GIS-Based Spatio-temporal Analysis for Social Events in Urban Public Spaces

Urban public spaces have been considered as an essential part of cities throughout history and one of the most significant indicators of the quality of urban life. Over the span of urban life, public spaces such as squares, streets, and plazas have continuously reflected the complexities of their cities’ cultural, social, and economic contexts. The social production of a space through different activities that take place when the people are present in the space such as watching, listening, and experiencing and active and passive participation in the environment that make the space live and dynamic, and transforming the physical space, into a place that is full of emotions and senses. The concept of an event is widely ranged in types and activities that happen at a given place and time. Social events are mainly connected to the urban public spaces and can take place day or night, limited in time or continuous. This paper introduces a computational approach that utilizes GIS tool as a technology to represent and visualize the spatio-temporal analysis for the different social events carried out in public urban spaces. Using GIS in creating the spatio-temporal analytical maps will clear the definition of public urban spaces and determine their social characteristics which should be considered when constructing the visions of upgrading and the development of urban public spaces.