Neighbourhood Public Space Research Articles

Optimization of Neighborhood Public Space Design Based on Physical Environment Simulation and Crowd Simulation—A Case Study of Xiaomi’s Changping Campus

Digital technology has brought drastic changes to the design methods, values, and design tools of neighbourhood public spaces, thereby changing the behavioural patterns of people in neighbourhood public spaces. Therefore, people’s requirements for urban public space have changed and are characterised by high efficiency, high precision, humanization, and high aesthetics. Scholars at home and abroad have conducted many studies and practises on the application of digital technology to neighbourhood design, but there is a lack of systematic research practises on the use and analysis of multi-faceted data. This paper selects the Xiaomi Beijing Changping II design project, simulates and deduces the physical environment of its location, simulates the results of the natural environment by using the data of sunshine, wind, and water catchment in the physical environment, and then simulates the crowd’s action paths by combining kinetic algorithms and ant algorithms to optimise the design methods, processes, and results of the neighbourhood public space on the basis of this research. The research team designed five groups of programmes for the project based on different design methods and processes, and conducted a comparative study of the five groups of programmes through the hierarchical analysis method in conjunction with the fuzzy comprehensive evaluation method, as well as discussing them in conjunction with the actual bidding results of the project and the scoring conclusions of the industry experts. The results of the study show that the design scheme for neighbourhood public space based on physical environment simulation and crowd simulation is better able to take advantage of the analytical and predictive advantages of the technology and unite with the designer’s aesthetic interests, balancing the data objectivity and aesthetic subjectivity in the design process. The method is more likely to achieve a design solution that combines systematicity, foresight, rationality, and aesthetics, and provides an empirical case for the application of data simulation in public space, aiming to improve the rationality of public space design and solve the data-objective problems faced by the design of public space at this stage.

‘Are we invisible?’ Power‐geometries of conviviality in a superdiverse London neighbourhood

AbstractThis paper explores the complexities of conviviality in a London neighbourhood by using primary qualitative data to analyse the implications of the (in)visibility of difference for superdiverse social relations. It develops the concept of power‐geometries to examine the implications of how social differences are produced, imagined, and experienced in the neighbourhood's public spaces. Drawing on three situated examples from a visual ethnographic research project, it explores the affective intensities of how gender, sexuality, class, and race intersect with ethnicity, religion, and migrant status to shape urban conviviality. The paper argues the way different positions and identities are layered and intersect can shape the development of ‘cosmopolitan outlooks’ and intercultural relations. In doing so, the analysis refines understandings of superdiversity conceived narrowly within the remit of majority/minority relations. It promotes instead more critically ethnographic explorations of the complex and varied ways difference has meaning in everyday lives in superdiverse places and shapes everyday forms of recognition and equality. The paper contributes to debates on geographies of difference, encounter, and public space by analysing how power relations affect conviviality. It demonstrates how conviviality is an ambivalent process that is punctuated by both prejudices and solidarities and is shaped by structural inequalities and wider political discourses. The paper concludes by highlighting the role of agency and space for dialogue for residents negotiating differences among urban change.

Chinese American older adults in urban and suburban public spaces: a comparative examination of two Los Angeles settings

ABSTRACT Age-friendly public spaces can improve older adults’ life quality and health. This study investigates low-income Chinese American/immigrant older adults’ needs, preferences, and encountered challenges in public space at two different contexts: central-city Chinatown and suburban Monterey Park in metropolitan Los Angeles. Findings reveal both common and different cultural preferences for public space activities, features, and facilities in these two contexts, as well as the importance of security, proximity, accessibility of neighbourhood public spaces, and culture-related activities and programmes in Chinese. Focusing on this underrepresented group, the study aims to enhance equitable public space planning and design.

