The Time-Budget—Activity Systems Perspective in Urban Research and Planning

Time budget–activity systems research appears on the agenda of a surprising number of countries in Europe and North America and extends over nearly half a century of effort on both sides of the Atlantic. Not all of the research is urban related, although a good deal of it is and nearly all has important implications for planning. When used at all, the time resource has most often been translated into money for traditional planning analyses, although there is justification for treating it as an independent resource, particularly in light of the growing interest in the broader sociological implications of planning in industrial societies.