Identity & Function Walking Audits

  • Identity & Function Walking Audits (IFWA) are structured walks carried out by local groups to explore & assess their own neighbourhoods. The audits define the tangible and intangible elements of a place that are most important its ongoing identity and function.

  • Identity & Function Walking Audits draw on the principles of Citizen Planning and Citizen Science. They make use of local knowledge, observation and documentation to gather broad and robust place-based data.

    The method focuses on what urban theorist Jane Jacobs described in the 1960s as the particulars of a place - the specific features, assets, rhythms, patterns and dynamics that are often best understood by people who have experienced a place over time and understand what makes it tick.

    The method can be used by residents, community groups, councils, businesses, researchers and practitioners.

    Identity & Function Walking Audits form part of the broader Identity & Function methodology.

Walking Audits Emerald & Gembrook

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  • The things that make a place work are often hiding in plain sight. Visitors, even expert visitors can’t see the elements that are obvious to locals who experience a place over time.

    These elements consist of the countless small decisions, dynamics, relationships, details and routines that shape a place.

    Some of these elements can be seen on a map, but many only become visible through observation and lived experience. This is why locals make are such effective place researchers.

  • Walking audits provide a structured way to document these qualities before they are overlooked, forgotten or lost. They help communities, researchers and practitioners build a more complete understanding of what contributes to the identity and function of a place.

    Walking audits can explore questions such as:

    • What makes this place distinctive?

    • What qualities contribute to its identity?

    • What helps this place function well?

    • What should be protected, strengthened or better understood?

  • Step 1: Bring together people who share an interest in a place.

    Step 2: Decide what question, issue, quality or function of place you want to examine. Select the area, route or site you want to investigate.

    Step 3: Complete a structured walking audit.

    Step 4: Review and moderate the walk data with other participants.

    Step 5: Submit photographs, maps, scans of paper audits and observations.

    Step 6: Review the Data Rollup Report created from your submitted walk data.

    Where audits form part of a larger research project, anonymised walk data may also contribute to an Identity & Function Assessment or Study.

  • Participant: Join a walk organised by a local group or project team

    Host: Organise and facilitate a walking audit for a local club, organisation or group

    Research Partner: Run a series of Walking Audits to inform a larger Identity & Function Assessment (IFA), Identity & Function Study (IFS) or place-based project.

“Cities have the capability of providing something for everybody, only because, and only when, they are created by everybody.”

- Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities

Get Involved

Host a Walk

Organise and facilitate an Identity & Function Walking Audit in your town, neighbourhood or community by filling out this registration form.

Don’t worry if the details of your walk change after registration, you’ll be able to come back & edit this form.

Join a Walk

Walks are promoted and organised by local groups. Join a local walk or host your own.

If you would like to hold a solo or independent walk outside a local group, contact Hello City directly.

Use IFWA for a Strategy or Masterplan

Hello City can design and support a program of Walking Audits for local government, state government, community, campus or precinct development projects. Call or send a message to discuss your project.

“City processes in real life are too complex to be routine, too particularized for application as abstractions. They are always made up of interactions among unique combinations of particulars, and there is no substitute for knowing the particulars.”

“Inductive reasoning of this kind is, again, something that can be engaged in by ordinary, interested citizens, and again they have the advantage over planners.”

– Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Chapter 22.