SMUA 4500

Assignment 1: The battle for the city

Student: Karoline Cordeiro de Andrade

Question 1:

Citizen participation in urban plannings is a good way to create, develop and

concretize ideas to enhance citizen’s life in the cities. However, this participation
seems to be complex and involve “social imperatives of our time” (Arnstein, 1969,
p.216), because at the end of the day “citizen participation is citizen power”
(Arnstein, 1969, p. 216) and those who have the power do not want to release it and
share it with others. Sherry Arnstein's text written in 1969 entitled "The ladder of
participation" brought up a discussion about the degrees of citizen participation that
consists of 8 steps, ranging from a manipulated participation (non-participation) to a
more active participation (citizen power). This discussion remains relevant in the
actual scenario of urban planning worldwide, while the importance of involving
citizens in the development of urban planning has increased in recent decades.
However, urban planners and researchers are still struggling to find a way to get
people’s engagement to a level where citizens are enabled to play a role in digital
and urban development in practice. One of the reasons for that might backslide into
the old discussion on participation and sharing of power.

In a manner to illustrate this issue, two examples of citizen participation in urban

plannings may be used in this reflection. The first one brings up the citizen
engagement in a European Horizon2020 smart city project, +CityxChange, in
Trondheim (Norway). This planning aimed to enable citizen involvement and co-
creation in the transition to a positive energy city and it focused on efficiency and
creating innovative solutions for, by, and of people. Nevertheless, it was found in
research that people's participation mechanisms were disturbed by the private
sector, limiting citizen engagement (Gohari et al., 2020). Thus, citizens’ power and
roles were not delegated to challenge or replace the project’s predetermined issue
or plan. Instead, they were encouraged to help just by providing solutions, giving
feedback, or performing certain roles (Gohari et al., 2020). This practice is quite like
the degrees of tokenism of the levels of participation defined by Arnstein (1969)
(Inform, consult and placation) where the city administration and the corporation
still retain and control urban plans and projects, and where citizen action is limited
to certain boundaries and behaviors acceptable by those in power. In other words,
the citizens were not supposed to challenge or establish any changing in political
issues in the plan, for instance. The second example refers to the engagement of
citizen in a Barcelona’s smart city program in 2016 named ‘Barcelona Ciutat Digital: A
Roadmap Towards Technological Sovereignty’. This program aimed to provide a
more democratic use of technology in order to solve the challenges of the city and its
inhabitants. For that, this city’s administration attempts to change the expected level
of participation recurrent in the previous administration (where citizens were
required to help in a limited way), formulating and implementing a different vision of
a smart city and citizen engagement. Thus, Barcelona has sought to: 1. raise citizen
participation to a higher level of the participation ladder (degrees of citizen power),
focused on citizen-centered and based on knowledge of political and social
citizenship; and 2. Distribute decision-making power in the planning to citizens,
putting private interests aside (Cardullo & Kitchin, 2018). With all that said, we notice
that the ladder of participation defined by Sherry Arnstein in 1969 is still actual and it
takes place in urban planning in different contexts worldwide. Despite the efforts of
some cities to overcome with this situation, it is not certain that the attempts shall
succeed.

Question 2:

Due to criticisms of being instrumental and technocratic, prioritizing market-led

solutions over urban issues, smart city agendas have begun to reshape their
approach, becoming more citizen-centric (Manchester & Cope, 2019; Cardullo &
Kitchin, 2018). This leads to a sort of evolution of citizen participation to make
her/him an integral element of the city where she/he lives (smart citizen). For that, a
new manner of learning about citizen participation is required, as the existing
models do not suit the novel educational challenges (Manchester & Cope, 2019).
Therefore, my idea about people's engagement in smart cities covers first a new
model of learning which could address inequalities, recognizing “citizen learning as
situated in social and material contexts and embedded in unequal relations of
power, knowledge, and resources” (Manchester & Cope, 2019, p. 224). Thus, the
citizen would be learned not only how to use and develop information and
technology within the context of a smart city but also how to be critical, achieving
the highest rungs of the ladder of participation (degrees of citizen power) With that
in mind, it is important to mention that the city administration and other
stakeholders play an essential role in this new model. They need to be aware of the
citizen importance within a smart city and overcome the old customs of retaining
power and conflict of interests. Finally, the existence of a sort of method to measure
“smart citizen inclusion, participation, and empowerment in smart city initiatives”
(Cardullo & Kitchin, 2018, p. 1) would be needed to ensure meaningful citizen
participation, affecting the outcome of the process and not being an empty ritual.

REFERENCES
1. Arnstein, S. R. (1969). A ladder of citizen participation. Journal of the
American Institute of planners, 35(4), 216-224.
2. Cardullo, P., & Kitchin, R. (2019). Being a ‘citizen’in the smart city: Up and
down the scaffold of smart citizen participation in Dublin,
Ireland. GeoJournal, 84(1), 1-13.
3. Gohari, S., Baer, D., Nielsen, B. F., Gilcher, E., & Situmorang, W. Z. (2020).
Prevailing approaches and practices of citizen participation in smart city
projects: Lessons from Trondheim, Norway. Infrastructures, 5(4), 36.
4. Manchester, H., & Cope, G. (2019). Learning to be a smart citizen. Oxford
Review of Education, 45(2), 224-241.