ICT FOR URBAN PLANNING IN THE CITY OF MASSA

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ICT FOR URBAN PLANNING IN THE CITY OFMASSA
Council of Europe Forum for the Future of
Democracy Madrid, 16th October 2008
Dott. Francesco Molinari, fmol_at_altec.gr
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TABLE OF CONTENTS

• Lessons learnt from this Case Study
• Participatory Urban Planning Scenario
• Issues in ICT Urban Planning
• Degrees of Innovation of this trial
• Case Study Description
• Location of the City of Massa
• Role of the Municipality
• The Massa Structural Plan
• A tribute to the LexiPation Project
• Fact Sheet
• Technology Platform
• Trials Location
• Methodology for Consensus Making
• The Living Labs Concept
• Facts figures from Massa Living Lab
• Configuration and Deployment
• Results
• A few screenshots
• Conclusions and ?

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PARTICIPATORY URBAN PLANNING

• Not a novel idea
• Pioneering implementations span from Finland
  (City of Hämeenlinna, Helsinki/Arabianranta, City
  of Tampere) to Kenya (Town of Kitale), from
  Brazil (Porto Alegre) to Germany (Berlins
  Citizen Juries, Frankfurt and Hamburg spatial
  discourses), from Iceland (Garðabær/Reykjavik) to
  (a great deal of cases in) the US
• Basic concept to engage citizens and
  stakeholders in a socially constructed and
  mutually agreed model of urban planning / design
  / improvement
• Open aim harnessing collective intelligence and
  local knowledge to improve the quality of policy
  making
• Hidden aim to ensure better acceptance of the
  final planning decisions
• Quite often, legislation supports the development
  of these experiments (mandatory concertation)

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ICT URBAN PLANNING

• Born offline, Participatory Urban Planning has
  migrated and gained momentum from ICT
  implementations
• A few examples
• Participatory GIS
• Online Debates
• Crowdsourcing (Jeff Howe, 2006)
• Main issues
• Digital divide and Social exclusion
• Involvement of participants (experts / non
  expert)
• Handling the Time Factor
• Preference Aggregation
• Commitment of policy makers

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(1/5) DIGITAL DIVIDE SOCIAL EXCLUSION

• Problems
• Lack of access
• Low-speed access
• Internet illiteracy
• Some peoples voices are low, but have to be
  listened to
• Some contents are hard to understand for normal
  people
• People tend to make easy proposals, inspiring
  though badly dressed
• Solutions (from the Massa case)
• Alternate offline and online participatory
  sessions
• Talk, explain, communicate
• Make it as easy as possible
• Listen, listen, listen

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(2/5) PARTICIPANTS INVOLVEMENT

• Problems
• People are busy during working time, tired
  afterwards!
• They may not know about it
• They may not care about it
• They might be scared
• They would like to be asked
• They would like to be sure
• Solutions (from the Massa case)
• Allow sufficient time to the preparation of
  trials (months rather than days)
• Use a multi-media communication strategy
• Rely on word-of-mouth
• Preserve anonymity of participants
• Keep peoples attention high during the trials

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(3/5) HANDLING THE TIME FACTOR

• Problems
• In a public debate, there is not time enough to
  let everyone have their say
• A long lasting discussion usually doesnt affect
  the conclusions that much
• The more noise, the more room for the tyranny
  of chairpersons decisions
• Solutions (from the Massa case)
• Dont start with a predefined policy agenda
• Collect citizens opinions as inputs for future
  policy drafting
• Give a second chance for advice

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(4/5) PREFERENCE AGGREGATION

• Problems
• In a public debate, its usually hard to reach a
  common platform of consensus
• Participants are never representative of the
  underlying population
• Voting mechanisms may not be fair to minority
  opinions
• Time changes peoples opinions quite often
• Noise is always there
• Solutions (from the Massa case)
• Dont look for representative advice
• Profile your users during (anonymous)
  registration
• A particular mechanism for preference aggregation
  known as the DEMOS process

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(5/5) COMMITMENT OF POLICY MAKERS

• Problems
• The known dilemma between deliberation and
  representation
• The vicious circle of reciprocal mistrust
  (between citizens and governments)
• Risk of second thoughts from policy makers
• Strong dependence of political commitment on
  first feedback received
• Ineffectiveness of bottom-up initiatives
• Solutions (from the Massa case)
• Tie your hands from the start with the full
  process explanation
• Dont ask too much, be clear with objectives
• Integrate the trial in the administrative process

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THE MUNICIPALITY OF MASSALOCATION

• Massa is situated in the northernmost part of the
  Tuscany Region, in a zone where sea and land come
  together in a spectacular contrast created by
  nature.
• Population is approximately 70,000 inhabitants
  and is distributed over 5 boroughs.

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OVERVIEW OF THE CITY LANDSCAPE
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ROLE OF MUNICIPALITIES IN ITALY

• According to the Italian laws, Municipalities
  provide some basic services to the population of
  households and enterprises that fall under their
  territorial jurisdiction.
• A few examples social care, primary education,
  building permits, public housing, streets
  cleaning and maintenance, urban and land use
  planning.
• This also gives life to a plethora of specific
  rules and regulations issued by the
  Municipalities under their constitutional
  autonomy.
• Municipal rules and regulations must comply with
  the upper-level (Regional and State) norms and
  legal/administrative provisions.

