Case Study: The University of Chicago improves park planning and engagement with Unacast location data

The University of Chicago uncovers 3 advantages of smartphone GPS data with Unacast

The University of Chicago sought to enhance its urban planning and public park development by moving beyond traditional, often inequitable, models. Their challenge was to integrate new, trustworthy data streams to better measure park usage, improve accessibility, and validate the effectiveness of public spaces. They partnered with location data vendor Unacast to gain these geospatial insights.

Unacast provided the university with clean, validated smartphone GPS data, which offered high-precision insights into how people actually move through and use urban parks. The solution revealed unexpected patterns, such as a prized garden drawing less foot traffic than a nearby parking lot used for tailgating, allowing planners to focus resources more effectively. The data quantified cross-visits and visualized foot traffic, helping to identify and address inequities in park access and strengthen connections between parks and adjacent commercial corridors to drive both commerce and visits.

The University of Chicago