Civic Crafting in Urban Planning Public Consultation

2019 ◽  
pp. 1052-1070
Author(s):  
Lisa Ward Mather ◽  
Pamela Robinson
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
Urban Planning ◽  
Video Game ◽  
Public Trust ◽  
Public Consultation ◽  
Visualization Tool ◽  
Local Planning ◽  
3D Environment ◽  
Key Informant ◽  
Planning Processes

Minecraft is a popular video game that allows players to interact with a 3D environment. Users report that it is easy to learn and understand, is engaging and immersive, and is adaptable. Outside North America it has been piloted for urban planning public consultation processes. However, this game has not yet been studied to determine how and whether it could be used for this purpose. Using key informant interviews, this study asked practicing urban planners to assess Minecraft's potential. Key findings address Minecraft's usefulness as a visualization tool, its role in building public trust in local planning processes, the place of play in planning, and the challenges associated with its use in public consultation. The paper concludes with reflections as to how this game could effectively be used for public consultation, and offers key lessons for urban planners whose practice intersects with our digitally-enabled world.

Civic Crafting in Urban Planning Public Consultation

2016 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 42-58 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa Ward Mather ◽  
Pamela Robinson
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
Urban Planning ◽  
Video Game ◽  
Public Trust ◽  
Public Consultation ◽  
Visualization Tool ◽  
Local Planning ◽  
3D Environment ◽  
Key Informant ◽  
Planning Processes

Minecraft is a popular video game that allows players to interact with a 3D environment. Users report that it is easy to learn and understand, is engaging and immersive, and is adaptable. Outside North America it has been piloted for urban planning public consultation processes. However, this game has not yet been studied to determine how and whether it could be used for this purpose. Using key informant interviews, this study asked practicing urban planners to assess Minecraft's potential. Key findings address Minecraft's usefulness as a visualization tool, its role in building public trust in local planning processes, the place of play in planning, and the challenges associated with its use in public consultation. The paper concludes with reflections as to how this game could effectively be used for public consultation, and offers key lessons for urban planners whose practice intersects with our digitally-enabled world.

Durable Civic Technology

2020 ◽  
pp. 252-281
Author(s):  
Lisa Ward Mather ◽  
Pamela Robinson
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
Video Game ◽  
City Planning ◽  
Public Consultation ◽  
Visualization Tool ◽  
Local Planning ◽  
3D Environment ◽  
Key Informant ◽  
Planning Processes ◽  
Civic Technology

Minecraft is a video game that allows players to interact with a 3D environment. Launched in 2009, Minecraft has surprisingly durable popularity. Users report that Minecraft is easy to learn and understand, engaging and immersive, and adaptable. Outside North America it has been piloted for urban planning public consultation processes. Five years ago, authors conducted research using key informant interviews. This study asked practicing urban planners in Canada to assess Minecraft's potential. Key findings address Minecraft's usefulness as a visualization tool, its role in building public trust in local planning processes, the place of play in planning, and the challenges associated with its use in public consultation. This chapter explores Minecraft's ongoing use, offers reflections as to how this game could effectively be used for public consultation, and concludes with key lessons for urban planners whose practice intersects with our digitally-enabled world, with a particular focus on new application possibilities in smart city planning projects.

Durable Civic Technology

2022 ◽  
pp. 608-630
Author(s):  
Lisa Ward Mather ◽  
Pamela Robinson
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
Video Game ◽  
City Planning ◽  
Public Consultation ◽  
Visualization Tool ◽  
Local Planning ◽  
3D Environment ◽  
Key Informant ◽  
Planning Processes ◽  
Civic Technology

Minecraft is a video game that allows players to interact with a 3D environment. Launched in 2009, Minecraft has surprisingly durable popularity. Users report that Minecraft is easy to learn and understand, engaging and immersive, and adaptable. Outside North America it has been piloted for urban planning public consultation processes. Five years ago, authors conducted research using key informant interviews. This study asked practicing urban planners in Canada to assess Minecraft's potential. Key findings address Minecraft's usefulness as a visualization tool, its role in building public trust in local planning processes, the place of play in planning, and the challenges associated with its use in public consultation. This chapter explores Minecraft's ongoing use, offers reflections as to how this game could effectively be used for public consultation, and concludes with key lessons for urban planners whose practice intersects with our digitally-enabled world, with a particular focus on new application possibilities in smart city planning projects.

scholarly journals Civic crafting: the potential of minecraft for municipal civic engagement

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa Ward
Keyword(s):  
Civic Engagement ◽  
Video Game ◽  
Three Dimensional ◽  
Visualization Tool ◽  
Building Trust ◽  
Online Engagement ◽  
Key Informant

Minecraft, the popular video game, shows promise as a planning engagement tool: it allows players to experience and manipulate a three-dimensional environment, it is easy to learn and understand, it is engaging and immersive, it is adaptable, and it has already begun to be used for geodesign and planning engagement. However, this game has not yet been studied to determine how it could best be used for this purpose. Using an analysis of key informant interviews, this study seeks to address this deficit and reflect on the ways in which this game could help planners achieve various engagement goals. Key findings in this study address Minecraft’s usefulness as a visualization tool, its role in building trust, the place of play in planning, and the challenges associated with conducting an accessible, interactive online engagement using Minecraft.

scholarly journals Urban planning, public participation and digital technology: App development as a method of generating citizen involvement in local planning processes

2017 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
pp. 286-302 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Wilson ◽  
Mark Tewdwr-Jones ◽  
Rob Comber
Keyword(s):  
Urban Planning ◽  
Digital Technology ◽  
Citizen Involvement ◽  
Local Planning ◽  
Study Approach ◽  
App Development ◽  
Smart Watch ◽  
Planning Processes

