The Decycling of Time and the Reorganization of Urban Space

There are three temporal cycles which have been partially relaxed in urban entities, namely days/nights, weekdays/weekends and winter/summer. They may be examined in light of three pairs of terms: timing/spacing; temporality/spatiality; and temporalization/spatialization. The blurring of the three cycles is differentially related to technological innovations, social change and to the capitalist system. The daily cycle has initially changed by lighting which permitted working, consuming, and transit at night. Weekends, which have emerged as of the late nineteenth century as leisure time units, make more people work through them. Seasonal differences have little impact on modem cities, given the use of air-conditioning and heating. The introduction of zoning permitted continuous time use in selected areas in cities, so that spatial change as a result of temporal ones is limited to selected sites and areas within cities. Private transportation permits an easy move over space from one time mode to another. Time use and space use are interrelated despite the growing decycling of time and the reorganization of urban space.