Can social media play a role in urban planning? A literature review

In recent years, the widespread use of social media has generated new and big datasets and provided new platforms for urban planning. However, existing studies have often been case-specific or focused on a specific planning domain, leaving the role of social media in urban planning generally questioned. This study conducts a systematic review of to which extent social media can be used in urban planning. There are two main findings. On the one hand, social media data have been increasingly used for urban analysis and modelling, often combined with conventional and new datasets. The domains of application include individual activity patterns, urban land use, transportation behavior, and landscape. On the other hand, social media have provided a new platform for participation, communication and collaboration. They provide new opportunities for cities to hear the voices of distinctive social groups, even those who do not formally participate in planning processes. In recent years, citizens have used social media to initiate and organize themselves collective actions in planning practices. Issues of using social media data in urban planning include population and spatial biases, privacy issues, and difficulties in extracting useful information out of the social media data. It is necessary to pay more attention to the proper dealing with these issues during the collection and methodological handling of social media data.