Mobility and Daytime Population in Geographical Space

A large part of geography focuses in one way or another on the characterization of the population in time and space. This chapter addresses three fundamental aspects brought forward by the literature on daytime population. These include: estimation of the daytime population, that is, the spatio-temporal variation of population counts and the consequences of this variation; the spatio-temporal variation in the social composition of the population and the variation in social segregation; and, individual exposure to a variable social composition. Methods used to estimate the daytime population can be classified into two main types: estimation based on stock data and estimation based on flow data. Characterizing the social composition of neighborhoods is useful for exploring the everyday logics of social segregation, as well as, in a return to the individual, for estimating individual exposure to the social everyday context.