Spatial Planning and Analysis in City Environments

The SPACE Research Group specialises in theoretical and applied research that actively engages with external audiences in the public, private and third sectors.

Our aim is to better understand the way cities and urban environments work, as well as helping to develop better planning and policy approaches for designing and managing urban settlements.

We have substantive interests across development management, land use, population change, urban morphology, urban design, transport, and housing. Specifically, our research covers topics including: housing and land markets; built environment and infrastructure externalities; active travel and transport; spatial variations in social and health inequalities; social capital and service provision; public participation, engagement and social justice in spatial planning processes; urban design responses to social and natural problems; and urbanisation and urban poverty reduction in developing countries.

We take both quantitative and qualitative approaches to research, as well as mixed methods and data integration. These are complemented by specific methodological interests in spatial analysis, computational and statistical modelling.

Influence and impact

Our research Group has been funded by a, or undertaken on behalf of, a range of organisations including the Economic and Social Research Council, the National Environment Research Council, Global Challenges Research Fund, The Leverhulme Trust, the Department for International Development and the Welsh and Scottish Governments. It has re-framed UN debates on sustainable housing, the urban informal economy and refugee integration; improved outdoor education for children and young people in the UK; identified patterns of social vulnerability to climate change and flooding in Scotland and Wales; and led to the development of frameworks and models for measuring waterways’ public benefits, land use, car and public transport, pedestrian and cycle behaviour.