Web-Based Public Participation, Crowdsourced Information, Electronic Brainstorming, and Blogging in Urban E-Planning

摘要

As we have seen in previous issues of the Inter-national Journal ofE-Planning Research, spatial planning systems in different countries and cities around the world are increasingly adopting a variety of web-based tools to increase and to improve the quality of the information available for planners and policy-makers, but also to increase citizen engagement in the planning process, thus enhancing the overall capacity of the urban planning system. The research articles included in the first issue of volume four of the International Journal of E-Planning Research cover four key and innovative issues in the field of Urban e-Planning: the opportunities and challenges offered by web-based public participation tools in urban planning; the use of crowdsourcing tools to capture volunteered historical information relevant for urban planning; the application of electronic brainstorming in different stages of the urban e-planning process; and the use of blogging with the aim to develop research, collaboration, and citizen engagement in Urban E-Planning. In other words, all these articles deal, in one way or another, with the role citizens can play in urban planning, through the use of web-based tools, in the increasingly deep-rooted post-rational and post-modern planning paradigm that characterizes planning practice in most countries and cities, namely in the cases examined by these authors.