TITLE:
Perspectives in Urban Planning Research: Methods and Tools
AUTHORS:
Janes Ouma Odongo, Donghui Ma
KEYWORDS:
Research Methods, Urban Planning, Tools, Urban Governance, Sustainability
JOURNAL NAME:
Current Urban Studies,
Vol.9 No.4,
December
10,
2021
ABSTRACT: The physical urban terrain across cities continually evolves through
insights, consultations, deliberate redesigning or random acts by community
members and natural forces that reshape the urbanscapes and how urban spaces
are used. These built urban
environments, including the quality of air, water and infrastructure therein,
determined through research-informed
designs and redesigns, are aimed at suiting the needs of space users in
consideration of their social, psychological, political, cultural, financial,
physical and such other dispositions and needs. Such research methods and tools
used in shaping urban planning are also evolving. This paper discusses these
contemporary research methods, tools and technology used in an urban planning inquiry. It applies current trends
and examples to illustrate the employment of the methods used in researching
urban planning to inform the design, development and operation of urban spaces.
It is intended to be a valuable introductory reference for emerging researchers
in urban planning, especially, undergraduate and postgraduate students with
limited previous exposure to urban planning research, who are looking for a
consolidated starting point. The
authors found this to be largely lacking. Established researchers in the
discipline will find the article useful as well. It concludes that future
research in the discipline should not ignore established research techniques in
addressing urban vulnerabilities.