Community Involvement in Place-Making: Present Map Methodology

<p>The present abstract is aimed at describing the activities and results about Cyberparks COST Action TU 1306. The purpose of the action was to increase the knowledge about the existing relationship between Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) and Public Spaces, supported by strategies to improve their use and attractiveness. In such scenario, the project developed several case studies to develop best practices and digital tools able to collect information directly from the users, in real time. Indeed, sensors where installed in Public Spaces, as well as mobile applications that allowed to provide user’s with contextual information and Location Based Services and, at the same time, to collect the so called User Generated Data. In such way, people experiencing a certain place could enhance their knowledge and administration (or public authorities) could understand how user’s exploit it. Moreover, the project stimulated the use of new technologies like Augmented Reality as an additional service, useful to discover the surrounding and enhance the sense of presence of the users. CyberParks allowed to uncover opportunity and risks related to the use of ICTs via the appreciation, design and usage of public spaces. It exploited the benefits of interweaving a green experience with digital engagement via sharing knowledge, experiences and ideas, and analyzing public spaces.</p><p>The methodology developed can be of great interest especially for urban planning purposes; in fact, the pen-and-pencil approach for redesigning and rethinking a place can be partially replaced by a data driven approach, that can be more objective and reliable.</p><p>More than 50 scientific papers were published and very fruitful Short Term scientific missions. A great number of data was collected from real scenario, demonstrating the effectiveness of the methods adopted to conduct researches and experiment. Another noteworthy output of the project is the exploitation of a multidisciplinary group. In fact, the amalgamation of researchers coming from different scientific disciplines allowed to enhance the knowledge and strength cooperation between humanistic disciplines and digital sciences.</p>

This study analyses the creation of public spaces in residential land readjustment project located at the west area of Kita-Konosu Station. The analysis clarifies, 1) the significance of site planning, construction of the facilities which contribute to the securing of revenue and development of design guidelines, 2) the establishment of the residents' management organization for public space, and the flexible memberships for that organization and various programs for community. These are major features at the stage of development and usage of public spaces. And these features for improving spatial efficiency are based on a close cooperation with relevant players.

Everyday activity of residents in a housing area will create activities pattern. Utilization of public spaces in a housing area with repeating activities pattern will affect the design of public spaces. Changes in public space usage in a housing area happen as a result of residents’ activities pattern. The goal of this paper is to identify residents’ activity pattern and connect its influence towards public spaces utilization in planned housing in micro and urban area in macro. Housing residents classified into four respondent groups based on marriage status which is unmarried, single parents, the family without child and family with a child. The method used in this research is the qualitative descriptive approach. Research finding showed that housing area with housing facilities capable of creating happiness and convenience for its residents doing their activities in public spaces.

The concept of adaptation currently seems to best embody the specific nature of contemporary transformations of urban structures within the context of concurrent changes generally taking place in civilization, economics, and society. Cities since their very beginnings have adapted and transformed their structures to the current needs and conditions of every era. Today however it is difficult to conceive of broad, all-inclusive improvement projects: the focus has shifted in the direction of creating strategies, laying out goals and their means of achievement, and then the flexible adaptation of said means to the dynamically changing conditions of cities. In the transformations of today's Western cities the voice of urban residents has become louder and louder over the years, and the practice of participation has been known for decades. This issue has only recently become publicized in Poland. The author of this article would like also to bring attention however to other types of citizen participation in the transformation of public spaces, a kind of micro-adaptation, actions by which people spontaneously on their own initiative have always adapted to and adapt to the space that surrounds them. The following article discusses selected Polish and foreign examples of grassroots movements in the process of the “production” and adaptation of urban space, in addition to diverse ephemera: spatial events initiated by bottom-up community users of public urban space. The author's contention is that in today's intensely expanding urban structures, which often tend to lose their human scale, an important aspect of the development of public space will not only be the voice of users, but also bottom-up micro adaptations and often temporary social-space interventions whose growth are a sign of our times.

