Cities bring people together, yet our daily encounters are far less diverse than the cities we live in [1].
Most studies of inequality and segregation focus on where people live, using residential neighborhoods to measure separation between social groups. But much of urban life happens outside the home—in the places people visit throughout the day [1, 3].
Our research introduces the concept of experienced inequality: the diversity of socioeconomic groups that individuals encounter as they move through the city. Using large-scale mobility data combined with socioeconomic information about neighborhoods and places, we measure how daily activity patterns shape exposure to different social groups [1, 3].
Our findings show that segregation is not only residential—it is behavioral. In fact, mobility patterns explain about 55% of the segregation individuals experience in cities, meaning that what people do and where they go matters more for their social exposure than where they live [1].
We also show that large behavioral disruptions can reshape these patterns of encounters. During the COVID-19 pandemic, for example, changes in mobility behavior—such as reduced exploration of new places—led to a persistent decline in the diversity of urban encounters [2].
To make these patterns visible, we created the Atlas of Inequality, an interactive platform that reveals how people from different socioeconomic groups experience cities differently through their daily mobility [1, 3].
References
Moro, E., Calacci, D., Dong, X., & Pentland, A. (2021). Mobility patterns are associated with experienced income segregation in large US cities. Nature Communications, 12, 4633.
Yabe, T., Bueno, B. G. B., Dong, X., Pentland, A., & Moro, E. (2023). Behavioral changes during the COVID-19 pandemic decreased income diversity of urban encounters. Nature Communications, 14, 2310.
Xu, F., Wang, Q., Moro, E., Chen, L., Salazar Miranda, A., González, M. C., Tizzoni, M., Song, C., Ratti, C., Bettencourt, L., Li, Y., & Evans, J. (2025). Using human mobility data to quantify experienced urban inequalities. Nature Human Behaviour, 9, 654–664.
Atlas of Inequality Explore inequality in urban places