Neighbourhood Planning Research Articles

Contradictory cares in community-led planning

The affective, practical and political dimensions of care are conventionally marginalised in spatial planning in the UK, in which technical evidence and certified expert judgements are privileged. Citizens are encouraged to participate in the planning system to influence how the places where they live will change. But to make the kind of arguments that are influential, their care for place must be silenced. Then in 2011, the Localism Act introduced neighbourhood planning to the UK, enabling community groups to write their own statutory planning policies. This initiative explicitly valorized care and affective connection with place, and associated care with knowledge of place (rather than opposing it to objective evidence). Through long-term ethnographic studies of two neighbourhood planning groups I trace the contours of care in this innovative space. I show how the groups’ legitimacy relies on their enactment of three distinct identities and associated sources of authority. Each identity embodies different objects, methods, exclusions and ideals of care, which are in tension and sometimes outright conflict with each other. Neighbourhood planning groups have to find ways to hold these tensions and ambivalences together, and how they do so determines what gets cared for and how. I describe the relations of care embodied by each identity and discuss the (ontological) politics of care that arise from the particular ways in which different modes of care are made to hang together: how patterns of exclusion and marginalisation are reproduced through a policy which explicitly seeks to undo them, and how reconfiguring relations between these identities can enable different cares to be realised. This analysis reveals care in practices that tend to be seen as antithetical to caring, and enables speculation about how silenced relations could be made visible and how policy could do care better.

Socio-Spatial Changes in Danwei Neighbourhoods: A Case Study of the AMS Danwei Compound in Hefei, China

This paper analysed socio-spatial changes in old urban neighbourhoods (Danwei compounds) in Chinese cities as a result of two major national level reforms: the Reform and Opening Up and the Urban Housing reform in 1978 and 1997, respectively. Existing research indicates fundamental changes have taken place in the political, economic and social aspects of Danwei compounds. However, there is a paucity of research on micro-level changes. To understand how these reforms have affected the social-spatial schema of Danwei Compounds, the study utilised mapping, key person interviews and field observation in AMS compound, Hefei city of Anhui province. This paper compared the AMS Danwei Compound before and after the reforms in terms of public spaces, building features and compound management. The study found that the AMS Danwei Compound has experienced a significant reduction in public space, an increase in building density and a reconfiguration of compound management actors. The study suggests the need for local planning authorities and government to pay attention to planning and design of the old city core by emphasising improvement in public spaces, attention to compact design principles for urban neighbourhood planning, and establishment of local community management body.

Non-linear associations between zonal built environment attributes and transit commuting mode choice accounting for spatial heterogeneity

Understanding how built environment attributes are associated with transit commuting mode choice is essential for planners to promoting transit through land use and transportation policies. Scholars usually assume that their relationships follow a (generalized) linear pattern and are homogeneous over space. These assumptions may lead to inconsistent estimates. This study develops a semi-parametric multilevel mixed logit model to identify non-linear and spatially heterogeneous relationships between built environment attributes and transit commuting in Nanjing, China. The results show that built environment variables in residential areas have saliently non-linear associations with transit commuting, and the associations vary across traffic analysis zones. Densification facilitates transit use but it has a diminishing return. A medium level of mixed-use is conducive to transit commuting. Transit supply has to exceed a certain threshold to be effective. These findings offer nuanced guidance for transit-oriented neighborhood planning.

Estimating Pedestrian Flows on Street Networks

Problem, research strategy, and findings City governments and planners alike commonly seek to increase pedestrian activity on city streets as part of broader sustainability, community building, and economic development strategies. Though walkability has received ample attention in planning literature, most planners still lack practical methods for predicting how development proposals could affect pedestrian activity on specific streets or public spaces at different times of the day. Cities typically require traffic impact assessments (TIAs) but not pedestrian impact assessments. In this study I present a methodology for estimating pedestrian trip generation and distribution between detailed origins and destinations in both existing and proposed built environments. Using the betweenness index from network analysis, I introduce a number of methodological improvements that allow the index to model pedestrian trips with parameters and constraints to account for pedestrian behavior in different settings. I demonstrate its application in the Kendall Square area of Cambridge (MA), where estimated foot traffic is compared during lunch and evening peak periods with observed pedestrian counts. Takeaway for practice The proposed approach can be particularly useful for TIAs, neighborhood plans, and large-scale development projects, where pedestrian flow estimates can be used to guide pedestrian infrastructure and safety improvements and public space investments or for locating pedestrian priority streets during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Sustainable Neighborhood Planning (Case Study: Gisha Neighborhood)

