Author: Marie Horňáková

From 16th to 17th April 2025 the ISAB (International Scientific Advisory Board) meeting took place within the framework of the currently implemented project P JAC: A Mobile Society: Opportunities and Risks of New Forms of Mobility for Czech Society and Economy. The event was really successful. It was full of stimulating discussions and all the planned activities were implemented. The members of the International Scientific Advisory Board are:

• Prof. Eva Fodor
• Prof. Russel King
• Prof. Robert Roth
• Prof. Tiit Tammaru

On the first day, there was a welcome to the faculty, introduction of the project, presentation of individual research plans and election of the ISAB chairman. On the second day, we prepared excursions for ISAB members in the morning around the Černý Most housing estate, and after lunch, there was an open lecture by one of the ISAB members, Tiit Tammaru, entitled: A Comparative Study of Socio-Economic Segregation in European Capital Cities.

More information here and photos here.

⚠️ POZOR ZMĚNA MÍSTNOSTI: AKCE PROBĚHNE VE VELKÉ PALEONTOLOGICKÉ POSLUCHÁRNĚ ⚠️

We would like to invite you to a public lecture of Prof Tiit Tammaru: A Comparative Study of Socio-Economic Segregation in European Capital Cities: From Segregation to Desegregation?, which will take place on 17 April 14:50 at Albertov and online.

About the lecture

He will present a comparative research on residential segregation in Europe, exploring whether segregation levels continued to rise, have peaked, or show signs of desegregation. He will also focus on how changes in segregation align with shifts in income inequality and occupational structures.ách.

Tiit Tammaru

Further information

• You can either come to the lecture in person to Velká paleontologická posluchárna at Albertov 6 or listen to it online. Link to watch here: meet.google.com/kef-negb-nwk
• Further information about the lecture here
• Further information about the speaker here

We are excited to be part of the prestigious four-year Johannes Amos Comenius (P JAC) grant!

The principal investigator of the project Society in Motion: Opportunities and Risks of New Forms of Mobility for Czech Society and Economy is Prof. Martin Ouředníček, the head of our research team. The project partners include the Faculty of Science at Masaryk University and the Institute of Sociology of the Czech Academy of Sciences.

The project focuses on research in:

• Mobility, migration, and socio-spatial inequalities
• A new phase of economic and social globalization
• Transformational processes in the settlement system and metropolitan areas
• The impact of new technologies, big data, and cartographic visualization

The main research goal is to conduct multidisciplinary research through five research objectives. The project aims to generate new insights, methodological approaches, and innovative analytical methods, as well as develop advanced modeling tools and cartographic visualization techniques.

The project is divided into five research objectives, which are interconnected through the composition of research teams from partner institutions, shared theoretical concepts, and methodological approaches.

Learn more about the project in an interview with Prof. Martin Ouředníček.

More information about our research team’s activities can be found at www.urrlab.cz, and soon also on the project’s website, which is currently under development.

We’re on Linkedin!

You can now follow us on Linkedin in addition to Facebook and X. You can find us there as Urban and Regional Laboratory (URRlab). We’re still rather getting our head around there, but we’ll soon start posting regular updates on important happenings in the team. As well as here.

Follow us!

During autumn, members of our research team published several peer-reviewed articles. All of them we recommend to read. Some of them are in open-access form, so they should be available to everyone.

Public, private and the pandemic: Everyday life in large housing estates during the COVID-19 lockdowns

• Authors: Slavomíra Ferenčuhová, Marie Sýkora Horňáková, Jana Kočková, Petra Špačková
• More

Movement matters: uncovering life-course similarities and differences in residential environment perspectives

• Authors: Marie Sýkora Horňáková, Jan Sýkora, Pavel Frydrych
• More

During the summer months, members of our research team published several peer-reviewed articles. All of them we recommend to read. Some of them are in open-access form, so they should be available to everyone.

Suburban Autonomy? The Case of Inter-Suburban Commuting Outside Prague

• Authors: Jiří Jakub Zévl, Martin Ouředníček
• More

A shape-based heuristic for the detection of urban block artifacts in street networks

• Authors: Martin Fleischmann, Anastassia Vybornova
• More

Decoding (urban) form and function using spatially explicit deep learning

• Authors: Martin Fleischmann, Daniel Arribas-Bel
• More

Movement refrains of people with visual impairments: A post-phenomenological geography beyond space and place

• Authors: Lucie Pospíšilová, Pavel Doboš, Robert Osman
• More

We are pleased to announce that a research consortium led by Dr Martin Fleischmann has been awarded a grant to study the structure of cities in Europe in space and time. The project, funded by the European Space Agency, will be carried out in collaboration with academic partners from The Alan Turing Institute, led by prof. Dani Arribas-Bel, and the OECD Geospatial Lab, led by Dr Claudia Baranzelli, and with partners from policy (The Prague Institute of Planning and Development) and practice (4ct). During the 12 months of the project, the team will develop the the methodological basis for the development of a continental scale urban fabric classification that can be unfolded in time using artificial intelligence applied to Sentinel 2 satellite imagery. The total value of the funding is €250,000.

We are very happy that our team members (PhD students) gain experience abroad! A few weeks ago, Niloufar Ghafouriazar, completed a three-month doctoral internship at the University of Toronto’s Geography and Planning Department as an international visiting graduate student. She took a course on Qualitative Data Analysis and concentrated on applying grounded theory qualitative methods in urban studies under the supervision of Professor Zachary Hyde.  

In the last three years, we have welcomed three new PhDs to our team. We just forgot to let you know. Congratulations to all of them, of course, and we look forward to seeing who will be the next successful PhD graduates.

2024

Adam Klsák – Dynamika rezidenční diferenciace a segregace cizinců v metropolitních areálech Česka

2023

Marie Horňáková – Residential mobility and residential preferences of young families and older adults from the Prague Metropolitan Area

2022

Jiří Nemeškal – Denní mobilita a socioekonomické aspekty regionů a jejich vliv na funkční prostorovou organizaci společnosti

At the end of April, the Annual AAG Meeting took place in Honolulu (Hawaii). The themes of this year’s AAG connected meeting and academic offerings to the ecologies, history, and cultures of the host location in Hawai‘i, affirming the interconnectedness of place and beings here and around the world. These themes shaped keynotes and special events during the meeting. The three main themes were:

• Reciprocal Scholarship
• Colonialism and Resources
• Recovery and Restoration

Two members of our research lab attended this year’s AAG, Jiří Nemeškal and Martin Ouředníček. Jiří Nemeškal was part of the session “GeoAI and Deep Learning Symposium: GeoAI and Social Sensing for Human-Pandemic Dynamics” and presented a paper called “Disruption of long-term commuting development – the impact of Covid-19 on the daily mobility in the Czech Republic.”