Environment and Planning B: Urban Analytics and City Science

Planning support systems (PSSs) are intended to facilitate relevant steps in planning processes; however, the academic evaluation of PSSs reveals many bottlenecks precluding a widespread use of these systems. A central weakness is the lack of communication between PSS developers (focusing on technical issues) and potential PSS users. Other academic fields such as knowledge management and technological innovation recognised similar bottlenecks years ago. On the basis of methods proposed in these fields, a new process architecture for the development of a PSS is proposed. Through a dialogue in which PSS developers and potential users discuss and use the PSS, existing tools, instruments, and models are refined and improved to be more useful to their potential users. The focus shifts away from the development of a technically more sophisticated support system, towards a process of PSS development which is intertwined with the planning process itself. This process architecture is called mediated planning support (MPS). We explore what can be learned from other academic domains and enquire about the applicability of these findings to PSS development. In Amsterdam the Department of Transport wanted to transform their transportation model into a land-use and transport PSS and their work illustrates how such a process architecture can link PSS developers and users in planning practice. We discuss the concepts behind MPS and use the case of Amsterdam to visualise its workings, lastly offering hypotheses on the method and suggestions for further research.

Land-use models have been developed for predicting future land-use patterns. We describe a logistic regression model for residential development in the Netherlands that takes the neighbourhood effects of land use and infrastructure into account. Hereto, a new methodology was developed, single parameter impact estimation, for estimating the influence of land use and infrastructure in the neighbourhood on residential developments. The model also incorporates initial land use and a set of policy-related and suitability-related variables. In essence, the neighbourhood effects typically simulated with cellular automata-based land-use models have been integrated into a logistic regression model. The model was calibrated and validated on historic land-use developments in the Netherlands. On the basis of the model, residential areas develop preferably at the fringe of the city, on agricultural land in the neighbourhood of residential areas. The probability of residential development depends on the cluster size of the land-use categories. Large clusters of allotments, cemeteries, or sports fields are relatively attractive for residential development, while forest, nature, and industrial areas become more attractive when present in small clusters.

Application of a shape grammar involves the repetitive task of matching and replacing subshapes of a design under transformation, and as such is well suited for computer implementation. As a result, ever since the conception of the shape grammar formalism, efforts have been made to develop computer programs that automate shape grammar applications. Much of this effort has been directed towards the problem of subshape detection, which involves recognising subshapes embedded in a design. Solutions to this problem have been presented for shapes composed of rectilinear geometric elements, such as straight lines, and algorithms based on these solutions have been implemented in a variety of shape grammar interpreters. However, there has been less research concerning the solution of the subshape detection problem for shapes composed of nonrectilinear geometric elements, such as curve segments. In this paper a method of intrinsic matching is presented, which enables comparison of the embedding properties of parametric curves. This method has been employed in order to develop shape algorithms which can be implemented in shape grammar interpreters for shapes composed of parametric curve segments, arranged in two-dimensional or three-dimensional space.

Although the principle of bounded rationality seems more realistic for formulating formal models of individual choice behaviour than traditional decision-outcome-based discrete choice models, existing studies have some limitations: (1) applications focus on the noncompensatory nature of the models and largely ignore the factor-selection process; (2) heterogeneity of heuristics in reaching a decision is insufficiently studied; (3) the choice of decision strategy is rarely modeled formally. A modeling approach that simultaneously deals with these issues is suggested. Factor thresholds are used as the mechanism for factor selection and representation, resulting in a set of activated and nonactivated factor states. Under the assumption of stochastic contextual effects, the model automatically generates heterogeneous decision heuristics, including the conjunctive, disjunctive, and lexicographic rule. Mental effort and risk perception are assumed to influence the evaluation and choice of heuristics. The concept of preference tolerance is used to predict the probability of selecting a particular heuristic under different decision contexts. The modeling approach is illustrated using the go-home decision of pedestrians in a shopping street in China as an example.

