Digital Tools as a Means to Foster Inclusive, Data-informed Urban Planning

Rapid urbanization, climate change, resource depletion, the desire for more sustainable development and widespread use of the Internet and mobile phones are major challenges for urban planning. While the smart city model is seen as a means to cope with these challenges, it is often reduced to an amalgam of technologies. Citizens are usually seldom included in the planning process, though the knowledge they produce and can share on how they use and live in the city is extremely valuable. Digital technologies create an opportunity to reshape the planning process by improving interactions and information exchanges among urban planners and citizens, which are central in the move towards more sustainable, responsive planning. This research aims to answer the following two questions: (1) how is digital participation changing the role citizens play in urban planning and decision making processes? and, (2) what are the advantages and limitations of involving citizens in these processes through digital tools? This paper explores how digital tools can be harnessed to enhance citizen involvement in the planning process. We will give an overview of how these tools can inform urban planning by providing citizen-centric data to foster more inclusive and responsive planning. This paper identifies both the opportunities - particularly in terms of data production and exchange – and limitations of digital tools.

Digital tools and citizen participation: Towards sustainable and responsive urban planning

Jérôme Chenal, Stéphanie Aline Hasler, Marc Soutter

The smart city concept has existed for decades now. It was presented as a response to help cities cope with challenges they were facing such as rapid urbanization, climate change, resource depletion, and sustainability. Based mainly on sensors, flow optimization and algorithms, this model has revealed its limits. In smart city endeavors, citizens are seldom included in the planning process, although they hold a central position to produce and share useful knowledge on how they live and use the city. Technology has already been exploited to enhance city management, but it is still widely underused in urban planning even though it holds great promise. It has the potential to create tools that improve interaction between urban planners and city dwellers, which is a key aspect for more sustainable and responsive planning. This study explores how digital technologies can be harnessed to generate new ways of involving citizens in city planning, using the data they produce. Digital tools are changing the whole practice of urban planning by adding a non-expert but practiced knowledge layer in the planning process towards more sustainable cities.

2017

Digital participation and urban planning practices: An inventory of digital tools and a comparison of procedures in Geneva and Singapore

Stéphanie Aline Hasler

While the smart city model is seen as a means to cope with challenges cities are facing, it is often reduced to an amalgam of technologies. Citizens are seldom included in the planning process, although they hold a key position to produce and share valuable knowledge on how they use and live in the city. Digital tools offer new opportunities to improve interaction and information exchange among urban planners and citizens, which can lead to more sustainable and responsive planning. This research intends to answer the following questions: ‘what are the opportunities and limits of involving citizens in the urban planning and decision making through digital tools?’, ‘what are the barriers to harness these tools and include citizens in the planning process?’, and ‘what are the levers to change current practices?’, The aims of this research are to understand how digital technologies open new means of planning more responsive and sustainable cities and how the role of citizens, as well as the one of urban planners, are changing in this context. To explore this topic, this research follows two different approaches. The first investigation produces a catalogue of worldwide existing digital tools for participatory urban planning. These practices are analysed regarding data (collection, production, and analysis), interactions, degree of involvement of the participant, outcomes of the tool and use of the produced information in the planning process. By giving an overview of the multiplicity of tools, this approach allows to determine both the opportunities – particularly in terms of data production and exchange – and the limitations of digital tools for participation. This overview gives a new insight on the potential use of digital tools. The second approach is a detailed study of planning processes in two cities, Geneva and Singapore, to compare their practices. Interviews with practitioners and analysis of planning documents, tools and policies are the methods used to describe current procedures in these two cities. These case studies have been selected for two reasons. Firstly, it compares a technology-driven city with one that has not yet taken full advantage of technologically driven planning practices. Secondly, it allows a comparison of top-down strategies that are supported with bottom-up initiatives with citizen-centric planning strategies. This approach helps us understand the interactions among stakeholders, the limitations of the ongoing procedures, and the barriers that hinder change. Urban planning procedures vary from one city to another, but good practices and levers for change can be identified, and put forward as recommendations to improve urban planning practices. However, many challenges need to be overcome in order to achieve this. The main challenge of studying innovative digital practices is that the value of the tools is often exaggerated. The promoted benefits are not often used to their full potential. Moreover, it is difficult to identify the deficiencies of existing practices, as practitioners will hardly ever point out failings in their own methods or practices. Another shortcoming is that procedures, tools and technology are evolving at a fast pace, which requires regular updates of data.

2017

Digital Technologies for Inclusive Urban Planning

Stéphanie Aline Hasler

Rapid urbanization, climate change, resource depletion, the wish for a more sustainable development and the widespread use of the Internet and mobile phones all represent a great challenge for urban planning. While the smart city model is seen as a means to cope with these challenges, it is often reduced to an amalgam of technologies. Citizens are usually left outside the planning process, although they produce a massive amount of data related to how they live and use the city. Applying the smart city model demonstrates that digital technologies deeply change urban management systems. These technologies also create an opportunity to reshape the planning process by generating new forms of interaction between urban planners and city dwellers, which become useful tools for sustainable and responsive planning. This research explores how these new tools can be harnessed to enhance citizen involvement in the planning process.

New Zealand Academy of Applied Research Ltd2017

Digital participation and urban planning practices: An inventory of digital tools and a comparison of procedures in Geneva and Singapore

Stéphanie Aline Hasler

2017