Â鶹ÒùÔº

Research utilizing cellphone data from 100,000 people has identified where the social melting pots are in Italy's second-largest city.

Riccardo Di Clemente, associate professor at the Network Science Institute at Northeastern University in London, worked with a colleague to decipher how people from different social backgrounds and income levels interact with one another in Milan, a city of almost 1.4 million people.

A key finding of his paper, "Time-space dynamics of income segregation in the city of Milan," in PNAS Nexus journal, is that areas outside the center with strong transport links, a wide offering of nightlife options at a range of prices and containing attractive public realms can act as "social bridges" in the world's fashion capital.

"The three key indicators that provide inclusivity in our study," says Di Clemente, "were diversity in the amenities—pubs, restaurants and other different forms of entertainment—easy access to public transportation and architectural heritage spots."

For the research, Di Clemente—who runs the Complex Connections Lab at Northeastern's London campus—and co-researcher Lavinia Rossi Mori, from the University of Rome Tor Vergata, used data, including average rental costs, retail demographics and supermarket prices, to group the city into high-, medium- and low-income neighborhoods.

They then leveraged high-resolution, location-based data from the cellphones of 100,000 anonymous users for a 10-month period to capture how people living in these three zones move around the city.

What the researchers (who worked in collaboration with Sony Computer Science Lab and Sapienza University, both in Rome, and partnered with the ISI Foundation in Turin) wanted to find out was where Milan residents spend their leisure time—what has been called "the third places."

"There are two main places in your life," explains Di Clemente. "One is home, the other one is work. And then there are the third places, the places where you are during your leisure time. And in this case, we were looking at those third places that develop between 5 p.m. and 10 p.m., so we focused our attention there."

The study showed that the center of Milan, which the authors classified as a high-income zone, has a great deal of social mixing going on during the day, with good transportation and job opportunities leading to people coming together to inhabit the same area during traditional working hours. But with higher prices on the whole for evening leisure activities such as eating and drinking, less wealthy residents empty out and it becomes more socially segregated.

On the outskirts of the city, where rents and prices tend to be cheaper, there was found to be less social interaction in the evenings as these are mainly residential neighborhoods that do not have the same quality of amenities found in middle- and high-income zones.

The researchers found that it is middle-income areas, often located on the edge of Milan's center, that play the role of social bridges between the hours of 5 and 10 p.m., when Italians—who are known for their love of the aperitivo culture of a drink and nibbles before dinner—enjoy socializing.

During this time, the areas identified as being home to middle-income residents are where those from all backgrounds can come together, Di Clemente explains.

"During the night, this period between 5 p.m. and 10 p.m., is when people go to the restaurant, go to the pubs, go around the city, because they have stopped working," he says.

"In Italy, we usually like to dine late. We dine at 8 or 9 p.m. And so after you see that, there is a lot of inclusion going on.

"We call them neighborhoods that act as social bridges," says Di Clemente. "Basically, they can act as a social bridge between high income and low income and provide a strong opportunity during the evening to connect with all different ranges of incomes and social classes."

The central areas of Milan can act as a social bridge as well, he adds, but this is limited to the daytime working environment when people migrate into its main hub for employment. The researchers suggest that improving transport links to the outer reaches of the city could help boost social interaction in those neighborhoods.

"The middle-quality areas are the crucial areas of the city," Di Clemente continues, "because they are these transition zones that can bridge these socio-economics in the evening. They are areas of the city with good vibrancy where people from different social backgrounds can interact."

These areas, the income segregation paper found, may have a mix of restaurants and eateries at different price levels, along with bars and plazas that people can congregate in.

"These piazzas or places to meet might not be perfect like Piazza del Duomo (Milan's main central square in front of its cathedral) but they are livable," Di Clemente says. "And there will be a lot of diversity in price and the area is easy to access."

This story is republished courtesy of Northeastern Global News .