Urban planning and decision-making can often be elitist and non-participatory processes. Citizens are frequently a neglected part of these activities and are usually only involved in and considered before elections, or are informed about the planned changes at the very last stage, often beyond the possibility to change anything. Nevertheless, citizens have a relevant role in the processes of town planning and administration; and this chapter describes the implementation of a web-based crowdsourcing tool for the collection and visualisation of emotion-based and subjective information on maps used in the neighbourhood planning and revitalisation. The tool was used in four case studies of neighbourhood development consultations in various locations in the Czech Republic in 2015-2018. The results presented in this chapter allow for the replication of the research methodology in other areas, both location-wise as well as topic-wise.
Top1. Introduction
In the Czech Republic, similarly to other Central and Eastern European countries, decision-making concerning city planning and local government has historically been elitist, closed to the public and non-participatory (Galdós, 2010). Citizens have often been a neglected part of the processes involved and were only considered before elections (Galdós, 2010). Distrust of politicians has increased as many corruption scandals have occurred. Furthermore, membership of political parties has never reached the levels of their western counterparts. Therefore political scientists are discussing political dealignment and political demobilisation (Howard, 2003). The neglect of citizens as participants is slowly changing as local political representatives start to understand that citizens have a relevant role in the processes of town planning and administration (Čermák & Vobecká, 2011). There has been limited research in the region of Central and Eastern Europe concerning the use of subjective and emotional maps as part of the processes of local planning, and almost no practical implementation of such approaches in local government administration. Nevertheless, some examples (Jankowski, Czepkiewicz, Młodkowski, & Zwoliński, 2015; Pánek & Pászto, 2017; Pánek, Pászto, & Marek, 2017) of citizens acting as an advisory body in the e-planning process have been observed.
Reflecting on the historical context of the planning process in the Czech Republic, the authors support the idea that institutions with newly implemented participatory agenda such as Centre for Architecture and Metropolitan Planning Prague, The Prague Institute of Planning and Development or the Office of City Architect Brno, could help regain people’s trust in democratic government especially in the scope of public spaces planning and maintaining. A set of innovative instruments such as participatory budgeting (Bhatnagar, Rathore, Moreno Torres, & Kanungo, 2003; Cabannes, 2004; Shah, 2007; Sintomer, Herzberg, & Röcke, 2008), emotional maps (Pánek et al., 2017), participatory urban planning (Kahila-Tani, Broberg, Kyttä, & Tyger, 2015; Kahila & Kyttä, 2009), open data (Jäppinen, Toivonen, & Salonen, 2013) and other measures to enhance transparency, could all contribute to democratic renewal across European cities. If democratic renewal primarily occurs on a local government level, its effects may also reach the level of the central government. Citizens in municipalities which employ participatory and deliberative methods of planning tend to have better civic skills and thus accept democratic principles and act accordingly (Geissel, 2012).
Participatory mapping can have an empowering effect because members of the community have the opportunity to think spatially about their environment, and they can literally put their community on the map. The process of creating the data triggers feelings of belonging to the community and ownership of the process. Ownership empowerment starts and leads to sustainable development, driven and run by the community itself (Vlok & Pánek, 2012).
Nevertheless, as with almost every measure, it has to be applied with caution (Botes & Rensburg, 2000). Ghose and Elwood (2003) explored how local contextual factors can shape the PPGIS (public participatory GIS) process in the United States. In their case study of Milwaukee, the authors found that the local political context is not the only factor in the successful application of PPGIS: “PPGIS must be assessed as a complicated set of interrelated relationships among multiple government and non-governmental institutions, positioned at different levels, that play an interconnected role in shaping the processes of participation and PPGIS production” (Ghose & Elwood, 2003, p. 17).