CfP: Special Issue on Urban Planning & Community Informatics

Journal of Community Informatics

Call for Papers: Special Issue on Urban Planning & Community Informatics

Guest editors: Liisa Horelli (Coordinator), Geisa Bugs, Jennifer Cowley, Marcus Foth, Reinout Kleinhans, Joanna Saad-Sulonen, David Sadoway, Carlos Nunes Silva, and Patrick Sunter

The Journal of Community Informatics (http://ci-journal.net) has been a focal point for disseminating research of interest to a global network of academics, community informatics practitioners, national and multi-lateral policy makers. This network includes a growing community of planners and scholars with an interest in urban issues as well as with an interest in examining ICT applications and practices of possible benefit to communities and city residents. In this forthcoming Special Issue of JoCI we invite submissions of original, unpublished articles at the intersection of Urban Planning and Community Informatics. We welcome research articles of various types, levels and scales centering upon the co-mingling of urban planning and community informatics. Articles can be of a theoretical nature, can focus on case studies, or be developed as practitioner notes from the field. All research articles will be double blind peer-reviewed in accordance with JoCI guidelines. Insights and analytical perspectives from practitioners and policy makers in the form of notes from the field or as case studies are also encouraged.

Why this Special Issue on Urban Planning and Community Informatics?

Community Informatics (CI)—broadly defined as the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) for the empowerment of communities (Gurstein 2007)—remains an emergent field of research and practice. As JoCI demonstrates, the field features lively discourse and debates about core concepts and key issues about how ICTs are being shaped by and shaping of communities. In recent years, the boom associated with social media and ICT applications has significantly expanded the relevance of community informatics to various fields, including urban planning and urban studies.

In addition, the ‘communicative turn’ in planning—with an emphasis on civic participatory approaches—suggests a diversity of applications of CI in urban planning. This includes themes about community-driven initiatives, local empowerment, and civic engagement practices. Differing international urban and regional planning or modes of governance also shape the uptake, adoption and evolution of e-planning, civic initiatives and digital practises—and these differences are of interest in this Special Issue of JoCI.

The relationship between CI and urban planning praxis remains in flux. For example, the uptake and adoption of ICTs are highly selective processes, but thus far remain quite limited in institutional planning environments and settings—in examples as varied as Finland and Australia (Wallin et al. 2012). Nevertheless, it is clear that e-planning, e-governance and open government approaches have been opening up cracks in the façade of traditional administration. This suggests novel possibilities for reformatting existing planning and participatory processes and procedures. Such experiments, innovations and experiences are of interest in the Special Issue of JoCI and practitioners, scholars or civic leaders are encouraged to submit pieces about distinct international experiences.

In addition, informal self-organising and grassroots initiatives around planning and community development issues are characterised by active participation, community-based collaboration or mutual aid efforts—including in local planning processes enhanced by CI; the design of digital media and technologies; and in the dissemination of the content for urban planning (Saad-Sulonen, 2013). For example, the recent International Conference—“Using ICT, Social Media and Mobile Technologies to Foster Self-Organisation in Urban and Neighbourhood Governance,” (Delft, The Netherlands)—held this past May 2013, highlighted the emergent role of social media and mobility applications in facilitating participation and self-organisation in urban planning and city governance. Again this Special Issue of JoCI requests case studies, comparative reports, analytical or theoretical pieces about these urban ICT-linked innovations.

Many challenges remain unaddressed about employing ICT tools in a range of urban themes. For example, the providers of ICT infrastructures, social media platforms and mobile apps are often commercial actors whose interests may conflict with public interests, provisions of public services or public goods. Who should provide and maintain such tools or the infrastructure, if they are to become part of public services or public goods? Moreover, might mundane digital technologies dovetail with the expert ones that are traditionally employed in urban planning? Scholars are encouraged to focus on such questions in their work in this JoCI Special Issue.

Reinout Kleinhans, the organiser of the aforementioned Delft conference, has observed that many ‘top down’ ICT applications and social media platforms do not properly address the needs of their target groups. Even for seemingly successful ‘bottom-up’ initiatives, we know very little about their spin-offs and implications beyond data on take up rates. It remains an open question to what extent mobile applications, mash-ups and virtual platforms really affect citizens’ approach towards local everyday liveability issues that are relevant for planners. This Special Issue of JoCI encourages the publication of work that explores such themes.

The keynote speaker in Delft, Professor Jennifer Evans-Cowley explained that the challenge in the U.S. context has been the low rates of public participation. This has led governmental decision makers to ask questions such as: who is participating; and are these participants representative of the public? How can the information gained from the public be adequately analyzed to aid in meaningful decision-making? Governments are also actively asking about what role ‘big data’ should play in making decisions that impact people in the community. JoCI seeks articles for this Special Issue that focus on these important questions in urban governance.

