This dissertation advances the neighborhood-effects tradition by integrating the rapidly growing study of human activity spaces—the set of places individuals routinely visit—into sociological explanations of how and why place matters. While classic urban research has documented the powerful and cumulative influence of residential environments on life chances, individuals regularly encounter a broader constellation of social and spatial contexts outside their home neighborhoods. Leveraging emerging forms of mobility data and computational methods, this dissertation examines the structure, determinants, and consequences of these extra-residential exposures in contemporary urban life. Across three empirical chapters, I analyze human mobility and perceptions among Chicago residents using GPS traces, travel diaries, geolocated ecological momentary assessments, and computer-vision-derived environmental measures. Chapter Two develops an approach for measuring activity-space exposures that accounts for individuals’ immediate residential surroundings. While activity spaces often reflect their nearby home environments, analyses across two samples reveal systematic departures: residents of segregated, disadvantaged neighborhoods frequently encounter spaces that diverge from residential expectations, highlighting both spatial constraints and strategic resource-seeking. These patterns differ by race and age, underscoring the uneven structure of everyday mobility. Chapter Three examines how the spatial configuration of contiguous segregated clusters (CSCs) shapes destination choices. Using detailed mobility data, I show that CSC boundaries are powerful organizing features of daily movement. White residents display strong geographic isolation, preferring racially homogeneous White CSCs and avoiding Black neighborhoods even after accounting for distance, crime, and amenities. Black residents in Black CSCs, by contrast, often travel beyond these cluster boundaries for institutional resources, accompanied by concerns about potential discrimination. These findings demonstrate the powerful and encompassing role of extended segregation and neighborhood effects beyond the immediate residential context. Chapter Four shifts to momentary experience, analyzing geolocated real-time safety assessments from ecological momentary assessments (EMAs) among older adults. Results show stark racial differences in how individuals interpret the physical and social conditions. White adults’ perceptions of safety are highly responsive to environmental cues captured in streetscape imagery, whereas Black adults show little to no such response. Instead, Black older adults’ safety perceptions are shaped more by social and racial boundaries. Across groups, spatial familiarity increases feelings of safety, illustrating how knowledge of place mitigates perceived threat. Together, these studies demonstrate that segregation operates not only through residence but also through routine mobility and the subjective experience of places. The dissertation concludes by outlining methodological and theoretical directions for future activity space research, emphasizing both the promise and limitations of large-scale mobility data, the need for theory-driven research designs, and the emerging potential of technology-aided approaches, including artificial intelligence (AI)-based experiments and virtual reality (VR) simulations. Findings highlight the importance of mobility-based exposures for understanding urban inequality and point toward new policy avenues beyond traditional residential interventions.
