Accessibility and Quality of Life: Time-Geographic Perspectives

There has been a marked shift in the social composition of Europe and North America. An increasing trend of individualization of activities, emancipation of women, decreasing incidence of the nuclear family and growth of the proportion of the elderly, flexible working hours, rising incomes and foreign immigration resulted in a wide range of household types and lifestyles (Giuliano and Gillespie, 2002; Musterd and Van Zelm, 2001; Van Geenhuizen et aI., 2002; Wachs, 2002). These societal trends changed the nature of the demands people place on the location of their dwelling, work, shops and leisure facilities and on transport. Economic, social, and cultural trends in combination with technological changes will be also at work in the coming decades with the result that " ... the quality of life, the nature of daily living, and the travel patterns of families will be more varied from household to household than they are today ... " (Wachs, 2002, p. 25).