Planning for Urban Livability: Integrating Socio-Spatial Indicators in City-Making

Visions of livable neighborhoods are receiving increasing priority on contemporary city-making agendas. Yet, while city-makers have long turned to various tools supporting economic and environmental visions, there is a limited integration of indicators to enhance socio-spatial outcomes, such as urban livability (UL). UL has underlying spatial and cultural components, adding significant complexity to city-making practices. This is often not adequately taken into account in current decision-support tools, nor in planning processes. This research examines gaps to enable indicator-led city-making for integrated socio-spatial outcomes with multiple partners and collaborators. This study exposes key challenges for the integration of socio-spatial indicators in city-making processes, with an international literature review and a survey among city-makers in Aotearoa New Zealand. It highlights critical barriers such as the need for culturally appropriate data and indicators, engagement, and improved feedback between collaborating stakeholders. While offering some practical recommendations for city-making research and practice, our findings suggest that systemic changes are necessary to dismantle existing power dominances and to influence current city-making paradigms to reflect critical ontological shifts.