The connection between design, function and usage of public spaces

Strolling through street markets in Monk Kok, bypassing the cacophony of EDM from Lan Kwai Fong’s nightclubs, slurping soup noodles in a Sai Ying Pun local restaurant or taking a breather in Sun Yat Sen Memorial Park; while recording Hong Kong city sounds with Soundman OKM II binaural microphones I asked myself many times what I actually was doing. In two fieldwork sessions, one in February 2017 and one in March 2018 I was collecting sound recordings from various places in Hong Kong with a focus on the quarters of Sai Ying Pun on Hong Kong Island and Mong Kok on the Kowloon peninsula. While most parts of Hong Kong are characterized by a high density of inhabitants, Mong Kok stands out with up to 130,000 inhabitants per square kilometer. On top of that it is perennially frequented by both tourists and locals for shopping, food and entertainment. Sai Ying Pun is a gentrified residential neighborhood that became increasingly popular with expats due to the newly built MTR connection to the city center. It is also densely populated (57,000 inhabitants per square kilometer) and characterized by pencil towers (cf. Christ and Gantenbein) that are located along the steep slopes of Victoria Peak and on reclaimed land along Victoria Harbour. Yet, its streets are less crowded than those in Mong Kok and especially up the hills it can be relatively quiet. Analyzing the sounds of these neighborhoods provides means for a time considering comparison of intensities of activity and usage of public space. The cases of Mong Kok and Sai Ying Pun are especially interesting, because while both are shaped by its vertical expansion, Mong Kok has a much higher amount of visitors moving in and out horizontally. Sai Ying Pun instead feels more like a community, where people walk from flat to shop and back to flat, but due to the high amount of flats, it still has a density of shops to be characterized as downtown. Roughly Sai Ying Pun could be categorized as a residential area with a lot of shops, Mong Kok as a shopping area with a lot of residents. The use of in-ear microphones allows to reproduce the heard sounds three-dimensionally when played with headphones. This facilitates the understanding the actual experience of listening in places, even though it cannot substitute it. Listening with or without the microphones are two different things, and as I tried to listen to the city as casually as possible, the microphones felt like something that would interfere with a day-to-day Hong Kong listening experience. It seems that sound recordings are useful for typical soundscape studies, in which different city sounds are located, contextualized and distinguished into keynote sounds, signals, and sound marks (cf. Schafer). The actual experience of listening in a city thus seems unreproducible. In this paper, I want to address different aspects of comparison that are crucial for an anthropology of sound. I want to show that listening always involves a form of comparison. I argue that the comparability of sound recordings was crucial for the development of what is now called ethnomusicology. I want to stress the difference between listening to sound recordings and listening in situ. I will try to illustrate my point with examples from my research considering the soundscape of density in Mong Kok and Sai Ying Pun.

This article provides a multidimensional examination of Filipina domestic workers' efforts to promote workers' rights nationally and globally. Through their own experiences as transnational workers, Filipina activists were able to translate their knowledge of labor dynamics into practical and effective tactics such as the demand for labor contracts as an industry standard. Combining ethnographic research and interviews conducted with New York-based Filipina domestic worker activists with primary and secondary sources from Los Angeles, recent advocacy work in New York is compared with efforts in Los Angeles and California more broadly. Key points of comparison—demographics and organizing histories, geography and usage of public space, and political contexts and legislation—illuminate significant divergences and continuities between the two regions.

