1. "Cities, Technologies and Planning"
CTP 12
June 18th - June 21th, 2012
Salvador de Bahia, Brazil
ICT to evaluate
participation in urban
planning: remarks
from a case study.
Francesco Rotondo,
Francesco Selicato
e-mail: f.selicato@poliba.it;
f.rotondo@poliba.it

2. Questions for Today
 0. Introduction
 1. Evaluating participation in urban
planning.
 2. ICT to evaluate participation in urban
planning.
 3. “PartecipaPUG”: a participation process
in the South of Italy
 4. Conclusions

3. Introduction.
 The work study the ICT available to evaluate
participation in urban planning, starting from a relevant
experience made in Italy inside a funding programme
of the Italian Ministry for Innovation and Technology.
Evaluating participation in urban planning - ICT to evaluate participation in urban planning - “PartecipaPUG” - Conclusions

4. Evaluating participation
in urban planning.
 Influential authors in the field of urban planning such as
Healey (2009), argue that however evaluation is defined
and implemented it remains, nevertheless, a key activity in
urban planning.
 Others, such as Faludi (2006) , consider evaluation in
planning as a complex, yet necessary practical exercise.
 The theory of communicative action has become a
mainstay of planning.
 Few, however, have attempted to understand how to
evaluate the effectiveness and efficiency of participatory
practices in urban planning.

Evaluating participation in urban planning - ICT to evaluate participation in urban planning - “PartecipaPUG” - Conclusions

5. Evaluating participation
in urban planning.
 The evaluation of participatory processes in urban planning thus
becomes not only an adequately constructed opportunity in order
to generate expert judgement (scientific knowledge, importance of
method, etc.) but, rather, the means to supporting informed
dialogue between expert knowledge and the ordinary.
 Alexander (2006) argues that the complexity of assessment in
planning schemes is largely due to three fundamental issues:
1. The complexity of objects and subjects of evaluation such
as policies, plans, projects, local contexts, key-
players, stakeholders and, at the same time, the complexity
of the evaluation process involving different
disciplines, theories, methods, tools and techniques;
2. The inter-subjectivity that somehow undermines the
legitimacy of findings and objectively derived conclusions;
3. The uncertainty of planning actions concerning the
prediction of an unknown future.
Evaluating participation in urban planning - ICT to evaluate participation in urban planning - “PartecipaPUG” - Conclusions

6. ICT to evaluate
participation in urban
planning.
 It is immediately clear that such an issue is fundamentally
cultural and organizational in nature, not resolved through
the simple introduction of technology into participatory
processes. Technology is capable, however, of assisting in
change and its role could be relevant.
 It should be noted that forms of evaluation of
policies, programs and plans are traditionally carried out
and that often, such assessment is carried out ex-ante, in
certain cases is on going yet almost never ex-post.
 The support offered by ICT in the evaluation of
participatory processes in urban planning
suffers, therefore, from the lack of a comprehensive
evaluation framework of participation within decision-
making processes in general.
Evaluating participation in urban planning - ICT to evaluate participation in urban planning - “PartecipaPUG” - Conclusions

7. ICT to evaluate
participation in urban
planning.
 Governments now routinely employ ICT in supporting
processes of political action, as is highlighted by the case
study presented below.
 E-mail, online discussion forums and message boards now
appear on a range of government websites at various
levels, interested in urban planning and territorial
cohesion, and have recently been joined by tools such as
the social networks Facebook and Twitter, increasingly
employed in political life to develop and manage the social
networks that accompany participative processes.
 Before carrying out assessment it is therefore necessary to
identify the aim of the online involvement of citizens and
the viewpoint by which the evaluation is made
(political, technical or social).
Evaluating participation in urban planning - ICT to evaluate participation in urban planning - “PartecipaPUG” - Conclusions

8. ICT to evaluate
participation in urban
planning.
 The political perspective asks: has consultation followed
guidelines for conducting consultations issued by the
government and are stakeholders satisfied by the
process?
 The technical perspective addresses: to what extent did
the design of ICTs directly affect e-consultation
outcomes? In designing the e-consultation there is a
need to take into account technical skills, the target
audience and the location of participants.
 The social perspective asks: were the contributions
relevant to the policy topic, were they informed
contributions and were the contributions debated and
supported (or not) by others?
Evaluating participation in urban planning - ICT to evaluate participation in urban planning - “PartecipaPUG” - Conclusions

9. ICT to evaluate
participation in urban
planning.
 the complexity of such an operation is emphasized as
assessment must take into account the
interdependencies between the design of computer
systems, the implementation of urban policy and
communication practices between citizens and
governmental agencies.
 Assessing the tangible impact of participatory process
on choices made within a plan is a particularly
challenging issue that may prove difficult to resolve.
Evaluating participation in urban planning - ICT to evaluate participation in urban planning - “PartecipaPUG” - Conclusions

