Urban planning research and practice provides forceful evidence that urban place-making processes should not be driven by experts and planning professionals alone: they should also build on the experiential knowledge and values of lay citizens. Experience shows that the construction of the green, compact, and healthy city fostered by sustainable development policies requires considering how places are used and valued by all relevant stakeholders. SoftGIS is a form of web-based Public Participation Geographic Information Systems (PPGIS) that provides both a method and tools for mapping the values that people attach to places and for integrating these in professional urban planning practice. This report focuses on three softGIS tools: Mapita’s Maptionnaire, Spacescape’s Bästa Platsen, and SKL’s Geopanelen. Five case studies from Finland and Sweden are analysed so as to discuss some of the main substantive issues surrounding the uptake of softGIS applications urban planning practice and decision-making, particularly in the context of urban densification measures. In so doing, the extent to which softGIS can support dialogue between lay citizens and planning professionals is assessed, with a focus on urban ecosystem services in green areas. It is demonstrated that the potential of softGIS to help broaden communities of practice in urban planning hinges on a conducive institutional context for public participation and dialogue. Furthermore, it is argued that the use of softGIS tools is optimised when it is integrated in a comprehensive multifunctional toolbox that combines both physical and digital forms of public participation.

There exists a debate regarding where to build new housing in increasingly denser cities today. Often it is the green spaces that must be sacrificed which lead to conflicts among decision makers and citizens. Although, some sources claim (Byrne et al., 2010; Van Herzele & Wiedemann, 2003) that it is not only the fact that there is a green area close to you that matters; but rather which values that piece of green land offers you as a citizen. Values of parks can be described as the features or attributes the park area possess that inspire people to go to and stay there. In Stockholm, Sweden these values are connected to sociotopes, a delimited area containing a set of user values with social meaning (Ståhle, 2006). User values thus describes an activity or an experience that is present at a location.  There exists a lack of and a desire for more detailed mapping of user values of green areas as well as a potential need for finding an efficient method for aiding in citizen dialogue when green areas are planned for urban development. The purpose of this thesis is thus to try to incorporate geographical information science (GIS) in urban planning by investigating if it is possible to measure the physical accessibility of user values of a green area before and after its urban development in lines with the recommendations on accessibility from the municipality. Then, try to create a visual tool to be used in the designing phase of urban planning and in citizen dialogue when developing a new urban area. To do this, a case study was done of Årstafältet, a green area in Stockholm that is planned for urban development and improvement of existing and creation of new user values. By using GIS, the user values were defined spatially, and geographical data based on the study area currently as well as after the development where found or created based on descriptions of the new area in planning documents. Accessibility was defined as the physical distance a resident must walk from their home to the closest access point of a user value. Based on previous research, 1000m was deemed the largest distance a resident can walk to be considered a potential user of a user value. An access analysis was made for all residents within the study area to the closest access point of every user value.  The results of the analysis were visualized in two ways, one regarding urban design and another regarding citizen dialogue in the form of bivariate maps and a GIS web application. Apart from the visual maps, some numerical results regarding distance, distance change and number of accessed user values were calculated.   The maps point out the areas that are mostly affected both in the negative and positive sense.  More research needs to be done to decide the best way of deriving and using the numerical measures. Because of the many assumptions and generalizations made in the study it is difficult to make any overall conclusions about the accessibility of user values at Årstafältet. What is more interesting is the reception by people in the field of GIS and urban planning; which was in general positive. They noted upon the important aspect of concretize the design phase of the urban planning process, which often is based on feeling, and create a solid ground to base more informed decisions upon. The visualization methods presented were well received as tools for enabling more people access into the planning process as well as an easy way of exploring geographical data. Also, the possibility to extend this type of access analysis beyond sociotopic user values was deemed as very useful. Lastly, they expressed that this type of analysis is desired by the workers in the field and highly relevant in today’s urban planning process.