Sustainable Neighborhood Planning (Case Study: Gisha Neighborhood)

Digital Era Influence on Neighbourhood Planning

New human needs have an impact on settlements planning and spatial organization. These human needs were subjected to new era requirements. The research aims to solve the knowledge gab about determining the change in neighborhood space planning caused by the digital revolution. The neighborhood is represented by smallest planning module (horizontal –vertical) that has services centre allocates about 10 minutes walking from neighborhood boundary which provides social interaction among residents. The digital revolution is defined as set of computer tests models through making a connection between reality and futuristic production. The research analyses the urban spaces that changed from physical to digital manner through the relations between neighborhood planning and digital revolution. Preliminary results demonstrate good performance on a global project tested.

The Micro Persistence of Layouts and Design: Quasi-Experimental Evidence from the United States Housing Corporation

Neighborhood plans have been a crucial tool used by urban planners to control developments' type and character. This paper examines whether the initial plan of neighborhoods and their design features have a causal and persistent effect on a neighborhood's physical form today. I explore this question in the context of the United States Housing Corporation—the first large-scale urban planning housing initiative in the United States. I show that plans introduced by the USHC persisted and continue to influence the structure of neighborhoods today. To disentangle the role of location fundamentals (e.g., geography) from the causal effect of plans, I exploit a sharp natural experiment where I compare USHC neighborhoods that were planned but canceled with others that were planned and constructed. I show that this persistence is causal and reflects the path dependence of plans. Finally, I decompose the plans into their design features and show that the configuration of blocks and the street layout persist via path-dependence and are, therefore, characteristics that urban planners can influence in the long-run.

Citizen’s motivation in neighbourhood planning in North West England

Although some researchers have addressed the question of what motivates citizens to become involved in lower tier planning in the UK, the phenomenon is not yet fully understood. A lack of hard data, combined with some mutually contradictory arguments in the field, makes for imperfect analysis, and this can potentially undermine the effectiveness of individual engagement in Neighbourhood Plans (NPs). This paper focuses on what motivates citizens to participate in the process of creating NPs in North West England, and explores past theories on individual motivation. This study achieved its research aims through extensive research of the relevant literature, combined with an empirical study of five neighbourhoods in North West England. The main conclusion drawn from the dissertation is that there are complex and multiple motivations of people participating in NPs, and these impetuses are affected by a range of political, environmental and socio-economic factors. This research offers opportunities to enhance the effectiveness of NPs for researchers and NP stakeholders alike.

Elaborating non-linear associations and synergies of subway access and land uses with urban vitality in Shenzhen

Previous studies on the built environment and urban vitality often assume that they follow a pre-defined (mostly linear in parameters) relationship, and few studies substantiate whether high-quality transit (T) and supportive land development (D) are synergistic to vibrant urban places. This study employs gradient boosting decision trees to examine the irregularly non-linear associations between the built environment and urban vitality, using Shenzhen as the case study and the Baidu Heat Index as a proxy for vitality. It reveals that their associations change drastically past some thresholds of built environment attributes, and that there are non-linear synergies between T and D. The findings provide guidance for neighborhood planning and have implications for cities that seek transit investments and transit-oriented development.

