| This study investigates current children's after school activity preference and their opportunities under the limitations given by society. Especially, the study will look at how children's activity opportunities are limited by any socio-spatial factors such as the current transportation system or geographical distribution of activity opportunities. To solve the study question, the surveyed daily travel path and individual activity space for each individual is developed and visualized in ArcGIS. Each of them is examined with the existing activity opportunities within the study area to see whether they meet each child's desire and if they don't, why it is not available under various individual circumstances.;The Buffalo metropolitan area, New York is chosen as a study area. It has two different geographical and social settings (City and Suburbs). Children's after school activity was collected via a survey each at city and suburb. Targeting children's ages are between 5 and 13. The survey questions address the children's after school activities, activity location, travel between locations, preferences about their current activities, and preferences about their current activities, and their desiring activities. The opportunity table for existing activities is built through local directory searches such as on-line yellow pages.;The first method involves a survey algorithm. Via the survey algorithm, it is able to identify children who might be suspected to be excluded. The second method is geovisualization, which shows travel paths, individual activity space, and existing activity opportunities in the 3D view using ArcGIS.;This research finds out that most children do not fully use their activity spaces and they have limited mobility. They have unequal activity opportunities between the city and the suburbs. Suburban children travel longer distances for after school activities and carry out more various types of activities than city children. Especially in the low income household neighborhood in the city, only few types of activity opportunities such as community clubs or boys and girls clubs exist and in consequence, children in the area have limited activity opportunities. |
