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Urban planning 2.0: How eParticipation adds value11. July 2008 – 09:53 by Rolf Luehrs |
As experiences from the City of Hamburg (Germany) show, urban planning is one of the favoured topics for citizen participation on the Internet. It is a field where the strengths of eParticipation can be displayed to best advantage: relevant information, including geographical data, can be provided and displayed visually; results-oriented debates with hundreds of active participants can be held; lay people and experts as well as decision-makers and those affected by the decisions can be brought together. Thus original ideas can be developed and implemented, citizens involved actively in the structuring of their urban environment and, in the medium term, tangible value created.
“It is lovely to live by the water, but living on the water is better still, and it is affordable on a floating home. Major cities such as San Francisco, Seattle, Vancouver, London and Amsterdam have made many people’s dreams come true. The floating homes in these cities are both an enrichment of the cityscape and a tourist attraction.”
Anne struck a chord with her contribution to the Internet debate on “Hamburg, a growing city” (2002): many people would love to be able to live right on the water. But it was not only potential future tenants whose imagination was caught by the idea; urban planners, architects, local politicians and the city’s mayor, Ole von Beust, were fascinated, too. In early 2003, the idea was chosen by a jury and recommended for implementation.
Life on the water
Since then, various prototypes for living on the water have been developed, suitable moorings sought and work done on the many problems associated with developing waterways for residential use. Even though, five years after the Internet debate, the project still has not been put into practice, the developments are encouraging. Current plans envisage a floating string of contiguous residential locations in the tidal basin and along the river Bille in the east of Hamburg which it is hoped will engender a community of water dwellers and a floating lifeline. A survey by the Förster Trabitsch architectural practice anticipates economic benefits from the project in addition to impulses for urban development and planning: “Here new kinds of local amenities can emerge which, as part of an overall concept, would foster new jobs and attractions. Floating cafes, studios, gardens, shops and markets are all possible extensions of the idea.”
For the City of Hamburg, the discussion of the “growing city” principle also marked the start of a whole series of Internet discussions in which Hamburg’s Senate or its parliament enabled citizens to have their say. Read the rest of this entry »
