To Participation and Beyond?

Author(s):  
Paul Burton ◽  
Stephen Hilton

This chapter provides a case study of local developments in e-democracy in the city of Bristol, UK. Although some of these developments relate to periodic local elections, most are concerned with supporting new forms of engagement between local citizens and local government institutions and processes in the times between these. Starting with the coordination of its own consultation activities, then encouraging greater participation in council-run activities, and finally supporting grass roots engagement activities, Bristol City Council embarked on a local program of e-democracy activities from 2000 onwards. This grew into a national pilot scheme that enabled a number of valuable comparative evaluations of e-democracy in practice. The chapter draws on the results of a number of evaluations of these local and national developments and highlights the more widespread and enduring challenges of trying to broaden the scope and the effectiveness of local democracy and improve the practices of social inclusion.

2015 ◽  
pp. 1662-1675
Author(s):  
Paul Burton ◽  
Stephen Hilton

This chapter provides a case study of local developments in e-democracy in the city of Bristol, UK. Although some of these developments relate to periodic local elections, most are concerned with supporting new forms of engagement between local citizens and local government institutions and processes in the times between these. Starting with the coordination of its own consultation activities, then encouraging greater participation in council-run activities, and finally supporting grass roots engagement activities, Bristol City Council embarked on a local program of e-democracy activities from 2000 onwards. This grew into a national pilot scheme that enabled a number of valuable comparative evaluations of e-democracy in practice. The chapter draws on the results of a number of evaluations of these local and national developments and highlights the more widespread and enduring challenges of trying to broaden the scope and the effectiveness of local democracy and improve the practices of social inclusion.


Author(s):  
Lu Zhang ◽  
Zhenghong Peng

As the most historically and culturally valuable city district in Nanning, Xingning Block has gradually formed its own unique color characteristics and architectural style in the slow process of urban historical development, showing the unique local customs and architectural features. However, restricted by the specific development conditions, many undesirable aspects can be found in the overall architectural landscape color of some nodes on the block, such as lack of systematic planning, poor material matching, messy building color, as well as various challenges of contemporary social development to the architectural environmental color on the block.The architectural environmental color of urban traditional blocks is an important part of the specific history, culture and spirit of the times of a city, which plays a vital role in the development and change of the city. Therefore, how to effectively and reasonably do a good job in sustainable urban planning and development is an issue that must attract the attention of competent authorities at all levels, scientific research institutions and planning practitioners.


Author(s):  
Robert Procter ◽  
Miguel Arana-Catania ◽  
Felix-Anselm van Lier ◽  
Nataliya Tkachenko ◽  
Yulan He ◽  
...  

The development of democratic systems is a crucial task as confirmed by its selection as one of the Millennium Sustainable Development Goals by the United Nations. In this article, we report on the progress of a project that aims to address barriers, one of which is information overload, to achieving effective direct citizen participation in democratic decision-making processes. The main objectives are to explore if the application of Natural Language Processing (NLP) and machine learning can improve citizens? experience of digital citizen participation platforms. Taking as a case study the ?Decide Madrid? Consul platform, which enables citizens to post proposals for policies they would like to see adopted by the city council, we used NLP and machine learning to provide new ways to (a) suggest to citizens proposals they might wish to support; (b) group citizens by interests so that they can more easily interact with each other; (c) summarise comments posted in response to proposals; (d) assist citizens in aggregating and developing proposals. Evaluation of the results confirms that NLP and machine learning have a role to play in addressing some of the barriers users of platforms such as Consul currently experience.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Amber Venter

<p><b>This research is an architectural enquiry into how the visibility of local government can mimic the performance of everyday political life. Using the conceptual framework of place and understanding of the collective community. The intention of this design proposal is to encourage the transparency of local authority through an architectural intervention in the city.</b></p> <p>The driver of this research is the reduced physical presence of civic practices, with particular regard to the congregating place of local government. A framework is developed as a precursor to develop an understanding of the traditional civic architype. The aim is to reimagine a contemporary civic architecture which is detached from the corporate functions of local government. Architecture supports the celebration of collective rituals of movement and meeting.</p> <p>An archetype investigation formalises a set design criteria by which the design case study is evaluated against. The background research comprises a critique of the spatial arrangement of the traditional town hall. An additional background task is consisted of a comparative inquiry into today’s local government accommodation.</p> <p>The site is located in Tamaki Makaurau/Auckland City. The site analysis criteria utilised by this thesis is grounded in the research of Jan Gehl and his understanding of architectures impact on peoples’ behaviour in cities.</p> <p>Finally the design case study is driven by dynamic circulation, which establishes a celebration of the formal and informal interactions between the participants of local government. Transparency and hierarchy are used to challenge the spatial and functional qualities of Auckland City Council. The result of the research will contribute to the inclusive understanding of the ordinary rituals of local government through architecture in the city.</p>


