Mobile Participation

Smartphones and tablet computers are becoming essential in everyday life, connecting us in a powerful network through mobile web services. They open new channels of communication between citizens, institutions and administrations, offer greater access to public information, and facilitate increased participation. These new forms of collaborative social interaction revolutionize our information and knowledge society. The chapter examines the new opportunities opened up by mobile phones for mParticipation in the context of urban planning processes. After beginning with a theoretical overview about technical developments, eParticipation and the changes in communication in a networked society, it defines the concept of mParticipation. This is followed by an examination of six real-world projects. These examples are then used for the identification of best practices and for the analysis of the usefulness and effectiveness of these new participatory tools. In addition, the chapter discusses the possibilities as well as the barriers to mobile participation, and makes recommendations for the use of smartphones in urban planning. mParticipation opens new channels of communication, creates new ways of gathering local information and has the chance for creating a low-threshold gateway for citizen participation in urban planning, by improving databases and giving instant feedback.

The Geospatial Web

This chapter introduces a spatial view to e-participation in urban governance which is based on the technological core of Geographical Information Systems (GIS) and their more recent transformation into service architectures. The chapter begins with the premise that the technological realms are available today in professional software packages and in open source software environments. It focuses on the utilization of GIS and various methodologies in participatory planning projects. The technical descriptions are limited to a degree that the reader can understand the applications envisaged. The chapter describes developments in the GIS domain which are summarized under the term ‘Public Participation GIS’ (PPGIS) since the 1990s. In 2005 however, the launch of Google Earth changed the situation significantly: such mapping platforms—including Microsoft Bing and others—brought mapping functionality to the computers of hundreds of millions of internet users and soon after, the term “volunteered geographic information” was created. It refers to the two-way communication possibilities using geospatial tools and to the participation of citizens in planning initiatives. The chapter highlights a few of such applications in urban planning and administration and discusses the situation in developing and emerging countries, while posing the question of whether or not such options may lead to an empowerment of citizens.

E-Democracy Systems and Participation Outcomes in Urban Governance

The concept of democracy has a long tradition of research in the political science domain. In recent years, advances in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) have provided opportunities for governments to deploy systems to actively engage citizens in the agenda-setting and decision-making processes for urban governance. Consequently, e-democracy and e-participation efforts have emerged and attracted researchers’ attention in the Information Systems (IS) field. Information systems lay the foundations of active citizenry, which may impact on the participation outcome. However, in order to maximize the potential of this evolving form of democracy, researchers and practitioners need to address a number of challenges in the design of participation structures for city governance. This chapter sets out to explore e-democracy systems and their impact on a number of e-participation outcomes. Outlining both promoters and barriers of ICT use for e-democracy, the authors also uncover gaps in the previous literature and identify an agenda for future research.

Citizen Science Perspectives on E-Participation in Urban Planning

Citizen science is a method for an interested public to share information in order to co-create scientific knowledge, typically drawing on games and hobbies and employing electronic media such as web-based data-entry forms and online social networks. Citizen science has emerged in many fields of science (e.g., ecology, astronomy, atmospheric studies, anthropology) and advanced to produce important research findings based on high-quality, reliable data collected, and/or processed, by the public. In turn, participants have increased their interest in, and understanding of, topics related to citizen science projects, and experienced greater civic engagement and social capital. Urban planning initiatives seek to engage people in activities from data gathering to community discussions. The authors review the history of urban planning models and highlight how e-participation can overcome some of the limitations in traditional planning. The authors review how information and communication technologies (ICT) for Citizen Science methods can facilitate public participation in data collection and co-creating knowledge useful to planning decisions. The authors suggest that such efforts can ensure a collaborative rather than adversarial type of public participation and have added outcomes of increasing involvement of an informed public in other aspects of the planning process.

