Space Mapper
A mobile phone application to help us better understand the ecology of human movement and social segregation in our big cities.
The Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) and Princeton University (USA) are seeking the participation of barcelona citizens for a study that uses a mobile application to detect mobility patterns associated with different social strata. The study has also been launched in the cities of New York and Los Angeles.
Space Mapper application has been developed by researchers at CEAB-CSIC (MOVE Lab) and Princeton University (USA) to collect data on human mobility, while allowing users to map their own home ranges or "activity-spaces." It provides new human mobility data for a study that lies at the intersection of ecology and the social sciences.
What does your world look like? What are the contours of your neighborhood? In our daily activities, most of us move through only small areas of the cities or towns we call home. These areas - which geographers and spatial demographers call "activity spaces" - may vary substantially and overlap little, even within the same community. They are important because where we spend time determines our access to resources, like medical care and fresh food, and our exposure to hazards, like toxic chemicals, contagious diseases, and crime. If we knew more about systematic variation in human activity spaces, we could understand more about important social processes that affect our lives and drive inequality.
Space Mapper records users' locations at regularly intervals and securely sends this information to a research server. It is designed to minimize battery consumption and run continously in the background on Android phones. Space Mapper also allows users to map their own data on their phones, and it will give them additional data analysis tools in future updates.
The Space Mapper for Android app is available HERE.
Further information: MovE Lab (CEAB-CSIC)