Mapping Everyday Public Spaces in Urban Neighbourhoods

Central public spaces in cities have always played an important role in urban experience, and continue to have a city-wide significance, often described as the meeting spaces of cultures, politics, social and individual trajectories. Peripheral and/or neighbourhood public spaces, where the everyday life of citizens unfolds, rarely enjoy any of this significance and may not receive the attention needed from the main stakeholders involved. Many researchers have highlighted the significance of these public spaces in cities, pointing out that the patterns of everyday life in residential neighbourhoods – whether it is the chance encounters in the local market or conversations in the local square– are the essential material of society and may well have integrative social functions, of an individual or collective initiative. This paper aims at an empirical contribution to a better understanding of the synthesizing mechanisms, which shape public spaces in cities’ neighbourhoods, by addressing the variety of factors involved and their relations and by highlighting the need for manifold perspectives on the localized ‘meaning’ of places, constructed, and shaped by local practices and behaviours. Drawing on the theoretical framework of relational theories, the paper sets out to explore the links between the physical sphere and the social sphere of three different residential public spaces in the city of Limassol, critically exploring the ways in which the boundaries of public space are challenged and negotiated. Both spatial analysis and social sciences methods are employed to map and unveil the essential role residential public spaces play, in bringing together what society divides in contemporary, multicultural cities, where multiplicities of identities, languages, religions and cultures may naturally give rise to tensions and even hostilities. The potential for interaction and meetings between different people backgrounds in the public realm is shown to be a crucial prerequisite for shaping encounters during their everyday life, encouraging tolerance and a feeling of belonging.

SENIOR CITIZEN SCIENCE FOR AGE-FRIENDLY COMMUNITIES

Abstract This presentation explores the use of citizen science with older participants; highlighting the potential for this underutilized methodology to create better, data driven, outcomes for age friendly cities and communities. Local neighborhoods have major impacts on older people’s mobility, autonomy and independence, and quality of life. The WHO has developed clear guidelines for achieving age-friendly cities or communities. Design and delivery of quality public spaces that meet the age friendly guidelines should promote health and well-being, social engagement with others, and engagement with the environment but little data is currently collected about how older people perceive or use public spaces. Daily experiences, often over long periods of time, mean older residents have acquired intimate first-hand knowledge of their neighborhoods, and thus, may be more qualified than experts to assess the age friendly qualities of neighborhood public spaces. A citizen science approach addresses this need for a deeper understanding of how public spaces are used and viewed by older residents. Through multiple citizen science projects over the past five years, we have co-designed and trialed a ‘senior’ citizen science approach to auditing and evaluating the age friendliness of public spaces. Our research shows that citizen science allows for richer, deeper qualitative, quantitative and longitudinal data that incorporates lived experience perspectives; produces better project designs and outcomes; develops a cohort of older people interested and engaged in research, and engages and trains people to apply a critical ‘age friendly’ perspective to their neighborhoods and communities enabling them to be future change agents.

Comparing self-navigation and video mode in a choice experiment to measure public space preferences

3D dynamic visualization technologies are increasingly used in studying residents' preferences for urban planning and design scenarios. The techniques help concentrate respondent attention and improve the measurement quality of environmental preferences. However, little is known about differences in measurement quality between different 3D dynamic visualization modes. This paper applies two modes – a self-navigation mode and a video mode - in a virtual environment-based stated choice experiment with the aim of measuring neighborhood public spaces preferences. Based on data from 276 experiment participants and applying conditional and mixed logit techniques, we find no statistically significant differences in the model fit between the two modes. Out of six public space attributes, only one shows statistically significant differences in valuation between modes, namely ‘vertical green’. Our results suggest that the choice between video and self-navigation modes can be based on other (secondary) considerations, i.e., required sample size, respondents' experiences with navigation interfaces, the specific goals of the study or application in practice, and the costs and effort needed to conduct the experiment.

Individual Momentary Experiences of Neighborhood Public Spaces: Results of a Virtual Environment Based Stated Preference Experiment

Although it has become increasingly recognized that the spatial design of public space plays an important role in the perceived quality of the built environment by users, there is still little known about the influences of specific attributes on individuals’ experiences. Therefore, this study aims at (1) identifying the factors underlying momentary experiences in public space given both cognitive (satisfaction) and affective (emotion) responses and (2) understanding the experiences as a function of green and design attributes and analyzing the heterogeneity in preferences. To achieve the research goals, this study innovatively introduced an online video-based stated preference experiment. A national sample of 316 individuals from the Netherlands were invited to complete the experiment. The results of a factor analysis indicate that the momentary experiences of the environments presented can be reduced to a single preference dimension capturing the cognitive as well as affective elements of experiences. The results of a latent class regression analysis furthermore show that there is substantial heterogeneity on how attributes are experienced. Three classes emerge which differ in terms of satisfaction with life and satisfaction with availability of green in the current living environment on dwelling, neighborhood, and city level. Presence of trees, vertical green on façades, and grass surfaces were found to be most important for individuals’ experiences generally. The paper provides a new understanding of how spatial attributes in neighborhood public spaces can influence individuals’ momentary experiences. For cities pursuing both greenification and densification, this study offers quantitative evidence to support the selection of design attributes of neighborhood public spaces which can evoke positive experiences.

