Pedestrian mobility citizen science complements expert mapping for enhancing inclusive neighborhood

Understanding how residents actually use public space at the neighborhood scale remains an unresolved challenge in urban diagnostics, particularly in socio-economically vulnerable areas. This study introduces a novel integration of citizen science with expert-based mapping to uncover socially meaningful spaces that top-down analyses overlook. We present a study that employs citizen science to complement expert-based mapping in the Primer de Maig neighborhood of Granollers, Catalonia, Spain, an area characterized by low-quality public spaces and persistent socio-economic difficulties. Seventy-two residents were organized into 19 groups to record their pedestrian mobility while engaging in protocolized playful social actions of their choice. Analysis of GPS-recorded locations showed that 56% of actions occurred within expert-defined units, while the remaining 44% took place elsewhere. Clustering analysis of geo-located action stops revealed seven distinct clusters, highlighting new spaces of collective activity not captured by expert assessments. Findings from our case study illustrate how combining top-down and bottom-up methods enhances urban diagnostics by integrating community-based experiential perspectives into public space placemaking and informing more inclusive, adaptive strategies for sustainable urban transformation.