Time-Use Patterns and Sustainable Urban Form: A Case Study to Explore Potential Links†

Sustainability 2015, 7(6), 8022-8050; doi:10.3390/su7068022

Author 

Edeltraud Haselsteiner * , Barbara Smetschka ^‡

, Alexander Remesch ^‡

 and Veronika Gaube ^‡

Institute of Social Ecology Vienna, Alpen-Adria University Klagenfurt-Graz-Wien, Schottenfeldgasse 29, 1070 Vienna, Austria

^‡

These authors contributed equally to this work.

^†

This article is an expanded paper based on two conference papers (REAL CORP 2012 Re-mixing the city, 14–16 May 2012 in Schwechat, Austria; ENHR 2013, international conference, European network for housing research, 19–22 June 2013, Tarragona).

^*

Author to whom correspondence should be addressed. 

Academic Editor: Marc A. Rosen

Received: 7 February 2015 / Revised: 21 May 2015 / Accepted: 10 June 2015 / Published: 23 June 2015

View Full-Text   |     Download PDF [1025 KB, uploaded 25 June 2015]   |    

 Browse Figures

 

Abstract 

Linking time use of the inhabitants of a city with their energy consumption and urban form is an approach which allows integration of the social dimension into research on sustainable urban development. While much has been written about the planning of cities and its implications for human social life, the question of the relationship between time-use patterns and urban form remains underexplored. This is all the more astonishing as time-use statistics offer a unique tool for analysing socio-economic changes regarding family and household structures, gender relations, working hours, recreational behaviour and consumption patterns. Furthermore, spatial planning plays a significant role in establishing time structures. With this paper we aim to explore the possibility of using the time-use data of an urban population to find links between individual time-use patterns and urban form. We describe a case study in Vienna where we addressed time use and mobility of citizens in a participatory approach to jointly develop an integrated socio-ecological model of urban time-use patterns and energy consumption. View Full-Text

Keywords: social ecology;  sustainable urban planning;  social sustainability;  time use;  quality of life;  energy use

This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. (CC BY 4.0).

For further details log on website d
http://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/7/6/8022?utm_source=TrendMD&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=Sustainability_TrendMD_0