Environments by Design
Abstract
Planning projects are increasingly met with resistance. There are various reasons for this. The decline in quality of life due to constricted neighboring buildings or undesirable uses, but also increased noise and air emissions as well as environmental damage are often cited. A core problem remains the release and communication of information about planning projects on projects by politic and administration. A large part of the information receives too late, is incomprehensible and the entire planning process is non-transparent. In addition, participation procedures in the planning and implementation of f.e. urban planning and transport projects aim to inform civil society and allow it to express its opinions. In the further course of planning, these opinions are or should be taken into account. This is required by law. Whether and how a project is implemented is not the responsibility of civil society. In this regard there is a decisive social change. The legal requirements for participation have nothing to do with the real desire for democratic participation. Citizens want to participate in decision-making, co-determination and co-design. However, there is movement: Informal participation formats complement the formal participation process, both analog and digital. With the development of digital communication media at the beginning of the 21st century, online-participation has been added. Studies show that the majority of online portals, especially those operated by municipalities, have been poorly user-friendly. Besides the classical online portals of municipalities, digital media, especially social media, are hardly used for planning procedures. The aim of this paper is to show what role online formats play for the formal planning process and whether they can be more than supportive for individual procedural steps in planning. In this context, it will be examined which criteria (mobile) online formats, in particular the smartphone, must fulfill for active citizen participation and which tasks politics and administration must set themselves in order to enable truly transparent participation and thus realize the right to participation.
Nicole Raddatz has been working at the University of Kassel since fall 2016. After completing her studies in the disciplines of urban planning and urban design at HafenCity University in Hamburg in 2013, she worked in various offices in the fields of urban development, urban and regional planning, and transportation planning. She focused in particular on conceptual and development planning, with a special emphasis on participatory processes. In her teaching she shows how the interaction of different disciplines (traffic planning, architecture, urban and landscape planning) leads to better and sustainable street spaces and offers projects with practical relevance. In lectures, she also deals with (mobile) instruments and procedures, in particular planning and participation procedures, in greater depth. She sees new research approaches in the development of models and prototypes for better communication of transport infrastructure projects by administration and politics vis-à-vis the civil society and, in doing so, questions the nature and significance of information communication in formal planning procedures in the context of a digital society.
12:45 pm - 2:15 pm
Wednesday 16th June, 2021