Enhancing Quality of Life through Sustainable Urban Transformation in Cambodia: Introduction to the Build4People Project

This policy brief introduces preliminary research results of the Build4People project, funded by the German government as part of the multi-phase focus programme “Sustainable Development of Urban Regions”. Furthermore, the research agenda of the upcoming main four-year Research and Development phase (RD phase) will be introduced based on insights gained in previous shorter funding periods. The Build4People research consortium consists of representatives from four German universities and two German companies with their respective research, implementation and dissemination partners in the Kingdom of Cambodia. Build4People’s rationale is based on Phnom Penh‘s dynamic economic growth, which is coupled with a local urbanisation and construction boom. However, new buildings and neighbourhoods are rarely constructed in a sustainable way with direct and indirect negative environmental impacts. Issues of sustainability are hardly addressed by decision-makers in the construction sector, related ministries, city administrations or building users. The overall aim of the multi- and trans-disciplinary Build4People project during the RD phase is to support and analyse the transformative shift in Phnom Penh’s current business-as-usual urban development pathway towards a pathway with higher sustainability and liveability levels. The entry points for the research are the building and neighbourhood planning sectors. Methods, tools and key instruments to achieve the objectives of the RD phase are collaborative planning workshops, strategic niche management approaches, transition management approaches and subsequent experimental implementation. All of these measures will generate applied knowledge for local stakeholders and a basis for evidence-based decision-making. Urban quality of life as a people-driven approach serves as the integrating link for all of our scientific, conceptional, analytical and normative dimensions. During our research, we will jointly conceptualize, measure and model urban quality of life and consider its political dimension and its often-ambiguous relationship to sustainability.

The use of morphological description in neighbourhood planning: form-based assessment of physical character and design rules

ABSTRACT Despite ongoing efforts to encourage the use of urban morphology tools into current practice, uptake remains limited. Shortcomings are largely attributed to time and resource intensive methods of historical settlement transformation study. However, developments in quantitative morphological approaches offer new possibilities for efficiency and easier adoption of research tools in practice. This paper proposes the use of typo-morphology methods to inform the adoption of form-based design guidance in neighbourhood master plans. The aim of the study is to develop a comprehensive yet flexible method for form-based character assessment (FBCA) of residential streets. The resulting FBCA classification identifies streets where compliance with form-based design rules could be tightened. The FBCA method is empirically tested in the context of the local neighbourhood plan for Radlett, Hertfordshire in the United Kingdom, offering reflections from practice on the usefulness and limitations of the method.

Assessing multiscale visual appearance characteristics of neighbourhoods using geographically weighted principal component analysis in Shenzhen, China

The neighbourhood is a basic residential unit and is characterized by its physical setting, functional attributes and visual appearance. The visual appearance of a neighbourhood can directly affect the impression of humans regarding the local living environment. Assessing the characteristics of the visual appearance of a neighbourhood is significance for promoting people's physical activities, improving residents' sense of comfort and even ensuring the equality of facilities. However, studies assessing the spatial characteristics of visual appearance are still limited. Therefore, this article applies street view images to quantify the visual appearance of neighbourhoods at multiple scales in Shenzhen, China. Then, geographically weighted principal component analysis (GWPCA) is employed to explore the varying multivariate structures of visual appearance. The results confirm that GWPCA can be effective in assessing the visual appearance characteristics of neighbourhoods while considering spatial heterogeneity. The visual appearance characteristics of neighbourhoods are sensitive to both the spatial location and analysis scale. The extracted geographically weighted principal components (GWPCs) can represent the original screen elements by emphasizing certain comprehensive concepts, such as walkability, accessibility and vibrancy. The exploratory findings of this article allow for an improvement of studies on spatial quality at the human scale and could potentially guide neighbourhood planning and street design.

