Quantitative metrics can explain choices and outcomes in urban systems. Understanding the relationships between spatial planning and the factors that can guide a team of urban planners to design new cities or regenerate existing ones is very useful but often complex. In OHK's work in urban design, we often presented "scale comparisons" of planning areas with statements like "the area of planning is the size of London." It is telling to compare the characteristics of land development in China or Dubai to a mature city in Europe. From our experience, this narrative does not always advance analytics that make it into the design process.
We conclude that metrics and data analytics are challenged as a practical planning tool and that using urban indicators albeit useful is not relevant in most work done by planning firms. In this respect, we see two challenges: (1) planners are not data mining experts and the skill set required to plan a new urban core, a city or a neighborhood does not include urban informatics or data modeling, and (2) even if the metrics are developed, there is gap between having them and applying them— ex ante to derive a planning decision.
OHK set out to come up with a practitioners' framework that can advance the application of metrics, indicators and comparative quants in design. First, we wanted to reduce the complexity around determining which indicators to use and how to measure them including which source data and what modeling techniques. The overall aim is to reduce the ex-post emphasis often associated with metrics and scientific and policy reviews and to streamline their use for urban design purposes. Secondly, to make the framework tool-ready, accessible and not complicated for planners, city administrators and urban experts to apply.
OHK is currently applying the framework in various urban planning projects and working with partner planning firms to afford them the expertise to use it to make data-based interventions in their design assignments. To aid in the dialogue between a planning firm, its client, a planning approval authority and the public, we designed a presentation tool that offers a side-by-side visual comparison of the metrics (as shown in the above photo). Here, it is presented in Arabic for decision-makers in the Cairo Governorate. After we completed data mining and information modeling and analytics for the city’s urban core, we captured the 100+ indicators in various decision tiers and displayed them in this large-format color Infowheel© which makes it easy to find any specific indicator. A planner can illustrate quickly and easily through visual comparison how metrics of a certain area compare to others, and by simply rotating the wheel more metrics are presented with results instantly. Photo shows the Downtown Cairo wheel with the colors denoting various decision tiers and categories of metrics such as land use, sustainability, economics, and benchmarks. The wheel can be bilingual or in any language. Photo © OHK Consultants
In response, OHK designed sets of accessible, standardized and open-data indicators that are categorized around planning decision tiers. Each set comes with an established methodology. Applying any one indicator under a tier helps derive patterns and trends of urbanization and offers perspectives for early design decisions. Over the course of 2016, the OHK team, through a series of consulting assignments, expert reviews, and modeling techniques developed and tested hundreds of metrics in the development and redevelopment of urban areas in cities around the world. An important distinction in the framework is that decisions are prospective and not retrospective -- not made after a plan is implemented but during planning.
Currently, the framework includes ten tiers of analytics and 120 metrics or indicators that can define an urban area and guide planning teams. Most recently, we piloted the framework to measure and characterize more than 50 municipal zones in Downtown Cairo's 3-million square urban fabric using a combination of high-resolution land datasets, on-ground surveys, and analytical research into spatial, economic, population, and sustainability characteristics. These zones were delineated and then analyzed in spatial and socioeconomic terms, and a regeneration master plan was derived using metrics during planning and not after the fact.
OHK Consultants publishes urban indicators for cities around the world under the copyright Infowheel© with all rights reserved. No part may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of OHK Consultants. For more information about OHK’s informatics services that can help planners and cities reshape their design decisions, contact us.