ArXiv Preprint
The interactions of individuals with city neighbourhoods is determined, in
part, by the perceived quality of urban environments. Perceived neighbourhood
quality is a core component of urban vitality, influencing social cohesion,
sense of community, safety, activity and mental health of residents.
Large-scale assessment of perceptions of neighbourhood quality was pioneered by
the Place Pulse projects. Researchers demonstrated the efficacy of
crowd-sourcing perception ratings of image pairs across 56 cities and training
a model to predict perceptions from street-view images. Variation across cities
may limit Place Pulse's usefulness for assessing within-city perceptions. In
this paper, we set forth a protocol for city-specific dataset collection for
the perception: 'On which street would you prefer to walk?'. This paper
describes our methodology, based in London, including collection of images and
ratings, web development, model training and mapping. Assessment of within-city
perceptions of neighbourhoods can identify inequities, inform planning
priorities, and identify temporal dynamics. Code available:
https://emilymuller1991.github.io/urban-perceptions/.
Emily Muller, Emily Gemmell, Ishmam Choudhury, Ricky Nathvani, Antje Barbara Metzler, James Bennett, Emily Denton, Seth Flaxman, Majid Ezzati
2022-11-22
