Exploring the link between urban connectivity and social segregation

A city’s connectivity relies on the infrastructure that flows between neighbourhoods and urban centres carrying people and goods. In an era of rapid urbanization that sees cities around the world struggling to meet the demand for new housing, sprawling neighbourhoods can create distance and barriers to essential needs like grocery stores, hospitals, greenspace and community centres. But is it better to ensure each neighbourhood serves its own needs, or to reduce barriers to other areas?

When urban planners consider connectivity, they’re creating efficient links between residential neighbourhoods and commercial centres. A focus on connectivity encourages planners to contrast a more traditional approach to planning, which aims to improve accessibility to local services and amenities, with innovative thinking that encourages people to move more freely around the city.

In questions of infrastructure investment, is it better to invest in connectivity, or in bringing more services to neighbourhoods in need? Does building connections between less affluent neighbourhoods and urban centres create opportunity for social improvement?

Connectivity requires a change in how planners think, putting the movement of people between distinct sections of the city at the top of mind and creating opportunities for social relations to evolve along the way. Mobility, in its literal sense, enables social and economic mobility when it is woven into the fabric of a city.

Studies developed in Sweden, and published by Prof. Karin Grundstrom, in the Nordic Journal of Architectural Research, point out that planning with a focus on connectivity has increased movement through disadvantaged and segregated neighbourhoods, and this has contributed to a regeneration of those regions. It is important that planners also understand broken mobility as a barrier to the economic and social vitality of certain regions.

Also worth noting, however, is that the Swedish study shows that the process of implementation matters. Although segregated neighbourhoods benefit from the state of being more connected, wealthier districts still tend to see most benefit: improved connectivity across the board naturally results in improved connectivity for already well-connected regions. Thus, when implemented in a piecemeal way, the pattern of relative segregation persists. Consequently, the study points out that new investments should be of sufficient scale to break existing patterns of segregation, seeking to balance more and less segregated regions.

While investments in connectivity can make it easier for people to move around the city, they can also cause a reduction in investments at the local level. Where there is ease of movement, the presence of public equipment and quality social services might be deemed less urgently necessary at neighbourhood level.

Access to local services and amenities remains crucial for many, depending on their age, economic situation or physical mobility issues. Therefore, although connectivity can act as an instrument against urban segregation, it can only do so if the impact on local neighbourhoods is properly considered.