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MASSA STRUCTURAL PLAN

• Long expected (gt 30 years)
• According to Regional Law No. 1/2005
• The Structural Plan is not just for (re)designing
  the landscape and framing land use, but is the
  tool for sustainable development of a given area
• The Structural Plan lies under the competence of
  the Municipality, in accordance with
  upper-level Plans issued by the Province and
  the Region
• The Municipality is forced to involve all the
  relevant stakeholders in the evaluation of the
  new Draft Plan
• The idea has been to do this before and not
  after the preparation of a formal draft

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PRECONDITIONS FOR THE MASSA TRIAL
Regional Legislation and General Urbanistic Laws Drafting of the Structural Plan by the Cabinet
First adoption by the City Council (observations) Interaction with local stakeholders
Scope for ICT based trials
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LEXIPATION PROJECTS FACT SHEET

• One of the six Pilot Actions on eParticipation
  funded in 2006 by the European Commission
• Objectives
• to integrate the Living Labs methodology set
  forth in the context of User led Innovation
  Theory with an existing technology platform
  (DEMOS) allowing to conduct moderated online
  discourses within small communities of people
  (a sort of online focus groups or forums)
• to define an ideal workflow for citizens
  involvement at the different stages of the
  legislative process
• to conduct four (participatory) trials at the
  different tiers of EU institutional setup,
  namely
• the City State/Regional tier (Hamburg, Germany),
• the Prefectural/Provincial tier (Thessaloniki,
  Greece),
• the Municipality tier (Massa, Italy),
• the small Community tier (Alston Moor, UK)

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THE FOUR LEXIPATION TRIALS
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DEMOS TECHNOLOGY PLATFORM

• A server based web application
• Scripting language PHP, Optimised for MySql,
  Supporting additional standards like XML, SQL,
  RSS syndication and SOAP
• A classical 3-tier architecture
• All HTML and Layout is stored in separated
  XML-Files, which can be pre-produced and edited
  manually or generated with external content
  management systems.
• The presentation layer can produce a large
  variety of formats for web browsers and other
  devices like mobile phones
• HTML, XML, E-Mail (rich content and MIME
  enabled), Microsoft-Office-Formats, PDF, WAP, RSS
  as well as all kinds of ASCII- and Unicode-Text
  files
• A completely customisable layout
• Additional software modules offer a variety of
  functions such as
• automated keyword index generation, web-GIS
  client, integrated web mail and other community
  features

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CONTENT OF THE TRIALS
Legislation Process Stage Hamburg Massa Alston Thessaloniki
Formation of Decisions (Agenda Setting, Prior Analysis) v v v v
Legislation Drafting (Discussion of Draft Laws / Regulations) v v
Implementation (of Laws / Regulations) v v
Amendments Follow Up v v
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TRIALS FACTS FIGURES

• Hamburg May/June 2007 (17 days)
• urban planning
• 285 registered users, 968 contributions, 16.000
  unique visitors, 36.000 page hits
• Thessaloniki September/October 2007 (78 days)
• environmental decision making
• 62 registered users, 35 contributions, 12.000
  unique visitors, 10.941 page hits
• Massa November/December 2007 (45 days)
• urban planning
• 93 registered users, 202 contributions, 1.800
  unique visitors, 21.000 page hits
• Alston Moor December 2007/January 2008 (36 days)
• local legislation review and amendment
• 273 registered users, 52 contributions, 464
  unique visitors, 7.106 page hits

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THE LIVING LABS CONCEPT
Source Niitamo Kulki (2005)
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LIVING LAB CONFIGURATION WORKFLOW

• Contextualisation meaning all the preparatory
  actions involved in the trial, from the
  collection of background material to its
  publication on the public administrations web
  site
• Selection and motivation of participants meaning
  the activities aimed to restrict / widen the
  panel of citizens and/or stakeholders
  representatives that will be involved in the
  trial
• Concretisation meaning the actual trial setup,
  measurement of participants characteristics,
  description of the thematic focus, statement of
  objectives from the Administration and supply of
  pieces of draft/approved legislation (if
  existing) and other background material to
  support an informed judgement
• Running of the trial use of the DEMOS system
  made available within LexiPation to reach an
  agreement with participants (if possible) or to
  collect and cluster the public opinion through
  moderated online discourses
• Feedback from results the internal, and usually
  partly undisclosed, activities leading to
  harmonisation of law-making activities with the
  trial outcomes