David Sadoway, a Canadian Post-Doctoral Fellow (Concordia University), who is presently involved in urban infrastructure research in India, has an interest in the role of commercial players in ‘smart city’ initiatives in Asia. He suggests that in the rush to involve big name industry players in ‘smart city’ urban planning initiatives, leaders, city planners and administrators need to carefully consider the ‘public interest’ and ‘public good’ as well as questions about public participation. This Special Issue of JoCI would like to encourage research notes and cases from around the world on the sometimes conflicting and paradoxical relationships between commercial and public interests in urban issues.

Marcus Foth, who has founded the Urban Informatics Research Lab at QUT in Brisbane to investigate strategies and approaches that combine scholarship into ‘people, place, and technology’, strives to bring about civic innovation that connects the physical and the digital city. Enhancing urban planning processes and outcomes continues to be a key objective of the lab’s work (Houghton, Miller, Foth 2013; Fredericks & Foth 2013). Papers on urban civic innovations are encouraged in this Special Issue of JoCI.

In the field of transport planning, Patrick Sunter at the Australasian Centre for the Governance and Management of Urban Transport (GAMUT) is investigating whether the recent rise of open transport data standards and Open Source software can genuinely empower civil society groups to engage more fully in Melbourne’s complex and contentious transport planning debates. Civic-cyber movements in cities, as well as ICT applications in urban transportation planning are just two of the many examples of city-based themes that this Special Issue of JoCI encourages paper submissions on.

Papers about diverse international urban experiences and practices are highly encouraged in this Special Issue of JoCI. For instance, in South America, especially in Brazil, a variety of bottom-up initiatives are taking place, which seek to promote activism, by providing mechanisms and tools to encourage community entrepreneurship. Or E-government and E-planning efforts in various African cities continue to innovate with limited resources despite being affected by deep digital divides that are both geographical and social. In this Special Issue we would like to hear reports about the challenges, opportunities and recent developments of e-planning in not only South American and African cities, but from urban-regions around the globe.

Both similar and differing issues are globally at stake when it comes to urban issues and community informatics. It is this diversity that the JoCI Special Issue hopes to prompt and provoke. For example, a recent book on the new directions in urban planning claims that the application of ICTs will transform the field into ‘e-planning’ with links between planning processes and everyday issues, as well as the rise of local co-governance arrangements (Horelli, 2013). Whether such scenarios will be witnessed elsewhere is of interest. As is the case with the intersection of community informatics and urban issues this prompts more questions than answers remain. Questions like: How do urban planners perceive digitally enhanced ‘consultation’ tools? What do ICTs mean for the working procedures in the everyday practice of planning organizations and in local governance? And what is the role of planners in the context of CI? Responses to such queries are encouraged in the form of article proposals for this JoCI Special Issue.

To recapitulate, the Journal of Community Informatics is now inviting authors to submit in English full articles for peer-review, as well as short pieces (or technical notes) on specific experiences and/or policy and regulatory issues. These articles should relate to the intersection of urban planning and community informatics themes.

Upcoming deadlines for this JoCI Special Issue:

• Deadline for preliminary abstracts: 16 August 2013
• Deadline for final submissions: 20 October 2013
• Publication target date Spring 2014

For information about submission requirements, including author guidelines, please visit: http://www.ci-journal.net/index.php/ciej/about/submissions#onlineSubmissions. For further information, clarifications, or suggestions, and to send abstracts of papers for consideration, please contact:

Dr Liisa Horelli
YTK – Land Use Planning and Urban Studies Group
Department of Real Estate, Planning and Geoinformatics
Aalto University, Finland
liisa.horelli [at] aalto.fi

References
Fredericks, J., & Foth, M. (2013). Augmenting Public Participation: Enhancing Planning Outcomes through the Use of Social Media and Web 2.0. Australian Planner. http://eprints.qut.edu.au/54573/
Gurstein, M. (2007). What is community informatics (and why does it matter)? Milano: Polimetrica.
Horelli, L. (Ed.) (2013). New Approaches to Urban Planning, Insights from Participatory Communities. Helsinki: Aalto University. http://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-952-60-5191-8
Houghton, K., Miller, E., & Foth, M. (2013). Integrating ICT into the Planning Process: Impacts, Opportunities and Challenges. Australian Planner. http://eprints.qut.edu.au/56430/
Saad-Sulonen, J. (2013). Multiple participations. In L. Horelli (Ed.), New Approaches to Urban Planning, Insights from Participatory Communities. Helsinki: Aalto University.
Wallin, S., Amati, M., Saad-Sulonen, J. & Horelli, L. (2012). Exploring E-Planning Practices in Different Contexts: Similarities and Differences Between Helsinki and Sydney. International Journal of E-Planning Research, 1(3),17-39. http://www.igi-global.com/article/exploring-planning-practices-different-contexts/70080