The spatio-temporal behavior of people in the daily functionality of Barcelona: results for the metropolitan area

Abstract

The “daily functionality” concept don´t exist in scientific literature. More usual is the concept of functionality, which refers to the interaction that is generated between parts of the city, to meet the needs of located residents and activities. In this sense, the daily functionality is the form of how people satisfy their needs in the diferent activities inside the city throughout the day. A simple approach to understand and to characterize the behavior of the people in the city throughout the day, is to recognize that it has two analytical dimensions (space and time), and two physic actions (to access and to develop the activities). So, the combination of both (dimensions and actions) characterized de daily functionality in terms of “time to access”, “time to develop (duration)”, “space to access”, and “space to develop”, the specifics activities. Various scientific disciplines cover this matter with different approach, like as the use of time, the use of space, and the integrations of both. But there are some problems in these approaches, in terms to respond to the social, spatial, and temporal scale required by the daily functionality of cities.