"Data can open our eyes to many things, because it gives us a chance to simulate different solutions." Hanna Obracht-Prondzynska talks about how data allows designing better cities

Ewa Karendys

03 of January '25

Hanna Obracht-Prondzynska

Photo credit: Alan Stocki

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We are not aware of the potential that data brings to urban planning. We train data analysts for the business market, but those geared to analyze very specific city data - we don't have any," says Hanna Obracht-Prondzyńska, an academic specializing in urban design and data analysis.

Hanna OBRACHT-PRONDZYÑSKA - Assistant Professor at the University of Gdansk in the Department of Spatial Studies, academic teacher specializing in urban design and data analysis. She is an architect and urban planner. She has international academic and design experience from China, South Africa, the United States, Colombia, the Netherlands, Romania, Germany. She worked at the Pomeranian Regional Planning Office, co-creating, among other things, the spatial development plan for the Pomeranian Voivodeship and the Gdansk-Gdynia-Sopot metropolitan area.

Ewa Karendys: How important is data in spatial planning?

Hanna Obracht-Prondzynska: Data is crucial for understanding things we can't see. Yes, we urban planners can use intuition, but in fact very many things it does not tell us. Take, for example, the problem of spatial accessibility to schools adapted to the needs of children with disabilities. Do we have an idea of where in the city they should be located so that both children and their families can use them comfortably?

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Ewa Karendys: What else?

Hanna Obracht-Prondzyńska: Housing, for example. We know, for example, what the needs of the poorest urban residents are, because these people are covered by some form of care. But we are fleeced by a whole group of people who are in the gap, that is, earning enough to somehow manage without social assistance, but not enough to take a loan. We have no idea what scale this is, and thus what housing policy the city should pursue. Another issue: we don't combine data between local governments. That is, for example, a very large number of children live in suburbs and at the same time use infrastructure in the city. How is the local government supposed to know how many school places to prepare? How to ensure that this school is actually closest to those who need it?

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Ewa Karendys: What surprises me is that despite the huge problems with short-term rentals in our cities, we don't analyze Airbnb data....

Hanna Obracht-Prondzyńska: ...Neither the issue of microclimates, nor whether we are creating efficient places that will be comfortable for different residents. Someday I would like to see a study analyzing what residents' needs are in relation to public transportation, taking into account different groups, such as gender. There is a lot of talk about the fact that women have many more responsibilities, so they travel not in the relationship in which we most often organize transportation, which is home-work, but still to kindergarten, school, clinic, shopping. And we don't think about this network of connections, yet it is different.

Another example: as part of a research project carried out in cooperation with the University of Hong Kong, we spent a lot of time studying the perception of the Tricity based on social media data. It turned out that if we live in places that are friendly to live, with high quality services, even the content we communicate on social media has a more positive charge. To put it simply: we're not hecklers.

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Ewa Karendys: This is very interesting.

Hanna Obracht-Prondzyńska: Exactly. On the other hand, if we live in a congested area, where there is a lack of common spaces, the emotional charge we put on the web is much more negative. It turns out that we can palpably sense how the neighborhood we live in affects our behavior. We also looked at posts from the area in terms of language. The conclusion? There are places readily inhabited by Ukrainians, others by Germans, still others by Spaniards. This can be put to good use in urban planning, think about social integration centers.

The results of these analyses opened my eyes to various issues that, as a planner, I had not paid attention to before. For example, that even on the scale of Gdansk, the popularity of places among different social groups varies greatly. And that social segregation is a big risk. We also noticed differences in the behavior of tourists and residents.

Ewa Karendys: Please tell us more about this.

Hanna Obracht-Prondzynska: Residents and tourists perceive space differently, they function differently in it. For us, residents, the street grid and convenience of movement are more important; a tourist navigates more in terms of landmarks in the city.

Ewa Karendys: All right, but did the results of this research reach the local government?

Hanna Obracht-Prondzyńska: We did this research as part of our scientific work, only now, after systematizing the results, can we get the local government interested in this topic.

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Ewa Karendys: Is it difficult to obtain this kind of data? Could our local governments do such analyses on their own?

Hanna Obracht-Prondzyńska: The availability of data varies greatly. For example, TripAdvisor does not provide data for surveys, which is surprising. However, there are many sites that collect data and provide it to analysts - both for a fee and free of charge. When it comes to social media, I admit frankly, I'm frustrated that the Big Five [the largest computer and software companies: Alphabet (formerly Google), Amazon, Meta Platforms (formerly Facebook), Apple and Microsoft - ed. note]. sells our data to the wider business community, meanwhile, access for planners or local governments is very limited. And yet, identifying needs in relation to city space is vital to our quality of life! However, there is data that the local government could reach for, such as Airbnb data. I myself took up this challenge and began to analyze it.

Ewa Karendys: What are the conclusions?

Hanna Obracht-Prondzynska: Quite alarming. Short-term rentals are pushing residents from areas that are well supplied with services and offer a high quality of life into suburbs. Rather than ignoring the problem, local governments should monitor the scale of this phenomenon. Without this knowledge, we will never shape a good housing policy.

