On the Potential of Social Media Data in Urban Planning: Findings from the Beer Street in Curitiba, Brazil

ABSTRACT

Social media makes available vast amounts of data for cities to study urban dynamics. Curitiba, Brazil, is well-known for its urban planning. Recently, the city announced a plan to create a Beer Street to promote local craft beers and support the brewing industry. We use this real case study to explore the potential of social media data in the urban planning context. Analysing data from the Untappd application and combining it to official datasets, our results show how social media data could help to guide the decisions regarding the Beer Street and can potentially become a strategic urban planning tool.

KEYWORDS:

• Data mining
• evidence driven policy
• social media
• urban planning

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank EDUFI (former CIMO), and the research agencies Fundação Araucária and FAPEMIG.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. http://www.instagram.com.

2. http://www.foursquare.com.

3. http://www.untappd.com.

4. http://www.pewglobal.org/2016/02/22/smartphone-ownership-and-internet-usage-continues-to-climb-in-emerging-economies.

5. https://datareportal.com/reports/digital-2019-brazil?rq = brazil.

6. In this study, data is considered the simplest form of information. Data becomes evidence as it is put into context and used to support decision making.

7. https://goo.gl/NzuF65, accessed 5 April 2020.

8. https://www.bandab.com.br/geral/curitiba-devera-ter-em-breve-a-rua-da-cerveja-saiba-onde-ela-ficara/.

9. Based on an average number of public of some recent craft beer festivals promoted in Curitiba: https://goo.gl/a3OxwK.

Additional information

Funding

This study was financed in part by the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - Brasil (CAPES) - Finance Code 001. This work was also partially supported by the project URBCOMP [Grant\#403260/2016-7 from CNPq agency] and GoodWeb [Grant\#2018/23011-1 from São Paulo Research Foundation – FAPESP].