Urban Change Readiness Index

Measuring how prepared for substantial change your community and stakeholders are.

The Urban Change Readiness Index is a research framework built to understand community and stakeholder (internal and external) sentiment towards substantial urban change. This evidence-based approach, developed by Studio THI, explores how prepared communities, organisations and key stakeholders are for change, including levels of awareness, knowledge and sentiment, along with their confidence in the system to manage change well.

47% of people feel anxious about urban change proposals.

A reliable measure of community knowledge.

Data for the Index is gathered through an online community survey, which is tailored to explore the specific urban transition scenarios or themes of planning or urban regeneration projects.  

The survey is distributed to a recruited and incentivised sample of 200 people who live in and around the project location and are reflective of the area’s demographic profile.

The survey is extended to local elected officials, organisation staff, government and non-government agencies - providing a ‘whole of system’ view of preparedness. 

The results of the survey are translated into a Change Readiness Index and can be segmented by audience and geography.

To implement the Index, we work with the project team to:

  • Tailor the base survey instrument to explore the specific project or area’s transition themes

  • Define the specific recruitment criteria for this project and engage a recruitment agency to recruit participants 

  • Distribute survey link to recruited participants and collect data. 

  • Collect data, analyse results and develop insights and key transition themes

  • Enrich key themes through a social and traditional media sentiment analysis and the results from previous engagement activities (if applicable)

  • Create Index output by specific audience cohort and geography to compare and contrast results 

  • Workshop emerging themes and transition challenges

The implementation of the Index provides a base from which to build an urban transition leadership strategy based on a ‘whole of community’ perspective.

Research with 360 people living in high growth communities in SEQ, Melbourne and Sydney and found:

  • 56% of people were not aware of the projected changes for their community

  • 47% of people felt anxious about any proposed changes

  • 83% had not participated in any community engagement discussion about the future of their city

But we also found there is a willingness to come on the growth journey.

  • More than 80% of people were generally supportive of growth in their community.

  • Almost 60% believe their community is able to manage change well.

  • 30% of people believed that their whole community has benefited from the changes that have already occurred in their neighbourhood 

  • 38% of people wanted to know more about how to work with practitioners and their community to address challenges and realise benefits of urban growth