Energy Citizenship in Positive Energy Districts— Towards a Transdisciplinary Approach to Impact Assessment

It is commonly assumed by the projects demonstrating concepts for positive energy districts in cities across Europe that citizens want and need to be involved in the development of these concepts as an essential condition for positive energy districts to be deployed successfully and to achieve the expected societal goals. Six different...

The power of stories: A framework to orchestrate reflection in urban storytelling to form stronger communities

This paper focuses on the particular power of storytelling to foster reflection and connections between people in urban life. In fact, the core principles and mechanisms for public storytelling to achieve this have yet to be made explicit. This gap is addressed by introducing a novel reflective storytelling framework that unveils the underlying...

Exploring design guidelines for fostering citizen engagement through information sharing: Local playgrounds in The Hague

Citizens’ engagement in their neighbourhood community is pivotal for cities to effectively deal with future transitions. Knowing what is going on and having access to the neighbourhood network are important conditions for this. Although prior research has studied ways to foster information sharing between citizens, the underlying assumptions and...

Integrated, adaptive and participatory spatial planning: trends across Europe

Whether spatial planning systems are equipped to cope with contemporary regional and urban challenges is strongly dependent on their capacity to promote integration between policy sectors, to respond adaptively to changing societal and political conditions, and to involve and engage citizens in decision-making processes. This paper examines...

Citizen Engagement With Open Government Data: A Systematic Literature Review of Drivers and Inhibitors

Citizen engagement with open government data (OGD) can enhance the effectiveness of governments and improve not only the quality of public policy making but also public services provisioning and ability to address societal problems. Although previous research gives insight into citizen’s drivers and inhibitors for engaging with OGD, they have...

Beyond Information-Sharing. A Typology Of Government Challenges And Requirements For Two-Way Social Media Communication With Citizens

Despite great advances in ICT, social media, participatory platforms and mobile apps, we seem to still be locked in the one‑way communication “paradigm” where information flows unilaterally from government to citizens and seldom vice‑versa. As a result, citizens are more receivers rather than conscious producers of information, data, ideas,...

Beyond technology: Identifying local government challenges for using digital platforms for citizen engagement

Previous research has highlighted that there is a lack of advanced technological solutions able to foster government-citizens collaboration. We argue that many examples of digital participatory platforms are already available and also ready to use for governments and citizens. Hence, causes for ineffective citizen engagement and collaboration...

Digital Participatory Platforms for Co-Production in Urban Development: A Systematic Review

A renewed interest has appeared in citizen co-production of public services due to financial pressure on governments. While social media are considered an important facilitator, many digital participatory platforms (DPPs) have been developed to facilitate co-production between citizens and governments<br/>in the context of urban development....

Using Social Media and Mobile Technologies to Foster Engagement and Self-organisation in Participatory Urban Planning and Neighbourhood Governance

This editorial explores the potential of social media and mobile technologies to foster citizen engagement and participation in urban planning. We argue that there is a lot of wishful thinking, but little empirically validated knowledge in this emerging field of study. We outline key developments and pay attention to larger societal and...