Context-based Smart Citizen Participation

The public involvement in the design, planning and implementation of smart city is one factor that determine the success of the vision. It is critical that smart city vision is constructed specifically to the local context. Thus, public participation is crucial to ensure that it is appropriate to the local citizens’ need. However, different cities require different kind of citizen participation platform due to their different of local context. Simonofski et al. (2021) proposed a framework to identify and understand the context factors that local municipalities can use to formulate the best participation strategy for their cities. There are five context factors that can influence the citizen participation strategies.

The first identified context factor is the Smart City Consideration; this is the orientation of the municipalities vision of the Smart City, whether it is more of technology-oriented or participation-oriented. Next, is the Drivers of the vision; is the governance more of a top-down model, or bottom-up model. Third, the Degree of Centralisation; how the coordination and administration between the stakeholders are arranged. The fourth context factor is Legal Requirement & Plans; is the legal obligation of participation strong or weak in that specific city. Lastly, the Citizens’ Characteristics; are the city stakeholders are considered mature (highly employed and educated) to participate in the process of city planning and management.

Based on these five context factors, local authority’s can understand their citizens’ context, thus creating better strategies to engage the public in the smart city vision. Further, Simonofski et al. also provide contextualised recommendation for policy makers for each differing condition of the local context factors in the study. 

Reference:

Simonofski, A., Vallé, T., Serral, E., & Wautelet, Y. (2021). Investigating context factors in citizen participation strategies: A comparative analysis of Swedish and Belgian smart cities. International Journal of Information Management, 56, 102011.

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