Public Space Research

Parks and other public spaces allow different kinds of people to claim space, practice their particular activities and rituals, encounter one another, relax, and have fun.  We feel that well cared for, culturally inclusive public spaces are essential to sustaining civility and social capital in the urban context.  ActKnowledge staff have extensive experience in studying the use, knowledge, and valuing of public space, including ethnographic studies of urban national parks and beaches in New York, Jersey City, and Philadelphia, usership studies of New York landscape parks, and a sociological study of a city neighborhood affected by the attacks of September 11, 2001.  Two ActKnowledge staff members used Prospect Park in Brooklyn as the setting for their doctoral research in environmental psychology.  Public space research tools include ethnography, environment perception and evaluation, user surveys and census counts, and participatory planning and design.

• Ethnographic research captures people’s cultural relationship to the space, specifically the uses and activities groups and communities make of a space and the meanings and significance it holds for them.  Ethnographic research methods include participant observation, interviews and transect walks (interviews conducted while walking through the park on a specified route), behavioral mapping, and focus groups.  These methods produce precise descriptions of the physical features of public spaces which are then tied to specific uses, knowledge, and meanings.
• Environment perception and evaluation involves research into individual people’s experience of public places, including use, knowledge, and valuing of landscape and design features; also sensory perception and emotional response to the structure and qualities of the environment.  Methods include interviews and transect walks, and photography. 
• The user survey is usually an instrument administered to a statistically representative sample of the user population in behalf of management. User surveys seek information on such things as park activity, knowledge, preferences, likes and dislikes, and desired changes.
• The census count employs manual counts and statistical projections to reach a census of park visitors.
• Participatory planning and design involves collaboration between users and management in planning and prioritizing changes in either the physical environment or the programming of a public space.  ActKnowledge brings to this effort Theory of Change, a proven participatory methodology that originated in evaluation of social change initiatives.