Merging Computational Science and Urban Planning in the Information Age: The Use of Location-Based Social Media for Urban Analysis

Nowadays, due to the rapid development of the cities and the information society, planners are reconsidering the way in which urban planning is done. In this framework, a multidisciplinary team work of computational science experts and urban planners is fundamental. As a result of recent collaborations of this kind, the use of located-based social media for urban analysis is becoming a fascinating field of study. Considering these facts, the ongoing research reported in this paper starts from the assumption that a spatial analysis of the aggregate activity generated by such networks can show us how social activity in a city is distributed, revealing spatial patterns evident in the social life of cities that could be useful for urban analysis. The examination of data from one such network is proposed in this research in order to produce an urban analysis of the spatial patterns of one specific city. An evaluation of the information gathered and of the analysis made is then projected to ascertain the potentialities of such information for urban planning. The main focus is to explore how the flow of information generated by location-based social media could be use as a tool for this field of studies and the potentials of merging computational science and urban planning. At the current stage of the research, the exploration performed shows that the data produced by location-based social media may enhance a knowledge-based urban development process and that, based on previous experiences, the combination of other fields of study and urban planning knowledge could become an important issue to be promoted in order to enhance the city quality.