Urban Planning, Information Technology and Artificial Intelligence: The Theory of Evolution
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This article is an effort to scrutinize the role of Information Technology development in
the chronological transformation of Urban Planning domain. In this research, we argue that the theoretical and practical understanding of Urban Planning should absorb and integrate the bright outcome of the rise of Information and Technology to foster congruent future urban development.
The article addresses the trends of transformation in the urban planning domain through the myopic lens of the expansion of information and communications technology era followed by investigating the key drivers shaping the interaction between modern-day urban planning and information technology considering both the dark and bright sides into account.
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... This transformation did not only empower the citizens but also gave a more important role to the municipality and its planners in the urban planning process. This is in line with findings of Das [36], which showed that technologies (e.g., communication and geo-spatial technologies) can change urban planning practices and increase citizens' participation in planning processes [36]. His study showed that technologies such as online participation tools and geographic information systems can change decision making and planners' roles in planning processes. ...
... This transformation did not only empower the citizens but also gave a more important role to the municipality and its planners in the urban planning process. This is in line with findings of Das [36], which showed that technologies (e.g., communication and geo-spatial technologies) can change urban planning practices and increase citizens' participation in planning processes [36]. His study showed that technologies such as online participation tools and geographic information systems can change decision making and planners' roles in planning processes. ...
The agricultural sector in developing countries is one of the most vulnerable sectors to climate change and water scarcity. Iran is one Middle Eastern country facing a growing water crisis. Rafsanjan county, located in the province of Kerman, is losing its pistachio orchards to water shortages and climate change. The modernisation of irrigation methods and transfer of water from other regions have been the main strategies taken by the governmental authorities. The lack of success of these strategies has led to the emergence of more participatory approaches in the transformation of the agricultural sector and local urban planning in Rafsanjan. This study analyses the actor network of transformation in the agricultural sector and the rise of high-tech urban agriculture, and aims to understand the role of technologies in supporting citizen participation in local urban planning. The research draws on the concept of Technology-Driven Transitions (TDT). The interactions among social and materials entities and the impact of technological novelties on the re-configuration of their relationships in the transition process were studied. The research comprised an exploratory case study, and data were gathered through observations, document study and in-depth interviews with farmers, planners, researchers, and policy makers in Rafsanjan. The results of the study show that governmental planning organizations and their implementation bodies, such as the Agricultural Research, Education and Extension Organization (AREEO) and the 10-year plan for the development of greenhouses, were the most influential actants in the transition process. Their relationships with the other actants involved, such as the private sector, knowledge institutes and farmers, were re-configured by technological novelties. This re-configuration of relationships has led to strengthened participatory decision making in local urban planning in Rafsanjan.
For any development initiative to be met, planning is crucial which involves choice making for societies and individuals to pursue the stated goals. Bangladesh, a rapidly growing country, faces several problems ranging from finding the effective ways of tackling urban poverty to deal with unplanned urbanization. The emergence of a bottom-up participatory approach reflecting the needs and demand of all social strata in the plan-making process is a far cry for countries like Bangladesh. However, despite strong and firm policy guidelines for enhancing the participatory planning approach, lack of strong role of city development authorities and communication gap, their bureaucratic decision making mind setup predominantly hinders the way to ensure pro-poor participation in policy making and people-centered planning in Bangladesh. Therefore, this particular research focuses on the investigation of necessity and manifestation of communicative rationale in the plan-making process, challenges as well as the level of participation required in the people-centered pro-poor planning in Bangladesh. The overarching methodological approach adopted for this study is case study approach including the interview of a local urban planner to recognize his own spatial needs, views on urban places as well as spatial footprints in the major cities of Bangladesh followed by his notion regarding the local and national plan-making process to generate a holistic view on the modes of planning in a developing country setup like Bangladesh. This study investigates the contemporary challenges faced by major metropolises in Bangladesh (Dhaka and Khulna with a high concentration of urban poor) to ensure the bottom-up participatory planning approach with a major focus on formulating effective pro-poor urban planning through engaging the people in the national policy-making process. The analysis and discussion uses an amalgamation of both primary and secondary databases through review of relevant literatures and interview of the key informant (Local Urban Planner). Findings demonstrate that, both in the plan-making and problem identification process, the participation of the urban poor, as well as general people, was negligible. This furthermore results in the failure of the national polices and priority setting process to address the demands and needs of the urban poor properly in Bangladesh. The findings of this study will act as a baseline for wider and growing pro-poor participatory planning literature.