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Ewa Karendys: Geolocation data can also be used for urban planning.

Hanna Obracht-Prondzynska: Indeed, cell phone data has great potential. If only because we don't really know how many residents we have in cities. Recently, I took out a leaflet from my mailbox encouraging people to register in Gdansk, and I looked at the data - the discrepancy between the number of residents reported by the Central Statistical Office and how many people are actually registered is large. Neither value is true.

Meanwhile, cell phone data gives us information on how many active residents or people are in the city. This is very important, if only in terms of organizing efficient public transportation or deploying schools. Such data is a treasure trove of knowledge; in 2021, the Pomeranian Regional Planning Office analyzed discrepancies between the number of registered residents and cell phone data, based on spatial data of cell phone users in the region, purchased from T-Mobile. It also examined how we move around on a daily basis, and the amount of tourist traffic.

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Ewa Karendys: Such data are easier to obtain?

Hanna Obracht-Prondzynska: Yes, it is. However, the price is prohibitive. Many local governments, unfortunately, cannot afford to buy them.

Ewa Karendys: What is the problem? Why is data collection, apart from the issue of money, an exception rather than an everyday occurrence among local governments?

Hanna Obracht-Prondzynska: There is still often no awareness of the potential of data. And this can actually be seen at each of the stages of thinking about the city - from monitoring the dynamics of change, to planning, to evaluating completed investments. I believe that in comparison with the tools available on the market, our planning documents are very archaic.

Ewa Karendys: Archaic?

Hanna Obracht-Prondzynska:Why do we still use blobs and dashes, paragraphs, although we have a variety of tools that allow 3D simulation and predict the consequences of investments? We can insert planned developments into the existing structure of the city and see how they will affect the landscape, congestion, the way the area functions, flood risk, ventilation, the temperature in the city, or transportation issues, such as the occupancy of public transportation lines. We have such tools, we just don't know how to use them yet.

In the context of sharing data, there is also a great deal of concern about what it will be used for. Besides, the deficits are already at the academic level. At universities, we still do too little exploratory research using today's dynamically developing tools and, paradoxically, very few scientific studies based on detailed data are being produced. And this also translates later into planning practice.

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Ewa Karendys: Is there any improvement? Are our local governments starting to take more interest in using data in urban planning?

Hanna Obracht-Prondzyńska: I'm very happy to see that cities are reaching for different tools, such as geo-surveys. A lot is changing in this area and larger cities are providing more and more interesting studies. There is curiosity and interest, but many of the studies that are needed break down over funding on the one hand, and competence on the other. There is concern among local governments about whether they have the staff to handle the tools, the data they will invest in.

Ewa Karendys: What is the importance of data quality?

Hanna Obracht-Prondzynska: Very high, if not the highest! For me, a person who works with data on a daily basis, the biggest issue is the lack of integration of data and the lack of georeferencing, i.e. assigning it to space. It is said that it takes 60 percent of the time spent on a data-based project to prepare the databases so that they are usable. Well, and we don't have such a profession as an urban data analyst at all. We train data analysts for the business market, but those geared toward analyzing very specific city data - we don't have any at all.

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Ewa Karendys: An urban data analyst should be in every planning office?

Hanna Obracht-Prondzyńska: We still have so many steps to take that it won't happen today. It will take time and more awareness, not only of city planning offices, which often already have one, but also of very different institutions: tax offices, health institutions, educational institutions... The Gdansk Development Office or the Office of Architecture and Spatial Planning in Warsaw may have a great staff of analysts, but until they have good quality data, they won't do much about it.

We're not using the potential of the data that's already online at all. It takes quite a bit of expertise to tap into that data and really make use of it.

Ewa Karendys: In other European countries, the use of data is doing better?

Hanna Obracht-Prondzynska: A lot depends on the universities and the cooperation between the local government and the academic center. There are cities that I admire for the way they are developing and how they are able to use data and simulation tools. Take Amsterdam, where there is a center that analyzes data about the city: how it functions, what needs it has. In Helsinki, a model of the city (the so-called digital twin) has been created to add various information about planned investments and show simulations: how water conditions will change, the issue of the city's ventilation, or the amount of traffic in given areas. This is a great tool not only to help planners and designers make decisions, but also very useful in participatory processes. Seeing such tools, one would like to say: gee, our urban planning is really archaic! Today we have tools that would allow us to shape the planning system in a completely different way.

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Ewa Karendys: And one that would help counter galloping climate change.

Hanna Obracht-Prondzyńska: Data can open our eyes to many things, because it gives us a chance to simulate different solutions. The next issue is artificial intelligence, which allows us to generate many solutions and choose the one that will be least harmful and most beneficial from the perspective of ensuring a good quality of life in the city.

Ewa Karendys: The role of artificial intelligence in urban design will also increase?

Hanna Obracht-Prondzynska: Yes, and it is already happening. Tools are being developed that make it possible to generate millions of variants of new development for some part of the city. From my perspective, these tools will give us the opportunity to catch poor solutions that planners would not have been able to foresee in a given space. More options will emerge, which later planners will select, I hope - also taking into account the data.

Ewa Karendys: Thank you for the interview.