan Area. Geografiska Annaler, 89B, č. 2, s.147-168.

This contribution attempts to reveal the relations between new suburban areas and other parts of the Prague metropolitan area by investigating the time-space activity and mobility patterns of the inhabitants of newly built suburban districts. The focus on some aspects of the everyday life of people in new suburbs helps us to identify the impact of suburbanization on the changing geography of the metropolitan region and to better understand how the spatial organization of the Prague metropolitan area is produced, reproduced and transformed. We use several interrelated concepts, which serve the theoretical foundation of our work, namely time geography, structuration theory and the post-communist city. The empirical data utilized are primarily based on 262 diaries completed by eighty-eight individuals from thirty-eight households, accompanied by household questionnaires and interviews with the heads of households. The research confirmed the implicit, generally unspoken view that new suburbs in the Prague metropolitan region are heavily dependent on the core of the metropolitan area for the provision of jobs and services. However, newly built suburban shopping facilities to some extent disrupt this pattern, keeping some daily activities of inhabitants within the suburban zone. In addition to empirical observations, the key purpose of this contribution has been to discuss and apply time geography concepts and methods to the research of urban restructuring, and to understand the structuration of metropolitan spatial organization.