Window view and relaxation: Viewing green space from a high-rise estate improves urban dwellers’ wellbeing

The current challenges of urbanization and densification threaten the health of urban dwellers. Previous studies have shown that contact with; or perception of green spaces has beneficial impacts on human psychological wellbeing. However, residents and employees who live or work in high-rise buildings have little opportunity to access green spaces during working hours. We do not know whether viewing green space through a high-rise estate window can potentially contribute to the psychological wellbeing of urban dwellers. Thirty participants were randomly assigned to two offices, a window looking out onto urban space, or a window looking out onto green space from a wide-angle of the 21st floor of the Jin-Mao Tower. During visual stimulation, sensors took physiological measures of their stress levels by measuring Electroencephalography, heart rate variability, and skin conductance, while their psychological reactions were collected using Profile of Mood States and Semantic Differential Questionnaire. Results showed that compared with the urban space view; viewing green space through a high-rise window resulted in a significant increase in alpha wave power in the frontal and occipital lobes, a significant increase in parasympathetic activity; and a significant decrease in the skin conductance. Moreover; a significant increase in “comfortable”, “beautiful”, “attractive”, “relaxed”, and “cheerful’’ feelings, and a significant improvement in mood states. Window views can significantly lead to better mental health and psychological wellbeing for urban dwellers. The observed results highlight the significance of considering the window views in urban high-rise neighborhood planning and design.

Can Neighborhood Planning in Shrinking Cities Achieve Demolition Goals? A Conformance and Performance Evaluation of Neighborhood Action Plans in Youngstown, Ohio

We examine conformance and performance dimensions of demolition recommendations in seven “Neighborhood Action Plans” (NAPs) issued between 2015 and 2017 in the shrinking city of Youngstown, Ohio. We use geographic information systems (GIS) to compare plan-suggested and actual demolitions. We examine whether overall statistics are similar and who was responsible for demolition. We conduct interviews with informants to understand causality. We find that NAPs are better implemented from performance than from conformance perspectives, but that nongovernmental organization (Land Bank) demolitions conformed more closely than local government. Interviewees provided several causes: procedural differences, overlapping responsibilities, influence of political decision makers on plan implementation, and shifting NAP goals.

Influence of Nairobi’s Biophysical Characteristics on its Vulnerability to a Changing Climate

Urban areas experience exacerbated impacts of the regional climate variability because of their form characteristics such as imperviousness of surfaces, building density and distribution of open spaces. These are further confounded by geographical aspects such as topography, soil types, and vegetation types. Nairobi city is increasingly exposed to flood and heat risk as an aggregation of its urban form and the changing global climate. The paper sought to establish the influence of Nairobi’s biophysical characteristics on its vulnerability to both flooding and heat risks. The paper used a descriptive research design augmented with Geographic Information Systems to spatially model the landcover, soil drainage, topography, green space networks, and population density characteristics at the sub-location level. Vulnerability indices were developed using the expert ranking system and used to determine the vulnerability of the different sub-locations. The findings revealed a vulnerability pattern close to the historically segregated planning of the city. The central and eastern parts of the city exhibit high vulnerability while the western, northwestern, and southern parts of the city display moderate to low vulnerability. The paper recommends that adapting existing neighbourhoods and proactive planning of new neighbourhoods uses the ecosystem-based approach. This to entail decentralization of smaller green spaces, redesign of road medians for water management, re-specification of street vegetation species to incorporate a mix of deciduous and evergreen trees and incorporating eco-roofs and walls in high-density developments like the Central Business District.

Possible Actions in the Built Environment to Enhance Physical Activity: Systematic ‎Review

As a crucial factor of health, physical activity is widely explored in many empirical studies. The problem of how the built environment may affect physical activity attributes was discussed in previous studies, and the classification of interventions was presented in a limited scope. Therefore, the present study aims to review built environment interventions while classifying them into motivators and barriers of physical activity in residential neighbourhoods worldwide. Firstly, the main dimensions explaining how the built environment affects physical activity are presented. Fifteen papers published between 2009 and 2019 were identified by an extensive search in ScienceDirect, Web of Science, Scopus and PubMed. These works were systematically reviewed based on their main characteristics and then classified based on their relevant operationalisation of variables. Improving motivators and conquering barriers of physical activity on neighbourhoods lead to a healthy and sustainable society. The results of the current work can help policymakers and urban planners use exclusive methods for each part of neighbourhood planning and create an environment that overcomes barriers and promotes public physical activity levels.