Balancing the three dimensions of sustainable development: economic, social and environmental is a complex task. Creating the conditions for sustainability is precisely an attempt to bridge these three dimensions of sustainable development. However, reducing carbon emission and sustainable development are closely allied. Maintaining a low carbon growth path consequently makes a city more efficient, livable and eventually sustainable. The challenges are rather more complex for ever-growing metropolises to make and maintain a healthy balance among carbon emission reduction and sustainable development. Hong Kong, one of the most densely populated cities with a very high population-land ratio and world's most significant financial center [13], faces considerable challenges to promote sustainability in real terms. The government of HKSAR has already put much effort to encourage sustainable development in Hong Kong ranging from formulating "Council for Sustainable Development", "Sustainable Development Fund (SDF)" to stimulating public awareness as well as integrating community participation toward the promotion of sustainable development [5]. Alongside, to maintain a healthy balance between the mounting economic growth and urban sustainability of Hong Kong, a clear understanding of the complex nature of sustainable development and the intertwined nexus among its drivers is vital. Therefore, this research paper is primarily an attempt to offer a comprehensive understanding of the relationship between low-carbon growth and urban sustainability integrating global climate change impact. Moreover, it will look closely into the carbon footprint of Hong Kong and thereby suggesting options to reduce carbon emission to proceed toward a low carbon city as well as promoting sustainable development through a systematic review of the literature.
Many of today's city planning projects aim to realize smart city ambitions. In order to plan and build a smart city district, where ICT is integrated in critical infrastructure and used to control and govern city functions in innovative ways, new ways of working in city planning are needed. The purpose of this article is to develop a framework that takes into account stakeholders and smartness dimensions in city planning. We have studied a city district development in Sweden where a new planning approach was implemented. The developed framework was used to analyze the complexity of this city planning process. By defining which smartness dimension each stakeholder primarily focus on and analyzing the consequences of this, the framework pinpoints each stakeholder's contribution and/or hindrance to the process and outcome. A recommendation from this study is that new stakeholder groups are important to involve in smart city planning, but this also adds complexity that must be acknowledged when setting up this kind of projects. The developed framework can be useful when organizing and staffing city planning processes as well as when evaluating project outcomes.
This chapter on e-participation in developing countries uses Cameroon as a case study to demonstrate the realities of practicing Web 2.0 and social media tools to drive collaborative initiatives between government agencies and citizens in developing countries. The case study was guided by the incentives for e-participation using social media technologies, the tools used by a government to drive such initiatives, the level of participation from citizens, and the challenges and risks faced in implementing these technologies. A study of Cameroon’s National Social Insurance Fund (NSIF) confirmed the main incentives of e-participation initiatives in developing countries and the major challenges they face in implementing them.
The present study has established a methodology to determine the most environmentally sustainable area for the expansion of a city center using Geographic Information System (GIS) technology. This technology permits the graphical information associated with a municipality to be manipulated, integrated, analyzed and represented in a simple way that is cost effective during the early decision making steps, which analyze the various options regarding the urbanistic planning prior to taking final decisions. In order to delimit the growth zones, three types of factors were established: restrictive (those whose presence made urbanization impossible: close proximity to a treatment system, risk of flooding, steep slopes, protected land, high quality agricultural land and geotechnical problems); determinant (those who determined which sectors would require additional costs upon urbanization: distance to the preexisting infrastructures, heavy traffic and close proximity to an administrative center) that determined which periphery areas were suitable for the construction of new buildings; and finally establishing which areas were to be built up through a decision factor that satisfied a particular municipal need. Moreover, to facilitate the urbanistic process, the selected areas were divided into cadastral parcels that were analyzed, and their dimensions and existing visual impact were determined. In addition, the type of dwelling to be utilized was recommended once an urbanistic analysis was carried out on the adjacent areas and the urban transport system was designed, connecting the new growth area to the city center.
