A co-created digital tool for municipal planning of meeting places.

The digital tool will enhance the municipal planners’ ability to plan accordingly to the needs of the intended user group, ensuring that meeting places in local communities are used.

Background: The goal of developing new meeting places in local communities is that the places are being used by the residents to support active living and wellbeing. To achieve this, knowledge about different users' needs and preferences must be easily accessible in municipal planning practice. Thus, we aimed to develop a digital needs assessment tool that could be utilized by stakeholders involved in the planning of new meeting places for activities.
Method: The needs assessment tool was developed through a consensus-based process with researchers and practitioners, which involved several steps. First, a group of experienced practitioners had a brainstorming session to identify factors that promote use of meeting places in different groups of the population based on their expert knowledge. Second, the researchers conducted a literature review. Several scientific databases were searched to locate evidence syntheses and systematic reviews on the topic, as well as recent studies not included in the identified reviews. The next steps were inspired by the Delphi method, expert knowledge and research knowledge were integrated, systematized, and grouped into factors. This process was led by the researchers, and the practitioners were involved in an iterative quality assuring process. Lastly, a survey was carried out by stakeholders that were recruited from relevant networks. The stakeholders rated the importance of each factor and could add new suggestions. The results from the survey were used to reach consensus on factors of more and less importance to promote use of meeting places.
Results: From science and practice combined, a total of 154 factors were identified. These factors were grouped into four age groups and covered the social, physical, and natural environment of the meeting place, as well as individual factors and organizational aspects. Some factors were important for use of meeting places across all age groups, such as meeting place safety, cleanliness and maintenance, lighting, toilet facilities, proximity to transport and residence. However, most of the factors (132) were age-specific needs and preferences of children (1-12 years), youth (13-24 years), adults (25-64 years) and elderly (65+ years). These factors will be incorporated into a digital needs assessment tool that can provide planners with easily accessible consensus-based knowledge about which needs and preferences that must be considered in planning practice.
Conclusion: From both scientific literature and practice a diversity of factors promoting use of meeting places were identified, most of them age-related, emphasizing the importance of planning with the intended target group in mind.