Comparison of perceived sustainability among different neighbourhoods in transitional China: The case of Chengdu

There have been increasing concerns about neighbourhoods’ contextual characteristics and the importance of applying integrated sustainability principles to develop sustainable neighbourhoods. Among the contextual characteristics, the role of residents’ perception of their neighbourhoods is critical when identifying various local sustainability issues and developing sustainable neighbourhood planning. However, little research has been done on evaluating residents’ subjective perceptions of different neighbourhoods’ sustainability performance, particularly in this time of transitional China. Thus, this research employed an empirical approach to investigate residents’ perceived sustainability performance in three different neighbourhoods, including the traditional danwei, resettlement and commodity housing neighbourhoods in Chengdu. Questionnaire surveys and expert interviews were conducted to analyse the sustainability performance and critical sustainability issues in different neighbourhoods. The results demonstrated that infrastructure and public engagement were two common and significant factors affecting the sustainability of all three neighbourhoods. Most importantly, the three different neighbourhoods showed different sustainability challenges which called for developing contextual framework for sustainable neighbourhood development. Several theoretical and policy implications for planning were also provided.

Design and planning for accessibility: lessons from Abu Dhabi and Dubai’s neighborhoods

Although Abu Dhabi and Dubai have similar political and planning systems, the two cities’ neighborhoods feature different morphological layouts. Over the course of their formal progression, these neighborhoods have experienced erratic changes in pedestrian accessibility. This study uses traditional methods of cartography and land use mapping coupled with quantitative methods of network analysis (UNA) to analyze the physical design elements that contribute to neighborhood accessibility in each city. Spatial and quantitative analyses reveal that planning practices in both cities achieved their highest accessibility levels in earlier neighborhoods. Since the 1980s, with the emergence of automobile-oriented developments, the two cities have failed to build pedestrian-accessible and connected neighborhoods. While Dubai has stayed with the same planning system since that time, Abu Dhabi in the 2010s reformed its planning system by embracing higher density and more interconnected streets, yet these measures have not resulted in increased accessibility. The study demonstrates that pedestrian accessibility results from an effective interplay between street design, parcel sizes, and land use density and distribution. The paper concludes by calling for the return to old physical ideals of local neighborhood planning.

Nonlinear effect of accessibility on car ownership in Beijing: Pedestrian-scale neighborhood planning

Using a 2017 travel survey dataset and crawled heatmaps and point-of-interests (POIs) data in Beijing, China, this study adopts a gradient boosting decision trees (GBDT) algorithm to measure the relative importance and nonlinear effects of local accessibility, regional accessibility, and transit access on household car ownership. Results show that local accessibility measures such as retail and service density and job density play a more critical role in predicting auto ownership than transit access, while regional access to city centers is the least important. Thus, for reducing car ownership, planning efforts should emphasize improving local accessibility through planning pedestrian-scale neighborhoods (i.e., life-circles). Moreover, nonlinear associations between accessibility measures and car ownership are common. The results suggest that within the 15-min neighborhood life circle, there should be 65–145 retail and service facilities per km2 and block size should be within 150–200 m. Furthermore, residential neighborhoods should be within 400 m of bus stops and 1200 m of metro stations. These findings provide meaningful policy implications for planning pedestrian-scale neighborhoods recently advocated in Chinese cities.

Enhancing citizen engagement in planning through participatory film-making

There is a long history of engaging citizens in planning processes, and the intention to involve them actively in planning is a common objective. However, the reality of doing so is rather fraught and much empirical work suggests poor results. Partly in response an increasingly sophisticated toolkit of methods has emerged, and, in recent years, the deployment of various creative and digital technologies has enhanced this toolkit. We report here on case study research that deployed participatory film-making to augment a process of neighbourhood planning. We conclude that such a technology can elicit issues that might be missed in traditional planning processes; provoke key actors to include more citizens in the process by highlighting existing absences in the knowledge base; and, finally, provoke greater deliberation on issues by providing spaces for reflection and debate. We note, however, that while participants in film-making were positive about the experience, such creative methods were side-lined as established forms of technical–rational planning reasserted themselves.