2021 ◽  
pp. 0160323X2110453
Author(s):  
İhsan İkizer

Istanbul, the leading city of Turkey, is a good case for analyzing the conflictual relations of the mayor with the city council and the central government. Istanbul had been governed by the mayors from the ruling party, the Justice and Development Party ( Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi; AKP) and its predecessor parties since 1994. In the local elections held in March 2019, which was repeated only for Istanbul after two months with a highly suspicious decision by the Supreme Election Board, the AKP lost this city. Ekrem İmamoğlu, the mayor of Istanbul, has harsh relations with the city council, which is dominated by the AKP and its alliance party, the Nationalist Movement Party ( Milliyetçi Hareket Partisi; MHP). What exacerbates this situation is the partisan intervention of the increasingly authoritarian central government that weakens the mayor's position. The mayor tries to counterbalance the power of the city council and central government agencies through livestreaming the city council meetings and attracting civic engagement on his side. This article is expected to contribute to the literature on mayoral leadership, partisan constraints to mayoral powers as well as the mayor's strategies against the authoritarian intervention of the central governments. Mayor İmamoğlu's strategies and measures adopted for overcoming the efforts of blocking his agenda by both the council and central government might inspire other mayors experiencing similar partisan constraints.


2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 6-24
Author(s):  
Csaba Nikolenyi

This article analyzes the 2018 local elections in Jerusalem, the contested capital of the State of Israel. These elections were unique in terms of their level of competitiveness and fragmentation as well as producing a highly divided local government in the wake of the incumbent mayor’s, Nir Barkat’s, decision to leave the local political scene and enter national politics. While his party has no representation in city council, the new mayor of Jerusalem, Moshe Lion, built a broadly based new coalition that includes all parties in the council except for Hitorerut, the party that won the most seats and whose mayoral candidate, Ofer Berkovitch, was the runner-up to Lion. With the exception of the ultra-orthodox parties, national political parties that sought to interfere with the local electoral process to promote their candidates and lists by and large failed. Therefore, the governance of the city of Jerusalem once again fell under the control of the ultra-orthodox majority. Furthermore, even though the Arab population of East Jerusalem largely continued its traditional abstention from the electoral process, there was some evidence to suggest that a slight shift was taking place in that community in favor of participating in the institutional process of municipal government and democracy.


2014 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 591-621 ◽  
Author(s):  
Da-Chi Liao ◽  
Hsin-Che Wu ◽  
Chen-Hsun Li

This paper discusses the theoretical rheology of local governance from the bureaucratic system to the network city and explores whether and how such a city network can be developed in a dual local government system. This paper suggests that, in dual systems, councilors are nodes which extend their networks, and councilors together can construct a more comprehensive network than a city executive branch alone does, so as to remedy the executive branch’s deficiencies concerning city affairs. This paper chooses Kaohsiung city council as its case study and provides evidence that the network developed by city council and councilors covers many city affairs which are ignored by the city executive branch. This result also implies that the network city may be better feasible in a dual local government system than in a unitary one.


2019 ◽  
Vol 22 ◽  
Author(s):  
THAYZA DE OLIVEIRA BATITUCCI ◽  
ERIKA CORTINES ◽  
FÁBIO SOUTO ALMEIDA ◽  
ÂNGELA ALVES DE ALMEIDA

Abstract Urban Agriculture (UA) has emerged as an alternative capable of fostering sustainable relations among the economic, social and environmental spheres in cities. It consists of growing and processing traditionally rural food products in urban zones in consonance with the environmental considerations to promote sustainability. This study set out to analyze the interactions of agricultural activities and the urban ecosystem. A review of the literature and a case study of an Urban Agriculture program developed in the metropolitan area of the city of Rio de Janeiro showed that Urban Agriculture provides considerable ecosystem services, generates income, increases biodiversity conservation and fosters social inclusion, functioning as a mechanism for achieving equilibrium among the components of the urban ecosystem.


