Modern Practices of Studying Urban Space: Sociological Discourse
The article provides an overview of various methods of studying the urban environment. Mental mapping, the go-along method, traditional surveys, and Ian Gale’s quantitative methodology aimed at assessing the quality of urban space are described. Visual methods are actively used to study social processes in the city, including combinations with standard research practices such as observation and interviews. There is a modernization of the usual ways of studying the city through the process of computerization and digitalization (the use of VR-platforms, the analysis of visual content in social networks), machine learning, the involvement of big data (processing large amounts of statistical data, the emergence of new methodologies for calculating the indices for measuring the comfort of urban space). The modern methodology of sociological research on the city area is changing in accordance with the transformations of urban space itself.