Including a Social Perspective into Urban Plan- ning using Visualisations based on Self-Organ- ising Maps Hans-Jörg Stark*, Tanja Klöti**, Daria Hollenstein*, Susanne Bleisch***, Carlo Fabian** * Institute of Geomatics Engineering, School of Architecture, Civil Engin- eering and Geomatics, University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwest- ern Switzerland FHNW, Gründenstrasse 40, 4132 Muttenz, Switzerland, hansjoerg.stark@fhnw.ch, daria.hollenstein@students.fhnw.ch ** Institute for Social Planning and Urban Development, School of Social Work, University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland FHNW, Thiersteinerallee 57, 4053 Basel, Switzerland, tanja.kloeti@fhn- w.ch, carlo.fabian@fhnw.ch ***Department of Infrastructure Engineering, University of Melbourne, Australia, susanne.bleisch@unimelb.edu.au Abstract.Integrating social factors into the rather technical urban plan- ning process in Switzerland is believed to support the development of live- able and socially sustainable environments. Social factors are currently used on an ad hoc basis only. We suggest the use of self-organising maps (SOM) to reduce the massive data set of relevant social variables, such as population density, age, or income, to accessible visualisations that can be updated and compared for different planning scenarios. The SOM process clusters the analysed social factors. Colouring the different spatial units of the planning area according to the SOM results allows visual comparison of those units. The non-deterministic nature of the SOM process calls for the implementation of a colour transformation to make the results consistent between different analysis runs. The process is integrated into existing planning software and exemplified for an area in Langenthal, Switzerland. Informal evaluation has shown great interest from planners but also a need for further evaluation of the implemented approach. Keywords:Urban Planning, Social Factors, Visualisation, Self-Organising Maps (SOM)