Improving the Quality of Life in Saudi Cities Through Active Public Residential Spaces

There is a strong connection between public spaces and the quality of residential areas. Public spaces are essential elements for enhancing the livability of a city. However, not all public spaces are successfully playing its role in this case. Using Dammam city, Saudi Arabia as a case study, this paper examines how public spaces can impact the quality of life of its residents. A survey on a sample of residents of eight central districts of the city was conducted to explore their satisfaction with public residential spaces and its impact on their lives. Most respondents are reportedly considering changing residences due to the problems with current neighborhood public spaces. The result of this survey revealed that public residential spaces in central districts of Dammam need improvement to provide a better living environment to its residents. This study proposes some suggestions and recommendations for the relevant authority

“I Live Here”: How Residents of Color Experience Racialized Surveillance and Diversity Ideology in a Liberal Predominantly White Neighborhood

In many liberal predominantly white neighborhoods, white residents view their communities as inclusive yet they also engage in racialized surveillance to monitor individuals they perceive as outsiders. Some of these efforts center on people of color in neighborhood open spaces. We use a diversity ideology framework to analyze this contradiction, paying particular attention to how residents of color experience racialized surveillance of their neighborhood’s publicly accessible parks and swimming pools. This article draws on data from neighborhood documents, neighborhood digital platforms, and interviews with residents of a liberal, affluent, predominantly white community that was expressly designed with public spaces open to non-residents. We find that resident surveillance of neighborhood public spaces is racialized, occurs regularly, and happens in person and on neighborhood online platforms where diversity as liability rhetoric is conveyed using colorblind discourse. These monitoring efforts, which are at times supported by formal measures, impact residents of color to varying degrees. We expand on diversity ideology by identifying digital and in-person racialized surveillance as a key mechanism by which white residents attempt to enforce racialized boundaries and protect whiteness in multiracial spaces and by highlighting how Black and Latinx residents, in particular, navigate these practices.

The Impact of the Cairo Streets Development Project on the Independent Mobility of Children: A Field Study on the Streets of Heliopolis, Egypt

Due to significant changes in Cairo’s streets today, young children may face difficulties finding opportunities to be safe and active. They can encounter low independent mobility, limiting their access to places in their neighborhoods, and can have poor access to their schools. This study aims to examine governmental primary school children’s access to schools in their neighborhoods after street modifications in Heliopolis, Cairo, seeking to evaluate the potential risks to child pedestrians. This will subsequently aid in developing a methodology for consistently and fairly evaluating hazards along the route to schools. A survey of six governmental primary schools in Heliopolis, Cairo, was conducted through interviews with children and their parents. Furthermore, a behavioral map of the local neighborhood was completed by children (7–12 years old) of six primary schools from the areas surrounding their schools in which the modifications took place. The results indicate that the most common ways of travelling to school, according to the questionnaire, are either by public transportation (30%) or by a small van/private bus (42%). More than half of the children expressed their wish to walk or cycle to school. The result also found that 69% of the children expressed anxiety about crossing streets. In conclusion, for some children, opportunities to be active in the local neighborhood may be limited due to the new modifications to the streets, resulting in limited independent mobility. To promote a sense of neighborhood safety and increase access to neighborhood public spaces, it is important to work with urban planners and local governments.

Trayectorias vitales de jóvenes en contextos de pobreza crítica. Un estudio en Gran San Miguel de Tucumán (Argentina)

This article focuses on young people from areas of critical poverty in Gran San Miguel de Tucumán and seeks to inquire into their life paths. Faced with the difficulties of completing an education and the precarious insertion into the labour market, other experiences such as peer grouping, the use of neighbourhood public spaces and the consumption of psychoactive-substances gain significance. Open interviews with a deliberate sample of youngsters enabled us to identify and describe the dimensions that life trajectories acquire and to develop a typology of the latter.

