Participation in Smart Cities

How can we create smart cities that place the needs of their citizens first? The automated processing of large data sets offers numerous opportunities for the design and development of urban infrastructure. However, for a common good-oriented processing of data, the interests of various stakeholders in urban societies must be taken into account. This blog article examines the contribution that citizen participation can make in data-driven processes and the challenges that must be overcome for successful participation.

In the development of a city into a smart city, data plays a central role. Public administrations can use it, for example, for planning municipal measures. It is also helpful for developing digital citizen services or the intelligent control of urban infrastructure. Therefore, the automated processing of large data sets offers many possibilities for the design and development of cities. At the same time, it also holds potential for conflict. This is because the perceived benefits and risks of data collection or processing can vary significantly between different interest groups in urban societies. These groups consist of relevant actors such as politicians, public administration employees, researchers, citizens, or companies. They collect and process data to gain new insights, develop innovative solutions, and make decisions. Civil society actors are often directly affected by the impacts of data-based measures and can therefore contribute valuable perspectives to the initiatives.

To make data-driven administrative actions possible in this area of tension, it is necessary to involve all interest groups in the processes. The following text focuses on the participation of citizens. The core idea is that affected citizens need access to information about data-driven processes to be able to contribute and co-design. In this way, they can contribute to protecting the affected and to the common good of society as a whole.

What do we mean by participation and what is its purpose?

Participation is a versatile term that is gaining increasing importance in political processes. Participation can contribute to opinion formation and decision-making, increase the acceptance of initiatives, and/or improve the efficiency of a procedure. Citizens have the opportunity to participate at the municipal, state, federal, and even EU level. In various formats, they can discuss urban development projects, public transport planning, or environmental initiatives. In data-driven projects, it is particularly important that citizens are able to understand a range of decisions: How are data collected and/or processed? What conclusions can be drawn from it? How do these conclusions lead to derived measures?

The Institut für Partizipatives Gestalten distinguishes between three progressive levels of participation, with varying degrees of actual speaking and decision-making power:

• Informative Participation: This refers to providing information about decisions, projects, or political developments. The main goal is to ensure transparency and to keep citizens informed. This can be achieved through various communication means such as websites, brochures, press releases, or public meetings. For instance, the Federal Ministry of Finance (BMF) provides detailed data on federal revenues and expenditures online, promoting transparency about the federal budget. Similarly, many German cities like Berlin and Munich provide information on ongoing and planned construction projects without directly involving citizens in the decision-making process.

• Deliberative Participation: This involves actively including citizens in debates, allowing them to present their perspectives and engage in joint discussions. The aim is to foster democratic legitimacy and understanding between citizens and decision-makers. A well-known example in Berlin is the Beteiligungsplattform Tempelhofer Feld, where citizens can contribute their concerns about measures, changes, and key projects on the Tempelhofer Feld (a public park).

• Collaborative Participation: This entails active collaboration between citizens and decision-makers, such as politicians or urban planners, in the design and implementation of projects. By involving citizens in all phases of the decision-making process and developing solutions jointly, acceptance for decisions is increased. For example, in various Berlin neighbourhoods, there are neighbourhood management programmes where citizens work together with urban planners and the administration to improve their neighbourhoods.

Who should be involved?

In the context of a measure, all stakeholders who are affected by the collection and/or processing of data or by the impacts of a data-driven decision should be involved. In relation to data in smart cities, this means that citizens, economic actors, as well as politics and administration, should engage in dialogue. It can be challenging for citizens to comprehend data-driven decisions made by an administration. This is because the collection, processing, and interpretation of data is based on complex analyses and technologies, requiring technical knowledge and expertise that citizens do not always possess. Through participation, knowledge can be shared among actors, and information deficits can be balanced. This also ensures transparency in the communication of a decision and its basis. The risk that conflicts of interest might later be settled in court and planning decisions subsequently reversed can be reduced through early participation.

How is participation implemented?

In many administrative procedures, a so-called formal participation is legally required. This specifies, for example, in which cases citizens must be informed about a project and where they may submit ideas, as well as what mechanisms they can utilise to challenge decisions. Such formal participation, in its current form, can only partially address particularly complex or emotional issues. Formal participation is clearly defined in its scope and handling of the results. To address the particular complexity of data, formal participation should be reinterpreted and supplemented by informal methods. The Administrative Procedure Act provides sufficient leeway for this in § 10.

Especially when introducing a new data-driven measure, participation should be an integral part of the process from the outset. The level of participation can vary during the process. A deliberative process always has informative components. While conflicts of interest can be resolved through information in some phases, deliberative or collaborative formats are required in others. Regardless of the current phase of the process, a presentation of the overall process, all processed data, and the derived information should be made permanently accessible to enable all participants to meet on equal terms. This is a crucial prerequisite for fulfilling the transparency requirement and thus for effective democratic control by citizens as sovereigns (Art. 20 II GG).

What is needed for successful participation in a smart city?

If citizens do not understand the background, processes, and decisions of data-driven projects, this can lead to resistance against the measures. Conflicts of interest between different groups in a city, which arise, for instance, when road space is redistributed in favour of one mode of transport, can be addressed and ideally resolved through participation. For example, by analysing traffic data, the emission of air pollutants by individual modes of transport can be simulated, and a traffic measure to promote less polluting modes of transport can be developed. To weigh the potential risks (e.g., conflicts between drivers and cyclists when reallocating lanes) against the possible benefits (such as clean air for everyone), citizens need to understand the following points:

These questions must be answered as part of an information strategy. Such an information strategy is the foundation for managing the complexity of data-driven project processes. The information strategy or accessible information platform frames the individual participation formats and shows where and how the obtained results are further processed. Moreover, it enables all participants (including citizens, public administration employees, businesses, and politicians) to contribute informed input into a process, represent their interests, and thus jointly resolve conflicts of interest.