2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 188
Author(s):  
Maria Vika Wirastri ◽  
Sidhi Pramudito

Abstract: Public open spaces are spaces that can be accessed for free and can accommodate a variety of peoples and activities. Therefore, both if in each residential area or at a certain radius there is at least one public open space, no exception in urban villages with a characteristic population density that has become the root of settlement culture in Indonesia. This research then took a case study in one of the villages in the city of Yogyakarta, namely Kampung Gampingan, which despite entering into a slum arrangement according to Mayor Decree Number 216 Year 2016, but still has one existing public open space that still exists utilized by residents around every day, both by children until adults. Related to these findings, this study was conducted as a basic study whose results can be used as a foundation for the arrangement of slums in the future. In its design, public open space must also pay attention to the times and various aspects and needs for the convenience of its users. Although comfort is very difficult to define, at least comfort can be assessed through people's preferences through the responsiveness of each individual. For this reason, through a qualitative-exploratory method using a questionnaire filled out by users of public open spaces in Kampung Gampingan, this study aims to find citizens' preferences for aspects of the comfort of public open spaces based on comfort theory; what matters that must be prioritized or must be avoided in the design for the creation of the convenience of citizens. From this study it was found that in order to achieve the comfort of a public open space, aspects of governance needed include cleanliness, safety, circulation, shape / dimension, noise, lighting, smell, natural/ climate power, and supporting facilities such as the free internet access, parks, CCTV, drink water, trash cans, streetlights, children's games, and furniture. Keyword: Comfort, Public Open Space, Residents, Kampung Gampingan, Yogyakarta City Abstrak: Ruang terbuka publik adalah ruang yang dapat diakses secara gratis dan mampu menampung berbagai pelaku maupun aktivitas. Oleh karenanya, baik apabila dalam setiap wilayah permukiman warga atau pada radius tertentu terdapat minimal satu buah ruang terbuka publik, tidak terkecuali di kampung kota dengan ciri khas kepadatan penduduknya yang sudah menjadi akar budaya permukiman di Indonesia. Penelitian ini kemudian mengambil studi kasus di salah satu kampung di Kota Yogyakarta yakni Kampung Gampingan, yang meskipun masuk ke dalam penataan kawasan kumuh menurut Surat Keputusan Walikota Nomor 216 Tahun 2016, namun masih memiliki satu buah ruang terbuka publik eksisting yang masih eksis dimanfaatkan warga sekitar setiap harinya, baik oleh anak-anak hingga orang dewasa.Terkait temuan tersebut, maka dilakukan penelitian ini sebagai kajian dasar yang hasilnya dapat digunakan untuk landasan penataan kampung kumuh di masa depan.Dalam perancangannya, ruang terbuka publik juga harus memperhatikan perkembangan zaman serta berbagai aspek maupun kebutuhan demi kenyamanan penggunanya. Meskipun kenyamanan sangat sulit didefinisikan, setidaknya kenyamanan dapat dinilai melalui preferensi warga lewat penilaian responsif setiap individunya. Untuk itu, melalui metode kualitatif-eksploratif dengan menggunakan kuesioner yang diisi oleh pengguna ruang terbuka publik di Kampung Gampingan, penelitian ini bertujuan untuk menemukan preferensi warga terhadap aspek kenyamanan ruang terbuka publik yang didasarkan pada teori kenyamanan; hal-hal apa saja yang harus diutamakan maupun harus dihindarkan dalam desain perancangan demi terciptanya kenyamanan warga. Dari penelitian ini ditemukan bahwa ternyata untuk mencapai kenyamanan suatu ruang terbuka publik, diperlukan aspek-aspek penataan yang meliputi kebersihan, keamanan, sirkulasi, bentuk/dimensi, kebisingan, penerangan, aroma, daya alam/iklim, dan fasilitas penunjang seperti adanya internet gratis, taman, CCTV, air siap minum, tempat sampah, lampu jalan, permainan anak, serta furnitur.Kata Kunci: Kenyamanan, Ruang Terbuka Publik, Warga, Kampung Gampingan, Kota Yogyakarta


Author(s):  
Eric Gielen ◽  
Yaiza Pérez Alonso ◽  
José Sergio Palencia Jiménez ◽  
Asenet Sosa Espinosa

The accelerated urban growth of the last decades in Europe has caused, especially in the Spanish Mediterranean coast, a paradigm shift in much cities, moving from a mostly compact urban form to a more diffuse one. The concept of city has changed so much that even in a lot of dispersed municipalities, it becomes difficult to define its limits. This change implies not only ecological and economic impacts, but also, social effects. Urban sprawl makes difficult social interaction and reduces the community feeling, and therefore, social cohesion and identity. This produces also changes in the relations of citizens between them and with the city council. The research propounds a discussion about the challenges that the urban sprawl causes for the application of participative models in the decision making, understanding them as basic criterion of good government. We analyze a case study to extract the complexity of articulating processes of citizen participation in territory with high dispersion based on a project carried out in the municipality of La Pobla de Vallbona (Valencia) on participatory budgets. It analyzes the results of the process carried out in relation to the urban model, the morphology of their urban pieces and spatial structure, and the demographic and social characteristics of the municipality. The question is identifying the problematic for the articulation of participative processes in territories with this idiosyncrasy. Finally, the article suggests a series of strategic lines as starting points to achieve participatory processes in the city characterized by urban sprawl.


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