Practical Value of User‐Centred Spatial Statistics for Responsive Urban Planning

Abstract

This chapter addresses spatial statistics via an alternative perspective, focusing on evidence-based people-spatial relationships and related measures, quantifications and qualifications, and by this, it provides rather specific spatial information and spatial statistics about urban environments. It is based on time quality assessment (TQA), a time-people-place-oriented approach for the analysis and simulation of the quality of living environments, backgrounded with the method of behaviour mapping. It shows that the quality of the time spent on a certain activity in a certain place indicates the quality of the living environment. It also shows that the quality of the time spent depends on what a person can afford, and it provides an evaluation of the quality of living environments with a measure of good/bad time. The practical value is in the provision of empirical knowledge to support planning guidance based on user-centred small-scale spatial statistics, which is able to inform top-down and bottom-up decisionmaking processes for people-friendly living environments.