Crowd-Sourced Parks in NYC

To date, the practice of public space data collection still followers the traditional collection method such as observational studies and questionnaires. Lynch analyzed user perception of parks in 1960 by asking residents to map and highlight the key elements of urban spaces including paths and landmarks (Lynch, 2008); Whyte observes visitors’ activity and engaging patterns with the urban space infrastructures through videotaping in 1980 (Whyte, 2010). By recording how people interact with other visitors and the surrounding environment, Whyte significantly decreased the labor in the data collection process. However, the lack of engagement with the visitors made it difficult to reveal their perceptions of the public space. More recent attempts of incorporating technology into traditional data collection methods include using cellphone signaling, drone photography, and computer vision algorithms to observe user behaviors. While these evaluation frameworks are limited in sample size, time, and space, applying these methods also requires a wealth of knowledge of the sites, human behaviors, and perceptions (Zabelskyte et al., 2022).