Diputació de Barcelona
Entorn urbà i salut
 
Tools to incorporate the health perspective in municipal actions
 

Public Life Diversity Toolkit: a prototype for measuring social mixing and economic integration in public space

Gehl Institute
2015

Link to the resource: https://issuu.com/gehlinstitute/docs/gehl_publiclifediversitytoolkit_pag/1

Format:
Guide
Target population:
General population and population in vulnerable situations
Objetive:

Measure social diversity (as the mixing and interaction between social groups) in the public space.

It aims to help understand what factors of the physical environment favor or limit the mixing of social groups from different economic strata.

Methodology:

This is a set of three tools that, in combination, constitute a holistic approach to the measurement and evaluation of social diversity in the analysed space.

The three tools are: in situ surveys, observation techniques and street censuses.

The street censuses are based on an analysis of photographs taken and georeferenced in the place of study, published on social networks.

Opportunities and limitations:

The triangulation of techniques validates the results and compensates for the limitations of each technique.

The use of social media data and their interpretation from a socioeconomic perspective has considerable biases and potential ethical barriers to consider.

It requires access and analysis capacity of a large volume of data (big data analysis) of social networks.

Indicators:
Level of active and passive social activity.
Number of social interactions between strangers.
Income level.
Unemployment rate.
Number of people in the space according to age group.
Number of people in the space according to gender.
Thematic:
Public space Cohesion and social capital
Link to health:
Social Mental
Scale of the field of study:
Housing / street / building / bounded public space Block - set of buildings or spaces Neighbourhood (or higher)
Implementation phase:
Diagnosis / pre-project Monitoring and evaluation
Methodological approach:
Observation Qualitative / Participatory Questionnaire