Participatory democracy and the governance of smart cities

Ludlow, David; Khan, Zaheer

Abstract

Citizens’ participation in urban planning and policy-making develops the traditional top-down governance model via promotion of bottom-up approaches to policy development and decision-making. This evolution drives social innovation in support of planning initiatives and results in more public-oriented policy specification for better governance and sustainable urban environment. Innovative ICT solutions offer significant opportunity to ameliorate the substantial challenges arising from these developments. Smart city defined initiatives promote the use of ICT solutions for better governance in terms of improved communication and information services, as well as offering the potential to provide policy-makers and urban planners with the tools and intelligence needed to actively manage the urban environment. In this paper, we present and discuss smart planning and urban governance in a smart city perspective. Also, we present a case study based on the UrbanAPI project which aims to develop and deploy different ICT solutions for public participation in planning initiatives and policy making at various scales of urban governance.

• Presentation Conference Type: Conference Paper (unpublished)
• Conference Name: 26th Annual AESOP Congress
• Start Date: Jul 11, 2012
• End Date: Jul 15, 2012
• Publication Date: Jul 1, 2012
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Keywords: participatory democracy, governance, smart cities
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/945806
• Publisher URL: http://www.arber.com.tr/aesop2012.org/index.php/home
• Additional Information: Title of Conference or Conference Proceedings : 26th Annual AESOP Congress