ABSTRACT

Resources are fragmented in space and time. Even at the local level, all the materials, equipment, constructions, animals and plants used are not concentrated in one spot, since they occupy space, displace one another, and impose limits on spatial packing. Different units of action in society are thus placed in an environment where resources are accessible only in certain spatial and temporal situations. This term is admittedly a bit clumsy, so either the term living possibilityboundary or activity possibility boundary is used in the text. Torsten Hagerstrand devised the elements of the model when he was working with Swedish population problems in the 1940’s, mainly to allow classification of different forms of spatial mobility over time. The time geographic model of society and habitat designed by Hagerstrand is what he called a socio-environmental web model. The various paths can be roughly classified according to their divisibility properties. Recombinations of individuals into groups are thus done under the constraint of indivisibility.