Nature in cities serves a multitude of purposes, one of which is that it provides citizens opportunities to recover from stressful daily urban life. Such stress recovering effects of nature can be experienced through urban green, which in urban planning and design contexts can be divided into large natural areas - urban green space - and small scale elements in urban streets: the urban greenscape. The current study aims at finding the extent to which various small scale natural elements in residential streets and their possible configurations influence citizens' preferences for those streets. The research was conducted through an online survey in four cities in the Netherlands (n = 4,956). It used stated choice methods in a virtual environment street design. The method yielded high quality data, indicating that the use of virtual environments and imagery is suitable for stated choice research in the built environment. The results show that especially trees very strongly influence preference, indicating they deserve more attention and space in cities. Grass, which is typically favored by local governments, and vertical green have the smallest effects in residential streets. Furthermore, the concept of greenscape intensity is introduced as the intensities of both the element and the configuration were found to be highly relevant. The results clearly show that the higher either of these intensities, the more likely a respondent will prefer the greenscape design. Furthermore, low intensity on the one can be compensated by high intensity on the other. With these results, urban design professionals and local governments can better trade-off the different aspects of costs versus positive effects of urban greenscape designs.
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Intermediate reports of my PhD project which reports the results of a Stated Preference Experiment conducted within 18 companies within the chemical industry
DOCUMENT
Background: During the process of decision-making for long-term care, clients are often dependent on informal support and available information about quality ratings of care services. However, clients do not take ratings into account when considering preferred care, and need assistance to understand their preferences. A tool to elicit preferences for long-term care could be beneficial. Therefore, the aim of this qualitative descriptive study is to understand the user requirements and develop a web-based preference elicitation tool for clients in need of longterm care. Methods: We applied a user-centred design in which end-users influence the development of the tool. The included end-users were clients, relatives, and healthcare professionals. Data collection took place between November 2017 and March 2018 by means of meetings with the development team consisting of four users, walkthrough interviews with 21 individual users, video-audio recordings, field notes, and observations during the use of the tool. Data were collected during three phases of iteration: Look and feel, Navigation, and Content. A deductive and inductive content analysis approach was used for data analysis. Results: The layout was considered accessible and easy during the Look and feel phase, and users asked for neutral images. Users found navigation easy, and expressed the need for concise and shorter text blocks. Users reached consensus about the categories of preferences, wished to adjust the content with propositions about well-being, and discussed linguistic difficulties. Conclusion: By incorporating the requirements of end-users, the user-centred design proved to be useful in progressing from the prototype to the finalized tool ‘What matters to me’. This tool may assist the elicitation of client’s preferences in their search for long-term care.
DOCUMENT
Supermarkets are essential urban household amenities, providing daily products, and for their social role in communities. Contrary to many other countries, including nearby ones, the Netherlands have a balanced distribution of supermarkets across villages and urban neighbourhoods. However, spatial supermarket patterns, are subject to influential developments. First, due to economies of scale, there is a tendency for supermarkets to increase their catchment areas and to disappear from peripheral villages. Second, supermarkets are now mainly located in residential areas, although the urban periphery appears to be attractive for the retail sector, perhaps including the rise of hypermarkets. Third, today, online grocery shopping is still lagging far behind on other online shopping products, but a breaks through will dilute population support for in-store supermarkets and can lead to dramatic ‘game changer’ shifts with major spatial and social effects. These three important trends will reinforce each other. Consequences are of natural community meeting places at the expense of social cohesion; reduced accessibility for daily products, leading to more travel, often by car; increasing delivery flows; real estate vacancies, and increasing suburban demand increase for retail and logistics. Expected changes in supermarket patterns require understanding, but academic literature on OGS is still scarce, and does hardly address household behaviour in changing spatial constellations. We develop likely spatial supermarket patterns, and model the consequences for travel demand, social cohesion and real estate demand, as well as the distribution between online and in-store grocery shopping, by developing a stated preference experiment, among Dutch households.
De toenemende verstedelijking levert grote uitdagingen op voor leefbaarheid, gezondheid en kwaliteit van leven in steden. Het is belangrijk dat de openbare ruimte voldoet aan de huidige eisen/wensen van gebruikers en de samenleving, zodat mensen zich veilig en comfortabel voelen en positieve ervaringen hebben in de stad. Er is daarom een groeiende interesse in de relatie tussen de openbare ruimte en de beleving ervan door bewoners, zowel in (wetenschappelijk) onderzoek als bij beleidsmakers. Eerder onderzoek heeft aangetoond dat natuurlijke elementen, zoals parken, groene stroken en bomen, bijdragen aan de subjectieve gezondheid (ontspanning) van gebruikers. Toch is er nog maar weinig bekend over de beleving van specifiek stadsparken en welke kenmerken het meest gewaardeerd worden door gebruikers. Studies die, door middel van innovatieve methodes, de beleving van stadparken analyseren zijn beperkt. Een betrouwbare techniek voor het bepalen van voorkeuren en indirect, beleving, is de stated preference methode. Meestal worden respondenten daarbij gevraagd om hypothetische situaties te beoordelen, gebaseerd op tekstuele beschrijvingen. Virtual reality maakt het echter mogelijk om hypothetische situaties echt te ervaren. Dit project heeft daarom als doel om te analyseren, door middel van een Virtual Reality (VR) Stated Preference experiment, hoe kenmerken van stedelijke parken bijdragen aan de beleving van gebruikers. Beleidsmakers, stedenbouwkundigen en beheerders van de openbare ruimte kunnen deze resultaten gebruiken bij het creëren van parken die aansluiten bij de huidige wensen en behoeften van gebruikers. Ook zal dit project inzicht geven in de bruikbaarheid van VR technologie bij onderzoek naar de beleving van de openbare ruimte.
