Urban Tempo and Structure

Abstract

The goods and services chosen by the households determine how largetheir environmental impact is. These choices are made within moreor less coercive settings and restrictions. It is therefore possibleto say that environmental impact of the urban households dependsboth on the choices they can make and those they actually make withinthese limitations. The urban physical structures or, if you will,the urban space comprising the organizational localization patternand spread together with available transport means join to form thephysical setting in which urban residents live their lives. On thewhole this complex has decisive importance to the choices that canbe made, while of course each urban structure offers very variedoperational repertoire between different households. Even the city’stemporal structure is very important, defined for this purpose asboth the tempo and the distribution between different social processesand activities over the 24 h of a day. This then is the institutionalsetting in which urban residents live and which works with the physicalsetting to provide wide variations between the individual choices.