Residents' socio-cultural experiences and effects on neighbourhood public space in Nigeria

Residents' experiences in the varied context of socio-cultural, religion and ethnic background in the community are no doubt a fundamental issue that needed to study in the built environment. Limited empirical research has been carried out on residents' socio-cultural experiences on neighbourhood public space. The objective of this study is to explore the residents' socio-cultural experiences towards the market square as a public open space in Nigeria. Regression analysis of a total number of 382 completed survey questionnaires with SPSS demonstrated that residents' view and experiences on public space is significant (P < 0.005) across residents' age, employment, ethnic groups, often time and frequency of visiting the public space and the neighbourhood in general. The implication of the findings highlights peoples' experiences on places which determine how the particular setting will be maintained, utilised, challenged and negotiated. This calls for effective planning, management and better utilisation of public space. Also, the findings would enhance the formulation of policies that ameliorates conflict problem that characterises the ethnically diverse community.

Residents' socio-cultural experiences and effects on neighbourhood public space in Nigeria

Residents' experiences in the varied context of socio-cultural, religion and ethnic background in the community are no doubt a fundamental issue that needed to study in the built environment. Limited empirical research has been carried out on residents' socio-cultural experiences on neighbourhood public space. The objective of this study is to explore the residents' socio-cultural experiences towards the market square as a public open space in Nigeria. Regression analysis of a total number of 382 completed survey questionnaires with SPSS demonstrated that residents' view and experiences on public space is significant (P < 0.005) across residents' age, employment, ethnic groups, often time and frequency of visiting the public space and the neighbourhood in general. The implication of the findings highlights peoples' experiences on places which determine how the particular setting will be maintained, utilised, challenged and negotiated. This calls for effective planning, management and better utilisation of public space. Also, the findings would enhance the formulation of policies that ameliorates conflict problem that characterises the ethnically diverse community.

MEANING OF PUBLIC SPACE AND SENSE OF COMMUNITY: The Case of New Neighbourhoods in the Kathmandu Valley

This paper examines the meaning of public space and sense of community among neighbourhood residents in the changing urban context of the Kathmandu Valley in Nepal. Two new neighbourhoods were selected for the purpose of this study with data collected from interviews with the residents. The study has found that most residents of the new neighbourhoods have an understanding of the significance of public space in community life. However, such understandings are based less on the actual use of public space. The existing public spaces in these neighbourhoods are less successful in offering a meaning to the residents, due to their poor development and the lack of active use. Despite these changes, some residents believe they have developed a sense of community, which is an outcome of other individual factors than the use of public space. It is argued that the role of contemporary neighbourhood public space in fostering a sense of community appears to be less significant in the valley’s present context.

Urban growth and development of contemporary neighbourhood public space in Kathmandu Valley, Nepal

Rapid and unplanned growth of Kathmandu Valley towns over the past decades has resulted in the haphazard development of new neighbourhoods with significant consequences on their public space. This paper examines the development of public space in the valley's new neighbourhoods in the context of the current urban growth. A case study approach of three new neighbourhoods was developed to examine the provision of public space with data collected from site observations, interviews with neighbourhood residents and other secondary sources. The cases studies consist of both planned and unplanned new neighbourhoods. Findings reveal a severe loss of public space in the unplanned new neighbourhoods. In planned new neighbourhoods, the provision of public space remains poor in terms of physical features, and thus, does not support community activities and needs. Several factors, which are an outcome of the lack of proper urban growth initiatives and control measures, such as an overall drawback in the formation of new neighbourhoods, the poor capacity of local community-based organisations and the encroachment of public land are responsible for the present development of neighbourhood public space. The problems with ongoing management of public spaces are a significant issue in both unplanned and planned new neighbourhoods.

Right-of-way gentrification: Conflict, commodification and cosmopolitanism

As gentrification processes accelerate in American cities, how do newcomers become solidly in-place while longtime residents become hopelessly out-of-place in neighbourhood public spaces? Bringing focus to the often-overlooked public right-of-way – streets, sidewalks and alleys – I examine social rhythms comprising this network of public spaces when used as an everyday infrastructure of transportation and socialisation or when configured for special events. Using the notion of symbolic economy to link the social production of public space with the municipal regulation of public space, this essay approaches gentrification from three perspectives: conflict, commodification and cosmopolitanism. Focusing on Highland, a rapidly gentrifying neighbourhood in Denver, Colorado, I first delve into skirmishes over street legitimacy. I then unpack quiet workaday measures used by cities to regulate the public right-of-way, namely parking policy and liquor license issuances. I move on to the commodification of ethnic culture by those who ultimately benefit from the displacement of Latino families from North Denver. Lastly, I engage with the concept cosmopolitanism, arguing that diversity discourses, both in the academy and on the street, obscure important relationships between asymmetrically positioned symbolic economies and low-level regulation of public space. Foregrounding routine urban governance over neoliberal agendas, this study critiques gentrification as a commonsense urban policy.