Introduction 1.Social backgroundThe COVID-19 pandemic has persisted worldwide since 2020.Due to its high infectivity and pathogenicity, most countries have adopted various measures and policies to avoid infection in crowds 1)2)3) .These measures triggered notable shifts in travel behavior: long-distance commuting via public transit dropped sharply while short-distance local travel increased.Studies of pedestrian behavior have further observed changes such as maintained walking speeds but greater social distancing compared to pre-pandemic norms.The pandemic also led to declines in certain commercial activities -such as cafs, fast-food, and shopping malls during the outbreak.Even as restrictions eased in 2022 to balance economic recovery with public health, many of these behavior changes have persisted.This indicates a lasting awareness of infection risk that still influences people's activities in public spaces.Indirect effects of COVID-19 on stations include altered passenger behavior -changes in how travelers distribute in space, choose routes, maintain social distance, use facilities, and spend time at the station 4) .Public parks, and plazas, especially those situated in front of major transportation hubs like railway stations, have served as vital communal hubs for social interaction, relaxation, and various activities.These spaces have witnessed significant changes in usage patterns due to the pandemic's restrictions and subsequent shifts in public behaviors 5)6) .Importantly, our previous studies confirm that these changes were driven by the pandemic itself rather than by unrelated cityscape developments 7)8) .These findings demonstrate that when the physical environment remains constant, behavioral shifts can be directly attributed to COVID-19.Following the same approach, this study compares Himeji Station Front Plaza North in 2017 and 2022, where the plaza layout was unchanged, thereby allowing the impact of COVID-19 to be isolated with confidence. Related worksSince the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, numerous studies have examined the impact of the COVID-19 on public space use, particularly in transportation hubs, which has been a topic of interest for many researchers.Studies have compared public space usage before and during COVID-19 across global cities using big data and field surveys, consistently showing significant shifts in where and how people spend time outdoors 9) .(1) Urban public space usage changes Researchers noted a significant decline in passenger numbers and an increase in short-time stays and social distancing practices in station areas 6) .Studies on urban parks in Japan and overseas have shown both increases in daily visits and shifts toward more localized and shorterdistance use 10) .Other surveys found that the availability of "third places," such as cafs and community facilities, sharply declined during the pandemic, influencing people's well-being 6) .The relaxation of restrictions in 2022 allowed for some recovery in commercial and business activities, yet the behavioral changes persisted.People continued to maintain social distancing and avoided high-density areas, indicating long-term adaptations to the pandemic conditions 11) .( 2) Crowd and flow analytical tools To capture such changes, diverse methods have been applied.Mobile spatial statistics and behavioral elasticity diagrams have been used Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on Behavior Changes of People Staying in Station Front Plaza

As societies transition to hybrid mobility systems, interactions between automated vehicles (AVs) and human users in public spaces become more complex, highlighting the critical role of prosocial behaviors. These behaviors are essential for the seamless operation of interdependent transportation networks, helping to address integration challenges of AVs with human-operated vehicles and enhancing well-being by creating more efficient, less stressful, and inclusive environments. This study explores the impact of receiving prosocial behaviors on the cognition, riding performance, and well-being of micromobility users in simulated urban traffic scenarios. Using a mixed-method design, the research contrasts two types of social interactions—prosocial and asocial—across three temporal conditions: relaxed, neutral, and urgent. The Structural Equation Modeling underscored the intricate relationships between prosocial behaviors, satisfaction, cognition, riding performance, and well-being. Incorporating social factors into driving systems could enhance safety and improve urban mobility solutions.

Murals are one of the dominant forms of public art that play a significant role in shaping urban public space. While there is an appreciation of local values in the context of the content of murals, little research has focused on whether and how these values are endorsed by users of public space and how they are evaluated. The aim of this article is to show the role of the mural, as an expression of local values and to present public perceptions of locally embedded murals. To achieve this aim, a survey was conducted among users of the Gdansk district of Zaspa in July 2021. This included a general assessment of the murals, opinions on how the content and form of the murals relate to the local area and perceptions of selected murals. Additionally, in the theoretical section, the notion of local embeddedness of murals was proposed, which can help illustrate how murals can express local values. The results of the research confirmed that murals embedded in the local context can reinforce the identity of residents and influence the semioticisation of the space they use.

The development of autonomous vehicles presents a new challenge to the human and social sciences. This is a major evolution of our society driven by technological opportunities, a desire to secure road transport or reduce the environmental footprint. Nevertheless, for each individual, conventional car driver, pedestrians or users of public space, it is difficult to imagine how the introduction of autonomous vehicles will change our environment and our behavior. The aim of this study is to bring together a panel of key skills in the design of human-machine systems to make them think together about the fundamentals of human-machine cooperation. Sharing human factors issues to imagine human-centered solutions, on the basis of a human and social rationality. In a two-day workshop, we brought together four key skills in the design of human-machine systems: systems engineering specialists, ergonomists, HMI designers (Human-Machine Interaction) and graphic designers. The combination of the four competences and the working instructions imposed on the group has produced fruitful exchanges on the need for cooperation between an autonomous vehicle and the users of the public space. The group has produced premises for relevant solutions, rationalized by an analysis of the needs of different users. It is a methodological success to renew.