Source Pierson Lievens (2005)
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TRIALS DEPLOYMENT
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MASSA TRIAL CONFIGURATION
Contextualisation Avvio del procedimento available on line since December 2006. On 29th June 2007 the Municipality presented the results of a socio-economic foresight by an external entity
Selection and Motivation The site was kept open to all citizens (anonymously registered). Several offline meetings with local stakeholders (trade unions, business associations, the 5 borough councils) prepared the debates
Concretisation September 2007 publication of background information on the site. Start of a multimedia dissemination campaign.
Implementation October/November several thematic foci one general forum. Moderators to drive the discussions.
Expected Feedback Improvements to the draft Structural Plan before its formal submission to the Council
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SCREENSHOTS FROM MASSA SITE
http//pianostrutturale.comune.massa.ms.it
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ONLINE DEBATES ORGANISATION
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EXAMPLES OF DISCUSSION TOPICS

• How to increase the ratio between number of
  private parking sites and number of homes (cars)
• Up to which extent the availability of parks and
  green areas should be extended (beyond a given
  minimum standard)
• How to cope with the social needs of some
  intensively populated areas of the city
• Which incentives might well increase the use of
  public transport by the citizens
• How the outlook and use of existing cycling lanes
  can be improved
• How to reduce the negative impact of noise,
  traffic etc. on the coast belt

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THE DEMOS PROCESShttp//www.demos-project.org

• Three discussion phases
• Broadening
• Initiate the forum, facilitate and broaden the
  debate identify the most important aspects or
  subtopics of the chosen subject matter, also by
  conducting polls or surveys within the
  participants.
• Deepening
• Initiate a (limited) number of sub-forums e.g. on
  the basis of the poll or survey results this
  leads to intense discussions on specific aspects
  in smaller groups of interested participants,
  while the main forum is still there to catch
  those participants who want to enter the
  discussion or keep it on a more general level.
• Consolidating
• Close the sub-forums and transfer the summaries
  and related survey results into the (still
  existing) main forum, to see the particular
  subtopic as part of the big picture that will
  finally emerge.

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EXAMPLES OF INPUTS RECEIVED

• Create speedy road deviations avoiding traffic
  congestion for those who simply need to go across
  the City centre
• Increase the number of public places and central
  streets totally closed to the traffic
• More (free of charge) parking areas surrounding
  the City centre
• A number of public buildings should be restored
  and recreated for public use
• Services and functions locations should be moved
  away from the City centre, to reduce traffic
  congestion

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CONCLUSIONS

• The LexiPation project successfully tested the
  integration of an existing ICT platform (and
  process) for moderated discourse making within an
  innovative participatory urban planning (and more
  generally policy design) workflow
• Living Labs has proven especially helpful in
  ensuring a timely and appropriate deployment of
  ICT in the context of eLegislation, in terms of
• integration of relevant stakeholders,
• uninterrupted support by politicians,
• dissemination and marketing activities to arouse
  the publics attention and involvement.
• Results seem to be less dependent on the
  institutional tiers of Public Administration
  involved, more on local (pre)-conditions such as
• the topic of discussion (idea generation better
  suited)
• familiarity with Internet debates of the local
  population
• potential for reuse in the legislative process
• a careful configuration of the Living Lab trial

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THE DARK SIDE OF THE MOON

• Organisational Impact
• Time is needed to properly customise the platform
  from scratch (probably saved in next experiments)
• A strong commitment from IT staff (monitored by
  the political side) is also needed
• Socio-Economic Impact
• What happened next? The electoral cycle killed
  the experiment
• The sustainability issue
• That was a stone in the pond
• How to ensure replication etc.?

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THANKS FOR YOUR ATTENTION

• QA
• Contact fmol_at_altec.gr
• Project Website http//www.lexipation.eu
• Trial Website http//pianostrutturale.comune.mass
  a.ms.it
• Disclaimer The present research was part funded
  by the European Commission under the 2006/1 Call
  for Pilot Actions in the topic of eParticipation.
  However, the opinions expressed here are solely
  of the Author and do not necessarily reflect the
  official views of any European Communities
  Institution.

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REFERENCES

• Daren C Brabham (2007), Crowdsourcing the
  Citizen Participation Process for Public Planning
  Projects, http//ssrn.com/abstract1123325.
• Paul Chege (2006), Participatory Urban Planning
  and Partnerships Building Supporting Provision
  of Access to Basic Services for the Urban Poor,
  Proceedings of the 5th FIG Regional Conference,
  Accra, Ghana.
• Jeff Howe (2006), The rise of Crowdsourcing.
  Wired, 14, 6 (June) http//www.wired.com/wired/ar
  chive/14.06/crowds.html.
• INTELCITIES Project (2006), Electronic and Mobile
  Participation in City Planning and Management.
• Akito Murayama (2005), Governance for
  Sustainable Urban Regeneration, Proceedings of
  the IFHP Spring Conference.
• Veli-Pekka Nitamo Seija Kulkki (2005),
  State-of-the-art in utilizing Living Labs
  approach to user centric ICT innovation a
  European approach, http//www.cdt.ltu.se/main.php
  /SOA_LivingLabs.pdf?fileitem2402350.
• OECD/World Bank Institute (2007), Beyond Public
  Scrutiny Stocktaking of Social Accountability in
  OECD Countries.
• Jo Pierson Bram Lievens (2005), Configuring
  Living Labs for a thick Understanding of
  Innovation, Proceedings of the EPIC Conference,
  pp. 114-127.