Evaluation Process of Urban Spatial Quality and Utility Trade-Off for Post-COVID Working Preferences

Abstract

The formation of cities, and the relocation of workers to densely populated areas reflect a spatial equilibrium, in which the higher real consumption levels of urban areas are offset by lower non-monetary amenities [1]. However, as the society progress toward a post-COVID stage, the prevailing decentralized delivery systems and location-based services, the growing trend of working from home, with citizens’ shifting preference of de-appreciating densities and gathering, have not only changed the possible spatial distribution of opportunities, resources, consumption and amenities, but also transformed people’s preference regarding desirable urban spatial qualities, value of amenities, and working opportunities [2, 3]. This research presents a systematic method to evaluate the perceived trade-off between urban spatial qualities and urban utilities such as amenities, transportation, and monetary opportunities by urban residence in the post-COVID society. The outcome of the research will become a valid tool to drive and evaluate urban design strategies based on the potential self-organization of work-life patterns and social profiles in the designated neighbourhood. To evaluate the subjective perception of the urban residence, the study started with a comparative survey by asking residence to compare two randomly selected urban contexts in a data base of 398 contexts sampled across Hong Kong and state their living preference under the presumption of following scenarios: 1. working from home; 2. working in city centre offices. Core information influencing the spatial equilibrium are provided in the comparable urban context such as street views, housing price, housing space, travel time to city centre, adjacency to public transport and amenities, etc. Each context is given a preference score calculated with Microsoft TrueSkill Bayesian ranking algorithm [4] based on the comparison survey of two scenarios. The 398 contexts are further analysed via GIS and image processing, to be deconstructed into numerical values describing main features for each of the context that influence urban design strategies such as composition of spatial features, amenity allocation, adjacency to city centre and public transportations. Machine learning models are trained with the numerical values of urban features as input and two preference scores for the two working scenarios as the output. The correlation heat maps are used to identify main urban features and its p-value that influence residence’s preference under two working scenarios in post–COVID era. The same model could also be applied to inform the direction of urban design strategies to construct a sustainable community for each type of working population and validate the design strategies via predicting its competitiveness in attracting residence and developing target industries.