10. “PartecipaPUG”: a
participation process in the
South of Italy
 The goal of the collaborative process was that of
gathering and formalizing the views and wishes of
residents and stakeholders in order to define a new local
development plan in the city of Monopoli in the South of
Italy (50.000 Inhabitants, distributed on a territorial
surface of about 156 km2)
Evaluating participation in urban planning - ICT to evaluate participation in urban planning - “PartecipaPUG” - Conclusions

11. Evaluating participation in urban planning - ICT to evaluate participation in urban planning - “PartecipaPUG” - Conclusions

12. Evaluating participation in urban planning - ICT to evaluate participation in urban planning - “PartecipaPUG” - Conclusions

13. The process
 In 2005, based on the successful results
achieved, according to public opinion, from previous
experiences in collaborative planning, the town council
decided to accompany the creation of the new municipal
development plan with a public participation
process, integrating the knowledge of citizens with the
techniques of planners through a logic of mutual learning.
 The process was finally initiated in 2006 following a
successful proposal in a national request for tender from
the Italian Ministry for Innovation and Technology aimed
at funding projects supported by experimental e-
democracy tools, combining the use of traditional
participation methods with ICT support techniques within
collaborative processes
Evaluating participation in urban planning - ICT to evaluate participation in urban planning - “PartecipaPUG” - Conclusions

14. The process
Evaluating participation in urban planning - ICT to evaluate participation in urban planning - “PartecipaPUG” - Conclusions

15. The process
 Until the first half of 2007, around 1200 questionnaires have been
collected, by which around 200 online; 12 "brainstorming" sessions
have been carried out off-line with the video format available on-line
along with a total of around 1400 geo-referenced data records in a
data base.
 Around 1,000 individual have participated in Web-based or
traditional meetings, work sessions and online forums. The web
provided an office environment open 24 hours a day.
 The cognitive maps, developed with the results of questionnaires
and interactive maps, highlighted social consensus through a
geographic database, making the basic themes of the Plan clearly
available for political decision-makers and citizens themselves.
 Confirming results found in the literature (Coleman, Gøtze, 2001), it
should be noted that in the case presented, politicians did not use
the web in order to interact with participants.
Evaluating participation in urban planning - ICT to evaluate participation in urban planning - “PartecipaPUG” - Conclusions

16. The tools
Evaluating participation in urban planning - ICT to evaluate participation in urban planning - “PartecipaPUG” - Conclusions

17. Assessing participation in the
“partecipaPUG” process.
 From a political perspective: the consultation has
followed guidelines for conducting consultations
issued by the national government and
stakeholders have been satisfied by the process
renovating their political sustain.
 From a technical perspective: the design of ICTs
directly affect e-consultation outcomes, for the
availability of documents and results and the
possibility to interact with the planning staff. Forums
about four priority areas
(port, coast, countryside, historical centre and city
centre) where useful to address few but relevant
decisions.
Evaluating participation in urban planning - ICT to evaluate participation in urban planning - “PartecipaPUG” - Conclusions

18. Assessing participation in the
“partecipaPUG” process.
Evaluating participation in urban planning - ICT to evaluate participation in urban planning - “PartecipaPUG” - Conclusions

19. Assessing participation in the
“partecipaPUG” process.
 From a social perspective: the contributions where
relevant to the policy topics, also if they were not always
recognised as a aprticipation result
 they were in many cases informed contributions (thanks to
the documents available on line)
 the contributions were debated and supported by others,
also if the the Internet has seemingly become a seat of
misinformation, a number of local websites have appeared
that are aligned with different political perspectives,
creating "a war of mixed information, dominated by
opinions that have often contributed to the mystification of
the planning process”.
Evaluating participation in urban planning - ICT to evaluate participation in urban planning - “PartecipaPUG” - Conclusions

20. Conclusions.
 ICT has been useful to evaluate participation process
making available all the phases of the process on line
in every moment so that each one could evaluate the
level of the process and its utility.
 As in the case of the number of visits of the web
site, on line evaluation tools could be always
available differently from those off line.
 Evaluating ICT capacity to support the assessment of
participation in planning process still remains a need
in its different political, technical and social aspects
and this work could be considered just a first
approach.
Evaluating participation in urban planning - ICT to evaluate participation in urban planning - “PartecipaPUG” - Conclusions

21. THANKS FOR YOUR
PATIENT ATTENTION!!! Francesco Selicato
Francesco Rotondo
Department of Civil Engineer and Architecture,
Polytechnic of Bari, Technical University (Italy)
e-mail: f.selicato@poliba.it;
f.rotondo@poliba.it;