Multiparametric Analysis of Urban Environmental Quality for Estimating Neighborhood Renewal Alternatives

The neighborhood renewal process is an important opportunity to update the built environment; however, major changes to the built environment might decrease spatial performance and environmental quality. In these processes, there is a need to evaluate urban renewal alternatives, especially the quality of the environment, to understand the performance of the newly designed built environment. The quality of the built environment depends on a variety of aspects (such as walkability, energy level, security, open spaces, water permeability, etc.), several of which can be assessed using diverse measurements and evaluation models. Current new technological developments, based on GIS, enable the evaluation of diverse aspects of environmental quality and promote urban renewal decision-making processes. Urban renewal needs to harness these models in the decision-making approaches to improve assessment processes of urban renewal alternative estimations that consider future performance and quality of the built environment. In this article, we present a 3D-GIS multiparametric scenario analysis for neighborhood renewal alternatives estimation to evaluate the performance and quality of the built environment as part of the decision-making process. The multiparametric approach will include an evaluation analysis of several aspects of environmental quality, including walkability, accessibility, sense of security, energy, shade, water infiltration, visibility, and more. The analysis results will indicate the level of performance for each aspect as indices for environmental quality. The multiparametric scenario analysis for neighborhood renewal will be conducted on three renewal alternatives for one neighborhood in the city of Hatzor HaGlilit, Israel.