Face-to-face interviews and location-based social networks: Comparing methods of mapping community spaces in the Tokyo suburb of Minamiashigara

Abstract

Many suburban areas worldwide are facing decline and demographic shifts. A common issue faced by many suburbs is that their dispersed and sprawling character makes it difficult to apply standard urban planning and revitalization prescriptions designed for denser settings. The first step towards more accurately assessing these dispersed communities' needs is to identify the sociological mapping approaches best suited to examining them, a notable gap in the existing research on the topic. Towards this end, this research compares how two major urban planning participation tools play out in a Tokyo suburb: the traditional approach of mapping via face-to-face interviews and an internet-based approach that relies on Location-Based Social Networks (LSBNs). We evaluate the contextual effectiveness of these tools in capturing the nuances of community attachment in Minamiashigara, a suburban municipality in the west of Tokyo. The results indicate that interviews and LBSNs offer complementary insights: interviews help to visualize localized, subjective experiences, while LBSNs provide much broader geographical coverage and scale for the time invested. This research suggests that suburban urban planners and policymakers can make their planning and regeneration processes more participatory and community-informed by blending these two approaches rather than employing only one or the other.