Social behaviour in public spaces has changed over the time and has become attractive to all those involved in designing people’s spaces. Communities in different countries in Europe have shown more and more interest and various activities have started to shape the public spaces all round the world. The main objective of the chapter is to review development of the methodologies that have been used to analyse public spaces worldwide and to summarize their requirements and conditions to suggest how they can be applied in order to analyse the relationship between people and spaces, with the aim to boost the active participation of people in design process. The chapter describes the methodologies using ICTs, especially e-participation, mobile technologies, GIS systems, or on the methodologies increasing the attractiveness of the public open spaces for citizens and visitors (laser holograms, QR codes, interactive boards, online and interactive maps, questionnaires and social interaction, etc.). Information technology offers new potentials of citizen participation and provides a communication platform, which suppresses a barrier of non-professionalism, allowing for distant contacts and enabling participatory process management. Users, accustomed to communicating through ICT also in public spaces, feel by using this tool more anonymous and less harassed to express their opinion. Not only ICT are important in the 21st century society, but also new ways of social media, which are accessible/open to use for larger group of people. The institutions or municipalities could use them as semi-official information platform, public open discuss forums or resource of the public initiatives.

In the Caribbean, public spaces take multiple forms and serve a variety of purposes. However, urban public space governance is weak and fragmented across several stakeholder groups. In addition, many spaces are underutilised or derelict, and the topic of public space is infrequently recognised on the urban policy agenda. This chapter reviews current approaches to public space management in Antigua and Barbuda and Trinidad and Tobago. It examines the institutional arrangements governing public space management in both countries and elaborates on the roles of national agencies, civil society and local government in shaping current trends. Drawing on policy and document reviews and interviews with policy actors, the chapter also explores future directions for public space management in the Caribbean. The findings indicate that public space management in the Caribbean is ad-hoc in nature and requires significant investment to reform practices that do not directly address the needs of the populace. Despite recognition of the value of public spaces in building sustainability and strengthening urban resilience, there is a lack of clarity in policy and strategy. Solutions such as community involvement, policy development and dedicated financing are recommended to improve public space governance.

Through this special issue, we bring together papers interested in public space beyond the city centre. That is, public space in suburban and periurban locations, including high-rise neighbourhoods and new exurban divisions, and in communities located at the interstices of the city-region. We are interested in how the values associated with public space—as an accessible site open to a range of uses, and a place of collective engagement and interaction—map out as we step away from downtown. Additionally, we are concerned with how struggles over and within public space proceed in non-central places.

Comfort guarantees are often seen as a problem for users of public open spaces, especially children. Convenience is an indicator of the level of habitability of a public space. Along with the development of the city, the value of comfort is something that allegedly shows the character of the city. The character of the city is an assessment of what is felt by users (children) who carry out activities in space. Therefore, more attention is needed to the design factors that children need to support their activities. For this reason, an in-depth study of the concept of space comfort values ​​is needed from the point of view of children in Kotabumi District. The methodology in this study uses qualitative inductive analysis with a naturalistic approach. From the analysis, it can be seen that the value of space comfort that is formed from the point of view of children is formed from: 1) Values ​​instilled by parents; 2) Activities carried out by children; and 3) Child social interactions. The concept of the value of space comfort gives birth to criteria for a comfortable space for children. The criteria are among others: 1) Space that has a location not far from the child's residence; 2) Spaces that have ample space and cool conditions so that children can freely do activities, such as playing and learning; 3) Space that can accommodate for each age group of children; 4) Space that can be enjoyed by children without being charged (free); and 5) Spaces consisting of various kinds of games according to the child's age group. Based on this, it is expected that there will be an effort to consider the government in the process of optimizing Taman Sahabat as a public open space for children by considering the criteria of comfortable space according to children in Kotabumi District.