This thesis study assesses the accessibility of green spaces with recreational values in Stockholm. Urban green spaces are considered beneficial for human well-being and for mitigating the negative effects of climate change and increased urbanisation. However, the specific social values that green spaces can provide are often overlooked in green space policies, which tend to focus on proximity and size. Access to urban green spaces with the four specific recreational values greenery, play, tranquillity, and walks, was assessed using a network analysis based on a sociotope map that indicates the social value of all public green spaces in Stockholm. Moreover, the accomplishments of the city's greenery goals have been examined. The study has identified differences in accessibility between areas with different qualities and identified focus areas that require improvements. Differentiation between the qualities has led to more accurate information about the accessibility of green spaces. It can provide a basis for more effective measurement to improve accessibility in the municipality. Since the method is tied to the sociotope map as a data basis, further research is needed to make the method applicable to other municipalities. More-over, the results can be applied in multi-criteria analyses of urban development scenarios to incorporate the social significance of green spaces and user perspectives into planning practices. / Detta examensarbete utvärderar tillgängligheten till grönområden med rekreationsvärden i Stockholm. Grönområden i städer anses vara gynnsamma för människors välbefinnande och för att mildra de negativa effekterna av klimatförändringar och ökad urbanisering. De specifika sociala värden som grönområden kan erbjuda bortprioriteras dock ofta i grönområdespolicyer, som tenderar att fokusera på närhet och storlek. Tillgången till urbana grönområden med de fyra specifika rekreationsvärdena grönska, lek, lugn och promenader bedömdes med hjälp av en nätverksanalys baserad på en sociotopkarta som visar det sociala värdet av alla offentliga grönområden i Stockholm. Dessutom har uppfyllelsen av stadens mål för grönska undersökts. Studien har identifierat skillnader i tillgänglighet mellan områden med olika kvaliteter och identifierat fokusområden som kräver förbättringar. Differentieringen mellan kvaliteterna har lett till mer exakt information om tillgängligheten till grönområden. Det kan ge en grund för mer effektiva åtgärder för att förbättra tillgängligheten i kommunen. Eftersom metoden är knuten till sociotopkartan som datagrund behövs ytterligare forskning för att göra metoden tillämpbar på andra kommuner. Dessutom kan resultaten användas i multikriterieanalyser av stadsutvecklingsscenarier för att integrera den sociala betydelsen av grönområden och användarperspektiv i planeringspraxis.

With the global population becoming more urban and less rural, increasingly research has argued for concepts such as establish Green Infrastructure (GI) as a tool for enhancing wildlife survival and human’s living quality (e.g. Harrison et al., 1995; Benedict and McMahon, 2006). However, an interdisciplinary planning approach underpinned by ecological and social evidence has not yet been fully developed. This research therefore seeks to integrate an ecological network with a green space planning standard by exploring the use of biotope and sociotope mapping methods. Seeking a comprehensive planning that takes all green resources into account, a green space typology is firstly developed according to Taiwanese contexts for identifying green spaces from land use maps. In order to specify effective features of these green spaces to bird survival and user preferences, an insight was conducted into the relationship of ‘birds and urban habitats’, as well as ‘human preferred urban green spaces’ in Taipei City. Important environmental factors influencing bird distribution and influencing human experiences in urban green spaces are respectively specified and developed into an ecological value index (EVI) to detail potential habitats and a social value index (SVI) to evaluate recreational green space provision. Interestingly, proximity to green space appears to plays a more critical role in human preferences than bird survival in Taipei city; size is important both as a habitat and for creating an attractive green space; and green space quality tends to be a more significant factor than its structure for both wildlife and people. Utilising the bio-sociotope maps, this thesis argues for a number of strategies: conserving, enlarging, or creating large green spaces in green space deficient areas; increasing ecological and recreational value by enhancing green space quality of specific characteristics; and tackling gravity distance by combining green space accessibility and attractiveness in optimising urban green structure. As these suggestions are a challenge to apply in intensively developed urban areas, barriers from land use, political mechanisms, technical shortages, and cultural characteristics are also explored with possible resolutions presented for facilitating implementation. It is clear that optimising a multifunctional GI for both wildlife and people requires interdisciplinary knowledge and cooperation from various fields. The EVI and SVI developed within this thesis create the potential for a more place-specific and quantifiable green spaces strategy to help better link ecological and social functions in urban areas.