Space Syntax Laboratory Research Seminar Series: Jonathan Rokem

The Role of Public Transport Infrastructure in Bridging the Contested City: Segregation Mobility and Encounter in Stockholm and Jerusalem

Jonathan Rokem

In this lecture Jonathan Rokem will share some of the concluding findings from the Contested Urbanism, Marie Curie - Horizon 2020 EU-funded Project for the first time.

The research has assessed how urban segregation is shaped and transformed by Jerusalem and Stockholm’s public transport networks, enhancing mobility, division and potential group encounters. It suggests that segregation should be understood as an issue of mobility and co-presence in public space, rather than the static residential-based segregation that continues to be a central focus of debate in most urban studies and planning literature.

The research explores public transport infrastructures, considering how their implementation reflects the variety of ways that transport can have impact: segmenting populations, linking populations and/or creating spaces for interaction or conflict between populations.

Space syntax network analysis suggests that in the case of Jerusalem, access to public transport is multi-dimensional: as well as providing access to resources, it shapes opportunities for spatial mobility that may either overcome or reinforce area-based housing segregation.

In Stockholm, the city’s spatial configuration has resulted in constraints on access to public transport and, consequentially, on the mobility of diverse immigrant populations located in the urban peripheries to the centre. Coupled with a high level of social deprivation among new immigrants, the result is a multi-dimensional spatial segregation process, potentially reinforcing ethnic and socio-economic area-based housing segregation. Jonathan Rokem discusses these opportunities and constraints in Jerusalem and Stockholm in the light of an ongoing and increasingly fractured urban reality in both cities.

About the Space Syntax Laboratory Research Seminar Series

The research seminar of the Space Syntax Laboratory is a fortnightly seminar to showcase latest research conducted by PhD students, researchers and academics at the Lab. This includes upgrade seminars of PhD students of the Architectural Space and Computation programme, but also researchers sharing findings and ideas, showing work in progress and ‘thinking aloud’. The seminars are targeted at an academic audience, but all interested parties are welcome.