Towards a decision support tool for assessing the public spaces

Abstract

To give concrete expression to the principles of sustainable development, today’s cities must establish new strategies whose objectives are to challenge previous ideas on the design and use of public spaces.With this objective, it is very important to have appropriate decision-making tools available to assess the quality of public spaces. To meet this challenge, one can take a holistic approach where public spaces are understood as whole systems. In this modest work, we have adopted this approach, as well as presented and developed a method for decision-makers that they can apply to evaluate the quality of public spaces from a sustainable development perspective, using a scientifically valid method of evaluation criteria and indicators. In particular, the method described could be particularly useful in countries whose climate and regional context are very fragile, developing countries like Algeria which, although wishing to ensure their citizens a good quality of urban life, and a good living environment. These countries do not currently have the decision support tools needed to assess the quality of public spaces.