Some experts suggest that urban design plans in US cities may lack adequate coverage of the essential design aspects of the built environment. Digital models and information technology tools may help designers to visualize and interact with design alternatives and large urban datasets more effectively, thus correcting this problem. Case studies of recent urban design plans that have used digital models may indicate whether these technologies can increase the quality of the plan. This research discusses the role that digital models can play in supporting designers in addressing the essential design aspects. A literature review focused on reviewing secondary sources is used to construct theoretical propositions against which the empirical data can be compared and contrasted. A case study investigates the extents and methods with which modeling functions have been used in developing a selected urban design plan. The findings refute the premise that the plan would inadequately address essential design aspects, and indicate both an effective usage and application of modeling functions in the design process to analyze and represent the urban design aspects. The extent of design aspect coverage is found to be linked to the extensive usage of modeling functions and to the combination of computational and conventional tools, techniques, and modes of presentation. The results are consistent with the research hypothesis that the usage of modeling functions would increase the design content. The effective usage of the modeling functions appears to have improved the quality of the decision-making process by increasing designers' cognitive and communication capabilities and providing a platform for communicating design ideas among and across design teams that lead to wider involvement in the decision making.

The concept of buzz is both new and heavily contested. One of the strongest debates about buzz is the possibility of ‘virtual buzz’ or buzz that takes place online. At the heart of this debate is the importance of real-time, face-to-face contact. To investigate virtual buzz we present a study of a network of weblogs, or blogs, which share a topical focus on the New York City theater scene. Using social network analysis we find that these blogs exhibit a dense network of interlinkages between each other, with no dominant blog controlling the discourse. We believe this to be indicative of a buzz-like environment. We conclude by discussing the advantages that the study of blogs has for the field of economic geography.

Theories of water-resource management suggest that water demand is mediated by three interacting factors: technological innovations, pricing structures, and individual behaviors and demographics. While these factors provide useful insights for ongoing water conservation strategies, such as outreach and education campaigns, pricing schemes, and incentives aimed at residential developments, few studies examine the relationship between land-use planning and water demand. This paper reports the results of a study on land-use zoning and development-induced water consumption in Portland, Oregon. We used a geographic information system to integrate land-use records, water-consumption data, sociodemographics, and property tax information for over 122 550 parcels of varying land uses, and employed multiregression analyses to measure the effect of urban form—as measured by both the type and the structure of land uses—on regional water demand. While our results corroborate previous studies that link demographic characteristics to water demand, we go further by identifying zoning and structural attributes of the households as explaining over 93% of water use in all parcels. The paper concludes with a discussion of the opportunities and challenges for coordinating water-resource management with land-use planning.

As the obesity epidemic in children increases, it is important to consider the role of neighborhoods in supporting children's physical activity and healthy development, especially in low-income communities where obesity levels among children are higher than for their middle-income counterparts. I present a participatory and qualitative GIS approach to mapping children's own perceptions and use of their neighborhood for physical activity with ten and eleven year-olds growing up in a diverse low-income community in Denver, CO. Girls walk shorter distances to and use different types of community spaces for play and recreation from boys, some of which is explained by the differing environmental-socialization approaches employed by parents and carers. Children's perceptions of risk align spatially with features of the built environment, but do not correlate with reported crime. Results illustrate the utility of qualitative spatial analysis to understand relationships between children's perception, the built environment, and social factors that shape children's active transport, leisure, and recreation in their neighborhood. Children's local knowledge should be valued and solicited in community-level health and planning interventions to promote physical activity.

Accessibility has become a key issue in modern urban planning. This paper aims to identify the impact of differences in spatial accessibility on the development of the built environment in cities. Using a few simple accessibility indicators, it tries to map out in a quantitative way the detailed implications of accessibility conditions for built-up areas, on the basis of a 25 m × 25 m grid cell approach. The statistical tool used here is logistic regression, followed by a GIS representation of the empirical results for four Dutch cities: Amsterdam, The Hague, Rotterdam, and Utrecht.

Analogy is a powerful heuristic for problem solving. In design, where designers are constantly exposed to visual stimuli, visual analogies are considered to be particularly helpful. To date, however, few researchers have given enough attention to visual analogy and visual displays in design contexts. This study deals with the use of these tools by investigating the effect that expertise has on them, in ill-defined and well-defined problem solving. Novice and experienced designers solved both types of design problem with exposure to visual displays and with the requirement to use visual analogy. Results showed that when visual displays and instructions to use analogy were available no expertise differences existed in well-defined problem solving. However, with the availability of only visual displays, architects tend to perform better than students. Without guidance to use analogy, students found difficulty in spontaneous recall of visual displays as candidate analogues in well-defined problems. In ill-defined problem solving, architects performed better than novice students in the use of both analogy and visual displays. However, no differences were found between the experienced designers and the advanced students in any experimental condition in this problem context.