From fun to function: PPGIS unlocks the power of play in cities

Abstract

Spaces for play in children's daily-life are essential for their development. However, planning in most cities is limitedly aware of children's needs for playable-spaces. This study explores a PPGIS-approach to identify the “Playscape-quality” of a city, offering insights for planners. Our approach involved 416 children in Mariwan\\Iran. Using polygons instead of the conventional pinning-points, children digitally mapped their favourite-outdoor-places: two within their neighborhood and two at the city-level, they mapped 1664 polygons. For all places children answered a series of questions like the visit frequency. Furthermore, children were invited to geo-visualize the quality of their places. For measuring the playscape-quality we developed two indicators. Highly-Appreciated-Places Index for Days (HAPiDAYS) and Sparkling Urban Blend index (SUBindex). HAPiDAYS assesses the influence of hotspots, in term of days, on children's daily-routines and SUBindex quantifies overlapping highly-used-places with hotspots. Drawn polygons cover 9.3% of Mariwan, highlighting 9 hotspots, with most of the 120 received Geo-visualizations corresponding to them. HAPiDAYS, representing 29 days-per-year, and SUBindex indicate a 24% overlap, both approved favourite-outdoors extend beyond children's regular-daily-adventures. This emphasizes that besides providing urban spaces for citizens, evaluating the influence of these spaces on users' lives, (in this case children), should be considered from their own perspective.