Urban highways are barriers to social ties

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Aiello, Luca Maria; Vybornova, Anastassia; Juhasz, Sando; Szell, Michael; Bokanyi, Eszter
• 署名单位: IT University Copenhagen; Corvinus University Budapest; Corvinus University Budapest; University of Amsterdam
• 刊物名称: PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0027-10821
• DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2408937122
• 发表日期: 2025-03-11
• 关键词: segregation; streets; tracks; SPACE

摘要

Urban highways are common, especially in the United States, making cities more car-centric. They promise the annihilation of distance but obstruct pedestrian mobility, thus playing a key role in limiting social interactions locally. Although this limiting role is widely acknowledged in urban studies, the quantitative relationship between urban highways and social ties is barely tested. Here, we define a Barrier Score that relates massive, geolocated online social network data to highways in the 50 largest US cities. At the granularity of individual social ties, we show that urban highways are associated with decreased social connectivity. This barrier effect is especially strong for short distances and consistent with historical cases of highways that were built to purposefully disrupt or isolate Black neighborhoods. By combining spatial infrastructure with social tie data, our method adds a dimension to demographic studies of social segregation. Our study can inform reparative planning for an evidence-based reduction of spatial inequality, and more generally, support a better integration of the social fabric in urban planning.