Urban Geography
The research section Urban Geography investigates how life trajectories and daily activities are influenced by the urban environment, what consequences this has for individual behaviour, e.g. in the domains of travel, leisure, consumption, social interaction, and physical activity and how this is associated with important outcomes such as health, well-being, and inclusion. We also study how such behaviours and their consequences shape urban public spaces and neighbourhoods, and affect meso and macro outcomes, such as spatial inequalities. These relationships are investigated at various spatial and temporal scales and levels of aggregation and with great variety of data and social scientific methods.
For example, at the neighbourhood level, we investigate how preferences and constraints influence residential decisions, what this implies for segregation, diversity, and social cohesion of neighbourhoods and what consequences these patterns have for social capital and wellbeing. We furthermore investigate how urban residents establish and maintain social networks, how these are embedded in the physical built environment (e.g. by using public spaces as meeting places), and how social networks shape urbanites’ use of the city.
Furthermore, building on time-geography, we investigate how urbanites’ daily activity patterns are influenced by the spatial configuration of facilities and the transportation system, and how their daily activities and travel change as a result of changes in their living and household situations, the urban layout, or new opportunities for mobility. In addition, we investigate how daily activity and travel patterns are associated with exposure to the urban environment and how this relates to health behaviour, travel, social networks, leisure and consumption. An important part of people’s daily activity patterns takes place in public space and therefore, we investigate people’s interactions in and with public spaces in the context of leisure, consumption and travel.
A general goal of our endeavors is to understand the underlying mechanisms of spatial and social inequalities in the above-mentioned domains and how they impact the creation of inclusive and healthy cities. We address our research problems with state-of-the-art and innovative quantitative and qualitative research methods, while employing a variety of available and newly collected data.
Contact
For individual members of this research section, please see the staff listing
Showcases
The DEPICT project aims to determine which features of urban environments, local communities, and the governance of physical infrastructures influence walking and cycling and how these can be optimised to achieve sustainable urban mobility for all.
Dick EttemaUrban Geography
This research project provides a critical assessment of collaborations on mixed migration flows between Europe and migrant sending countries.
Ilse van LiemptUrban Geography
PEN aims to evaluate policy measures to promote a healthy diet and physical activity of the population in terms of their content, implementation and effectiveness.
Frank van LentheUrban Geography
The exposome concept is trying to capture everything to understand which, how, in what quantities, and in what circumstances environmental drivers have an effect on our health.
Mei-Po KwanUrban geography
The research project Calibrating Inclusive Sporting Encounters investigates the crucial role that organisation networks and first-line professionals, such as community sports coaches and social workers, play in guiding people in vulnerable positions to sporting encounters and how to organise them.
Dick EttemaUrban Geography
Utrecht University and the municipality of Eindhoven deploy apps to make people aware of the positive role public space plays for their health.
Monique SimonsHealthy Urban Living
How does an abundant availability of food in our immediate environment have influence on our eating habits?
Maartje PoelmanHealthy Urban Living
The aim of the research project is to get a better understanding of how recently arrived Syrians spent and experience their days at work, school, and in their leisure time and how they combine and prioritise all these activities in the process of settling-in in the Netherlands.
Ilse van LiemptUrban Geography
Moving around can have an effect on mental health. Dr Marco Helbich investigates the influence of mobility on depression and suicide.
Marco HelbichHealthy Urban Living
In this project we aim to explore the issue of refugee youth, public space and integration in Europe. We will answer important questions about the role that arts and cultural initiatives play in the lives of refugee youth and their engagements with public space.
Ilse van LiemptUrban Geography
Poor neighbourhoods often have a bad name. An international research group shows that its diversity has many positive effects.
Anouk TersteegDIVERCITIES
The aim of this project is to realize a seamless data driven spatial science using geographic information through question-based analysis, which is a novel way of interacting with geoanalytical resources via Question Answering (QA) technology.
Simon ScheiderUrban Geography
The PAUL project investigates if there are nice and easy ways to motivate people to exercise more. To stimulate this, the PAUL-app was developed: a personal coach to help you exercise more.
Dick EttemaUrban Geography
The exponentially growing popularity of platforms such as Airbnb caused for the emerging of a new type of tourism. We teamed up with the municipality to deliver a 6-monthly monitor which keeps track of the development of Airbnb in the municipality of Utrecht, compares it to trends and reflects on its impact on the city.
Egbert van der ZeeUrban Geography