There has been a recent shift in England towards empowering citizens to shape their neighbourhoods. However, current methods of participation are unsuitable or unwieldy for many people. In this paper, we report on ChangeExplorer, a smart watch application to support citizen feedback, to investigate the extent to which digital wearables can address barriers to participation in planning. The research contributes to both technology-mediated citizen involvement and urban planning participation methods. The app leverages in-situ, quick interactions encouraging citizens to reflect and comment on their environment. Taking a case study approach, the paper discusses the design and deployment of the app in a local planning authority through interviews with 19 citizens and three professional planners. The paper discusses the potential of the ChangeExplorer app to address more conceptual issues, and concludes by assessing the degree to which the technology raises awareness of urban change and whether it could serve as a gateway to more meaningful participatory methods.

scholarly journals City Labs as Vehicles for Innovation in Urban Planning Processes

2016 ◽  
Vol 1 (4) ◽  
pp. 89-102 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian Scholl ◽  
René Kemp
Keyword(s):  
Urban Planning ◽  
Urban Governance ◽  
Collaborative Planning ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Local Planning ◽  
Planning Processes ◽  
The City ◽  
Case Based ◽  
Planning Approaches

This paper assesses the role of urban experiments for local planning processes through a case-based analysis of the city lab of Maastricht. In conjunction with this, the article offers three contributions, as additional elements. Firstly, the paper develops a set of defining characteristics of city labs as an analytical concept which is relevant for discussions about (collaborative) planning. Secondly, it refines the literature on collaborative planning by drawing attention to experimentation and innovation. Thirdly, the paper assesses the potential of city labs to contribute to the innovation of urban governance. The work draws from the literature on experimentation and learning as well as the literature on collaborative urban planning. In the conclusions, we discuss the potential of city labs as vehicles for learning about new urban planning approaches and their limitations as spaces for small-scale experimentation. The paper is based on research for the URB@Exp research project funded by JPI Urban Europe.

scholarly journals Civic crafting: the potential of minecraft for municipal civic engagement

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa Ward
Keyword(s):  
Civic Engagement ◽  
Video Game ◽  
Three Dimensional ◽  
Visualization Tool ◽  
Building Trust ◽  
Online Engagement ◽  
Key Informant

Minecraft, the popular video game, shows promise as a planning engagement tool: it allows players to experience and manipulate a three-dimensional environment, it is easy to learn and understand, it is engaging and immersive, it is adaptable, and it has already begun to be used for geodesign and planning engagement. However, this game has not yet been studied to determine how it could best be used for this purpose. Using an analysis of key informant interviews, this study seeks to address this deficit and reflect on the ways in which this game could help planners achieve various engagement goals. Key findings in this study address Minecraft’s usefulness as a visualization tool, its role in building trust, the place of play in planning, and the challenges associated with conducting an accessible, interactive online engagement using Minecraft.

Planning for Growth: Contradictions in the Framework of Economic and Urban Development from the “Spanish Miracle” (1959-1973)

2020 ◽  
pp. 009614422098333
Author(s):  
Juan Luis De las Rivas Sanz ◽  
Miguel Fernández-Maroto
Keyword(s):  
Urban Planning ◽  
Urban Growth ◽  
National Level ◽  
Growth Period ◽  
Integrated Approach ◽  
Economic Planning ◽  
Local Planning ◽  
Municipal Governments ◽  
Planning Framework ◽  
Planning Policies

In the postwar period, the strong economic growth in Western countries coincided with the configuration of their modern urban planning systems. This article aims at exploring to what extent the targets of the economic planning that was broadly adopted in this growth period conditioned the performance of urban planning tools by analyzing the case of Spain. During the so-called “Spanish miracle” that started in the early 1960s and lasted until the mid-1970s, there were notable contradictions between economic and spatial planning policies and between the performance of the national and the municipal governments. It is concluded that the lack of an integrated approach to regional and urban planning policies at national level combined to the gap with the actual local planning framework, illustrated through the example of three cities, can help to understand the patterns of urban growth in a context of an expanding economy.

scholarly journals Conceptualizing Testbed Planning: Urban Planning in the Intersection between Experimental and Public Sector Logics

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 96-106 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lina Berglund-Snodgrass ◽  
Dalia Mukhtar-Landgren
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
Urban Planning ◽  
Planning Process ◽  
Governance Structure ◽  
Formal Structure ◽  
Local Climate ◽  
The Public ◽  
Planning Processes ◽  
Experimental Logic

Urban planning is, in many countries, increasingly becoming intertwined with local climate ambitions, investments in urban attractiveness and “smart city” innovation measures. In the intersection between these trends, urban experimentation has developed as a process where actors are granted action space to test innovations in a collaborative setting. One arena for urban experimentation is urban testbeds. Testbeds are sites of urban development, in which experimentation constitutes an integral part of planning and developing the area. This article introduces the notion of testbed planning as a way to conceptualize planning processes in delimited sites where planning is combined with processes of urban experimentation. We define testbed planning as a multi-actor, collaborative planning process in a delimited area, with the ambition to generate and disseminate learning while simultaneously developing the site. The aim of this article is to explore processes of testbed planning with regard to the role of urban planners. Using an institutional logics perspective we conceptualize planners as navigating between a public sector—and an experimental logic. The public sector logic constitutes the formal structure of “traditional” urban planning, and the experimental logic a collaborative and testing governance structure. Using examples from three Nordic municipalities, this article explores planning roles in experiments with autonomous buses in testbeds. The analysis shows that planners negotiate these logics in three different ways, combining and merging them, separating and moving between them or acting within a conflictual process where the public sector logic dominates.

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