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Session Type: Paper Session
Program Session: 1765 | Submission: 19002 | Sponsor(s): (PNP)
Scheduled: Tuesday, Aug 9 2016 9:45AM - 11:15AM at Hilton Anaheim in Pacific D
 
Citizen participation in smart cities, social responsibility and collaborative urban frameworks
Meaningfulness of engagement
InternationalTheme: Making Organizations MeaningfulResearch

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Chair: Joe J. Eassa Jr., Palm Beach Atlantic U.
Search Terms: civic engagement | citizen participation | urban
PNP: How can ‘smart’ also be socially sustainable? Insights from the case of Milan
Author: Benedetta Trivellato, U. of Milano-Bicocca
This paper contributes to the literature on social sustainability in urban governance, with a focus on how this concept may be integrated into a Smart City strategy, so that excessive enthusiasm for smart technologies does not lead to neglect the social implications of certain policies or programmes. By relying on a case study-based analysis, this work explores the path followed by the municipal government of Milan, and shows that integration of social sustainability into the Smart City strategy can be pursued by focusing both on the ‘content’ and the ‘process’ of strategy building. Rather than playing a strong leadership role, the planning department on the internal front and the entire municipality on the external front have chosen a role based on co- creation with citizens and other relevant stakeholders. Benefits of this approach may include the bottom-up character of several projects, better responsiveness, and greater opportunities for different categories of actors; drawbacks may include higher difficulty in ensuring that certain objective are reached (e.g. in terms of fairness and representativeness) and a higher risk of resources’ dispersion. This case also points to the difficulty of assessing the social sustainability of multiple rather than individual projects and programs combined in a Smart City strategy: projects may reinforce each other in their social impact, or otherwise hinder possible benefits; also, a municipality may choose a combination of smart projects and programs that attach different weights to economic, environmental, and social sustainability objectives.
Search Terms: urban governance | social sustainability | participation
Paper is No Longer Available Online: Please contact the author(s).
PNP: Local open government: Determinants of online citizen participation
Author: Lisa Schmidthuber, Johannes Kepler U.
Author: Thomas Gegenhuber, Johannes Kepler U.
Author: Dennis Hilgers, Johannes Kepler U.
Author: Stefan Etzelstorfer, Johannes Kepler U.
Present research on open government emphasizes the integration of externals for enhancing existing public administrative processes and service delivery. When studying collaborative action, we do not know a lot about the motives of external contributors, working together with public entities for the benefit of improving the public good. This study contributes to the understanding of open government platforms by investigating why individuals are willing to actively participate in online public service monitoring. Our results indicate that respondents who feel enjoyment when being engaged in online service monitoring show a higher activity level. Citizens’ interest in public service improvement and perceived benefit from leveraging citizensourcing further explain high platform activity. Perceived ease of use is a significant predictor for users with monitoring experience. Besides, users who have already get engaged in public monitoring via traditional methods are significantly more active in online service improvement. Quantitative analysis shows that users’ motivation for engaging in governmental initiatives vary across proactive, interactive, and passive types of users. Although externals collaborate with local government for their own good reasons, administration can partially influence determinants of platform activity. We consequently conclude with im-plications for public managers who operating platform and future research opportunities.
Search Terms: Open Government | Citizen Participation | Public infrastructure
Paper is No Longer Available Online: Please contact the author(s).
PNP: Delivering Urban Transformation through Collaborative Frameworks: Future Cities in the UK
Author: Jenny O'Connor, Imperial College London
Author: Zeynep Gurguc, Imperial College Business School
Author: Koen H. van Dam, Imperial College London
This paper explores the challenges and opportunities of new policy approaches to urban development in the UK. We use the smart cities phenomenon as a case study. Smart cities are interdisciplinary collaborations that take a purposive, top-down approach to city development through ostensibly addressing the complex issues associated with urbanization. In recent years, city governments in the UK have become increasingly interested in the potential of smart urban technologies to optimize urban livability, integrate services, drive economic growth, and efficiently manage resources. Accordingly, many cities have developed smart city strategic plans and implemented initiatives. However, despite strong enthusiasm from central government and corporate actors towards this approach, in practice, policy implementation has been underwhelming. By analyzing the key factors that shape the smart city space, we reveal the challenges that constrain city administrations from achieving strategic objectives through this paradigm. To this end, we review how four UK-based smart city projects are conceived, configured, and deployed, and from this analysis, we assess what lessons are pertinent to regional policy- making more generally. We find that a top-down design-led policy approach has its merits; however, it can also be overly technocratic, in that it fails to genuinely engage with complex social challenges.
Search Terms: Smart city | policy | civic engagement
Paper is No Longer Available Online: Please contact the author(s).
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