Participatory Tool Development for Participatory Spatial Planning - The GEOKOM-PEP Environment

摘要

Today's spatial planning processes require public participation and interactive communication between different stakeholders. While computer-based environments generally offer a variety of (new) ways to involve the public in planning processes, with the rise of Web 2.0 and interrelated aspects like e.g. web mapping, even more possibilities for advanced information exchange, consensus finding and decision-making emerge. The integration of different components and services allows the involvement of the public by various interactions including combinations of geomedia and multimedia. In a nutshell it enables geo-communication. Ultimately, these tools can also be of practical relevance and aptitude for geography education in that they enable pupils and students as well as interested members of the general public to be empowered to participate in planning their own environments. However, although technical possibilities can be considered quite mature, of particular relevance to computer-based participatory planning applications is the question, how these tools should look like and work in practice, to address especially the (lay) public? How can these tools achieve a high level of usability and user-orientation? This issue is discussed via the example of the (prototype) GEOKOM-PEP Environment, which deals with an actual urban planning problem in Salzburg. The public (i.e. a focus group made up of mainly pupils, students, and teachers) is directly engaged in the tool development process. This centers on a participatory approach whereby the tool development process is applied using the content management system WordPress and the web mapping tool ScribbleMaps. As a result of this, the user-created GEOKOM-PEP Environment is characterized by user-generated content, user-selected interactivity, and a user-designed interface. The environment was tested and evaluated using several real-world scenarios.