Activity Spaces, Biographies, Social Networks and their Welfare Gains and Externalities: Some Hypotheses and Empirical Results

Abstract

The repeated interactions and exchanges in formal and informal networks, e.g. family, firms, associations, friendship circles, regulars of a bar, are central to our daily life. There is no reason to assume that the geography of the members of the networks, to which one belongs, has not been affected by the seminal drop in transport and telecommunication costs since 1950. The article will develop a conceptualisation of the dynamics of the interaction between the geographies of the social networks and of activity space growth. Against this background more detailed, testable hypotheses about the change of the geographies, of the contact intensity distributions and numbers of contacts will be derived. The hypotheses will be illustrated with results from a number of surveys, in which first attempts have been undertaken to obtain the necessary data to test the hypotheses. The final section will discuss the impact of the hypotheses, if found to be true, on both transport modelling and transport policy.