The Four Urban Governance Problem Types Suitable for Crowdsourcing Citizen Participation

Crowdsourcing is a method for harnessing the collective intelligence of online communities to solve specific problems or produce goods. Largely known as a business model, crowdsourcing has begun to make inroads as a supplemental public participation tool for governance, as a way to engage citizens in the business of government functions. Validating a new typology of crowdsourcing cases, this chapter outlines the four urban governance problem types that the crowdsourcing model can successfully address. This chapter also discusses the right of free speech in online crowdsourcing communities and its relevance for urban governance crowdsourcing applications in free societies. Concluding the chapter is an examination of crowdsourcing’s place in the policy-advisory spectrum and the risks associated with bringing crowdsourcing applications into public participation programs.

Policy Gadgets for Urban Governance in the Era of Social Computing

The chapter introduces the concept of policy gadgets that may be expressed as the combined use of computer simulations and social media in policymaking. Such a concept is exemplified by providing the description of an Italian campaign on telemedicine, launched by the regional government of Piedmont (IT) in the context of an international research project named PADGETS (www.padgets.eu). In addition, some preliminary results are presented, which are very encouraging. The use of such instruments in urban and regional policymaking may generate significant advantages in terms of conveying society’s inputs to policy makers, by providing them with a set of concise, fresh, and relevant data in a cost effective and easily understandable way.

Citizen Web Empowerment across Italian Cities

This chapter summarizes the results of a research project aimed to enlighten the issue of citizens’ empowerment through municipalities’ Web portals. The study was designed in order to: (a) provide some key-elements to define the content of an efficient Web strategy for municipalities, with specific focus on the issue of citizens empowerment, (b) benchmark the degree of citizen empowerment of public administrations’ Websites across Italian Municipalities through the adoption of a revised version of Citizens Web Empowerment Index (CWEI) for the assessment of the official Web portals of the 104 Italian cities with over 60,000 inhabitants.

E-Participation and Citizen Relationship Management in Urban Governance

Citizen relationship management (CiRM) is a combination of management approaches and information technologies for improving citizen services and citizen participation used at all levels of government. As an adaptation of private sector customer relationship management (CRM), CiRM is experiencing significant public sector adoption rates globally. However, while private sector CRM has demonstrated significant impact in the private sector, CiRM benefits are limited, and particularly lagging in the area of citizen e-participation in urban governance. This chapter provides an overview of the scope of CiRM functionality, with particular regard to the CRM origins and CiRM extensibilities, to develop a broader perspective of CiRM’s capacity for addressing e-participation. Developing this perspective further, theoretical and methodological approaches to e-participation are presented and evaluated in four categories: generic CiRM participation models, e-government CiRM, democratic CiRM, and strategic CiRM. Further research opportunities are highlighted within the context of emerging organizational, technological, and societal trends.

Web 2.0, Neogeography, and Urban E-Governance

Web 2.0 technologies, which allow interactions between the producers and consumers of information, have important implications for how urban spaces are designed and governed. Spatial information on the web has become increasingly wikified, so that non-planners may contribute data, photos, and opinions in a variety of ways, a process that labeled neogeography (and which is closely related to participatory GIS). For example, websites such as GoogleMaps have greatly democratized the process of constructing and using spatial data. This process implies that planners are no longer the privileged producers of information about urban space. A case study of Brión, Galicia, is offered to illustrate this process in practice. Web 2.0 and neogeography have greatly elevated the philosophical significance of planning information: rather than received wisdom, users may construct their own communities of truth. The chapter argues this process resembles Habermas’s notion of an ideal speech situation. The conclusion argues that Web 2.0 and the growth of neogeography imply that planning must be more inclusive and democratic in nature.

Public Participation, Social Equity, and Technology in Urban Governance

Social equity commonly refers to fairness or impartiality, usually in terms of inputs or outcomes related to social and economic opportunity. In the case of urban planning, social equity can take the form of participation in decision-making activities, especially those that involve allocating public resources. An assumption (and hope) is that through participation, stakeholders have greater influence on outcomes that are in their collective interest. Opportunities to participate are rapidly expanding along with rapid technological innovation. Therefore, the authors argue that there is a connection among participation, equity, and technology in creating more equitable governance structures. In particular, the authors discuss how information and communications technologies can serve to reduce barriers to information exchange and thereby generate stronger bonds and quicker formation of partnerships and connections within the public realm. This chapter explores these issues through the lens of e-government, e-democracy, and the digital divide in a U.S. context.