The term 'Augmented Space' is first mentioned by Lev Manovich in his article " The poetics of augmented space " (Manovich, 2006), he defined augmented space is the physical space overlaid with dynamically changing information " (Manovich, 2006), and argues that augmented space is a new paradigm with its own logics and implications. This research is based on his work, and accumulates augmented space based on four fundamental components of an AR system. With the study of those AR components, it suggests techniques as well as narratives of ways to create immersive engaging environments within physical spaces. These characteristics of AR technologies further facilitate the transformation between the physical spaces and real-time, active instantaneous positioning environment, which bridging physical and digital, allowing new forms of spatial interaction & experience and eventually mediating social & cultural changes and transforming 'space' to 'place'. The author explores many new concepts responsible for the reconceptualisation of augmented space, with describing various fields in which AR is already being used in the museum environment. It finally draws the conclusion which suggests directions for practicing designers, exhibitions and education experts on the contextualisation of AR technology within this evolutionary augmented space design process. (Words: 194)
In recent decades, the focus of public participation in urban planning and development has shifted from IF to HOW citizen involvement can be realized. Additionally, diffusion of information and communication technology (ICT) and the recent advancement of mobile devices have altered the ways citizens can interact with others and with their urban environment. This article endeavors to explore and critically discuss the practical potentials and limitations of mobile participation (as an emerging field of electronic participation) based on the example of the FlashPoll app (www.flashpoll.eu). It also debates its possible contribution to a higher level of participation quality. Key points for practitioners: This paper elaborates the following points for practitioners: Characteristics of mobile partici- pation, its practical benefits and barriers as well as the contribution of mParticipation in processes of citizens involvement, including quality aspects, challenges and opportunities.
The last few decades have witnessed unprecedented transformations in every sector of society, resulting from the explosive advancement of information and communication technologies. This drastic development has raised the hopes of citizens for better lives, in both developing and advanced countries, urging innovation in government to make it more competent. Due to e-business revolutions, governments around the world have applied similar principles and technologies to government by opening their websites for more efficient publication of information and more effective delivery of public services. While a government website is an important venue for citizens to participate in public affairs and decision-making processes, early e-government practices tended to overlook democratic purposes by focusing on the features of e-business and information systems. There have been increasing criticisms that e-government system design has focused mainly on the provider's perspectives. Reflecting on the theoretical implications of this, we argue that a government website should facilitate democratic processes involving not only information sharing and delivery of better public services, but also deliberation and coproduction. The purpose of this study is to probe into multidimensional features that enable government websites to fulfill their promises. Developing an integrative model for evaluating a government website, namely the Democratic E-governance Website Evaluation Model, we conducted a qualitative meta-analysis of four strands of literature: information systems, business, public administration, and democratic theory. Our study contributes to the literature by extending the purview of e-government website analysis beyond the question of citizens' acceptance and towards the issue of their engagement, bringing a stimulating view of citizens as active agents in governance, and it provides a holistic model for public authorities to improve their websites to facilitate democratic e-governance that helps to create more effective public outcomes.
The abundance of online public participation tools has made it difficult for planning organizations to decide which tool will best meet their needs. Understanding the benefits or challenges of specific tools, facilitation requirements, or how individual tools may best advance the public participation aims is not always easy. This article builds on theories of planning, organizations, and information science to discuss various factors that cities and planning organizations should consider in deciding whether and how they should choose online participatory tools. While the technical capability of online technologies in facilitating participation and decision making should be examined, the capability of planning organizations and communities in adopting these technologies should be considered as well. This article argues that planning organizations should choose a participation platform based on the capacities of their organization, the characteristics of the communities that are going to use the tool, user-community norms and rules, and the tool's capabilities.