Understanding contemporary urban spaces: alternative spatial mapping techniques for exploring people's spaces

"Land-use" is one of the most popular mapping techniques used by urban planners. However, the four or five highly generalized large-scale land-uses they employ are unable to capture most urban activities that are important to ordinary people. While People’s Spaces (Perera, 2016) argues for the need to understand how people create spaces for their daily activities and cultural practices, critical cartographers have been using different mapping techniques to explore and understand people’s spaces. This study juxtaposes social space and critical cartographic discourses to explore how these alternative spatial mapping techniques could be adapted for planning and development, to better understand people’s spaces. The study outcomes identify spatial mapping techniques and processes by applying them to the Industry neighborhood areas in Muncie, Indiana, USA.