A ‘Bedford Falls’ kind of place: Neighbourhood branding and commercial revitalisation in processes of gentrification in Toronto, Ontario

Drawing on in-depth stakeholder interviews and media accounts, we explore a case of civic activism over the opening of a strip club in a neighbourhood of Etobicoke, one of six municipalities amalgamated in 1998 to form the current City of Toronto, Ontario. In 2008, the growing residential gentrification of the area had not yet extended into the commercial district and the opening of the strip club challenged the gentrifiers’ nascent ‘revitalising and family-friendly’ neighbourhood brand – a brand that became integral to their civic and legal strategies to impede the opening of the club. This case highlights the ways in which gentrifiers participate in processes of commercial gentrification by enacting place marketing strategies that express social and spatial class-based disaffiliation and that define suitable uses of neighbourhood public spaces. The political contestation of neighbourhood boundaries takes shifting civic and legal forms, and the place branding expressed and promoted by these strategies encourages commercial gentrification by inviting particular patterns of class-based consumption into neighbourhood business districts. The case also underscores the contingent meaning of neighbourhood land uses for gentrifiers and the growing potential importance of commercial identities for gentrifiers’ relational constructions of ‘community’ and its boundaries. We contextualise this case within literature on commercial gentrification and the constitution of identity – individual, neighbourhood and class – through processes of ‘othering’, demonstrating that gentrification is a politically contested social and spatial practice with affective and material consequences.

Rethink Your Public Space: Community Events in Gentrified Brooklyn

Retail and demographic gentrification is well documented in the social sciences, but few studies have examined the impact of this process on a neighborhood's public spaces. This paper focuses on an annual street closure event in Williamsburg, Brooklyn -a former working class neighborhood that is now attracting wealthy members of the upper class. 'Williamsburg Walks,' part of a New York City initiative, eliminates car traffic on the main commercial street for select summer weekends. Residents and visitors are encouraged to 'rethink' their use of the street during the closure. However merchants, residents, and event organizers each have different motives and expectations for 'Williamsburg Walks.' While the event aims to create more public space and 'a celebration of neighborhood,' it also serves an implicit goal of branding the neighborhood for the wealthy at the exclusion of long-term residents. I analyze 'Williamsburg Walks' in terms of a branding strategy using ethnographic data from the 2008-2010 events.

Inside Greenwich Village: A New York City Neighborhood, 1898-1918

In the popular imagination, New York City's Greenwich Village has long been known as a center of bohemianism, home to avant-grade artists, political radicals, and other nonconformists who challenged the reigning orthodoxies of their time. Yet as Gerald W. McFarland shows in this richly detailed study, a century ago the Village was a much different kind of place: a mixed-class, multi-ethnic neighborhood teeming with the energy and social tensions of a rapidly changing America. McFarland begins his reconstruction of turn-of-the-century Greenwich Village with vivid descriptions of the major groups that resided within its boundaries: the Italian immigrants and African Americans to the south, the Irish Americans to the west, the well-to-do Protestants to the north, and the New York University students, middle-class professionals, and artists and writers who lived in apartment buildings and boarding houses on or near Washington Square. He then examines how these Villagers, so divided along class and ethnic lines, interacted with one another. He finds that clashing expectations about what constituted proper behavior in the neighborhood's public spaces - especially streets, parks, and saloons - often led to intergroup conflict, political rivalries, and campaigns by the more privileged Villagers to impose middle-class mores on their working-class neighbors. Occasionally, however, a crisis or common problem led residents to overlook their differences and cooperate across class and ethnic lines. Throughout the book, McFarland connects the evolution of Village life to the profound transformations taking place in American society at large during the same years. While the emergence of a bohemian subculture within the Village attracted the most publicity, there were other changes with broader and more lasting implications, at once anticipating and helping to create the modern model for cosmopolitan community in urban America.