Communication-Oriented and Process-Sensitive Planning Support

Abstract

The complexity of the planning context has raised criticism against public participation for being a rigid top-down endeavour which does not recognize the different communicative needs and necessary working modes in the engagement of broad publics and collaborative small groups. Consequently, the problem is how to improve public participation so that it becomes more sensitive to the variety of communicative activities and knowledge needs involved in the design of urban planning processes. The aim of the article is to present and discuss, on the basis of two small case studies in the Finnish context, a revised model for a process-sensitive planning support system (PSS), with examples of several digital tools. The authors argue that besides broad public participation, more collaboration is needed to converge the diverse knowledge of planning in two-way communication and co-working settings which enable the analysis and design of living environments.

Planning support science: Developments and challenges

“…With regard to research in connection to practice, we identified an increasing mutual attunement of application, governance and instrumentation within the specifics of the particular context. A very good example of this is the strategic planmaking for the Finnish capital of Helsinki, in which a lot of technological instruments have been applied in very close cooperation with dedicated collaborative governance practices to arrive at policy recommendations for the sustainable future development of the city (see Staffans et al, 2020a). Still, our view is that much more frequent and widespread and explicit mutual attunement is needed to be better able to show that PSS really do add value in practice (Pelzer et al, 2014;Te Br€ oemmelstroet, 2017).…”

Assessing collaborative planning and the added value of planning support apps in The Netherlands

“…Nevertheless, previous studies show that it is also possible to apply planning support tools to assist planning tasks in other phases (e.g. Geertman and Stillwell, 2020;Staffans et al, 2020). According to Kahila-Tani (2015), different kinds of Public Participation GIS (PPGIS) tools are required to support specific tasks in different planning phases, such as collecting data in the phase of early initiation, and obtaining participants' comments in a map in the phase of formulating alternatives.…”

“…Recent studies have investigated the potential of digital tools especially PSS in solving these problems (e.g. Geertman and Stillwell, 2020; Kahila-Tani et al., 2015; Staffans et al., 2020). This research will contribute to link collaborative planning and PPScience by developing an evaluation framework and conducting empirical research in the Dutch context.…”

A game co-design method to elicit knowledge for the contextualization of spatial models

“…SoftGIS methods, for example, excel in capturing localized experiential knowledge for statistical analysis and systematic GIS (see Kahila and Kytt€ a, 2009). Next to SoftGIS methods, which produce divergent knowledge about an area from many individuals, methods are needed for rapid brainstorming from diverse small groups in a workshop setting as a foundation of divergent knowledge for further planning phases and planning support (Champlin, 2019;Staffans et al, 2020).…”

“…When planning is in its early stages, divergence and shared learning about the system is more the focus than converging and decision making (te Brömmelstroet, 2017a). Staffans et al (2020) outline two types of knowledge divergence that should be supported in multi-actor planning processes. The first is the production of diverse data, ideas, and information sourced through large-scale participation of the broader public.…”