Author:
Anna Kovacs-Gyori
Affiliation:
Department of Geoinformatics – Z_GIS, University of Salzburg, Schillerstr. 30, 5020 Salzburg and Austria
Keyword(s):
Livability, Urban Form, Urban Function, Spatiotemporal Analysis, Social Media, Urban Planning, Walkability.
Abstract:
Livability is a complex phenomenon, describing urban quality in the light of dwellers’ needs and expectations towards the urban environment. Accordingly, the conceptualization and assessment of livability have various challenges, ranging from the subjectivity of the dwellers’ needs to the dynamics of urban life. The first part of the paper briefly introduces these challenges and the key elements in the concept of urban livability. As a follow-up, the rest of the paper provides potential approaches to grasp the complexity of urban quality and to handle the challenges of livability assessment. GIS has a significant role in each of these approaches, thereby the paper concludes with an evaluation of the advantages and relevance of GIS-based livability assessment. Overall, the current summary supports the hypothesis that GIS-based livability assessment implies more than a practical tool, by providing a general approach to understand and assess livability in a transferable way. Thereby liv
ability assessment is appropriate to support urban planners in the improvement of urban quality, as well.
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