130
F. De Filippi et al.
11.2.1 Citizens Participation Through the ICTs: The Global
Scenario
An increasing demand from citizens to participate and collaborate to the future urban
scenarios, especially at local and regional scale, have also challenged democracies
all over the world (Held 2006). Public administration of representative democracies
have, thus, progressively adopted policy frameworks to become more responsive by
taking more participatory elements over and by opening up to the public in many
fields. As a result, it has involved a virtuous mechanism by which political framework
of public administration drives social innovation by promoting bottom-up approaches
to policy-making for better governance and sustainable development (Horita et al.
2015; Davies et al. 2012).
The development of ICTs (especially, user-driven applications) has widely been
recognized as a way of encouraging communications between people by transforming
the way they interact and they use the Internet (Ratti 2013).
Web-based services are excellent opportunities to improve three broad qualities of
good governance like enhance transparency, people participation and public services
in a way more cost-effective and accountable for citizens (Innes and Booker 2004).
ICT tools for eGovernment can enhance public engagement and permit a wider
percentage of the population to contribute to the public management. ICTs thereby are
seen as tools to better enable participation, democracy and more inclusive societies,
evolving from traditional top-down hierarchical models towards networked models,
to facilitate interactions between urban stakeholders and actors (Silva 2010).
However, a number of critical issues and challenges still need to be tackled. Many
of them can be related back to the lack of skills and to the shortcomings of both
the ICT-enabled tools; moreover, the digital illiteracy and the digital divide. These
effects endure both in the Global North and in the Global South between elders and
generations ‘born digital’ as between urban centres and peripheries or rural areas;
the question requires to be put forward concerning the Global South, in which too
often applications of urban planning, eGovernment, ICTs only partially address the
real challenges facing sustainability (Priti 2006). It is because models are built in
and for the North and then transferred to the South, without having been replanned
to the specific objectives, but simply adapted (Bolay 2015).
Nevertheless, ICT performance will remain crucial not only in the Global North
countries for sustaining long-term development and enhancing governance models,
but also in the emerging and developing countries in fostering structural transformations, increasing efficiency as well as reducing the digital, economic, and social
divides within their territories (World Commission on Environment and Development
1987; World Conservation Union 2006; WSIS, World Summit on the Information
Society 2003).
F. De Filippi et al.
11.2.1 Citizens Participation Through the ICTs: The Global
Scenario
An increasing demand from citizens to participate and collaborate to the future urban
scenarios, especially at local and regional scale, have also challenged democracies
all over the world (Held 2006). Public administration of representative democracies
have, thus, progressively adopted policy frameworks to become more responsive by
taking more participatory elements over and by opening up to the public in many
fields. As a result, it has involved a virtuous mechanism by which political framework
of public administration drives social innovation by promoting bottom-up approaches
to policy-making for better governance and sustainable development (Horita et al.
2015; Davies et al. 2012).
The development of ICTs (especially, user-driven applications) has widely been
recognized as a way of encouraging communications between people by transforming
the way they interact and they use the Internet (Ratti 2013).
Web-based services are excellent opportunities to improve three broad qualities of
good governance like enhance transparency, people participation and public services
in a way more cost-effective and accountable for citizens (Innes and Booker 2004).
ICT tools for eGovernment can enhance public engagement and permit a wider
percentage of the population to contribute to the public management. ICTs thereby are
seen as tools to better enable participation, democracy and more inclusive societies,
evolving from traditional top-down hierarchical models towards networked models,
to facilitate interactions between urban stakeholders and actors (Silva 2010).
However, a number of critical issues and challenges still need to be tackled. Many
of them can be related back to the lack of skills and to the shortcomings of both
the ICT-enabled tools; moreover, the digital illiteracy and the digital divide. These
effects endure both in the Global North and in the Global South between elders and
generations ‘born digital’ as between urban centres and peripheries or rural areas;
the question requires to be put forward concerning the Global South, in which too
often applications of urban planning, eGovernment, ICTs only partially address the
real challenges facing sustainability (Priti 2006). It is because models are built in
and for the North and then transferred to the South, without having been replanned
to the specific objectives, but simply adapted (Bolay 2015).
Nevertheless, ICT performance will remain crucial not only in the Global North
countries for sustaining long-term development and enhancing governance models,
but also in the emerging and developing countries in fostering structural transformations, increasing efficiency as well as reducing the digital, economic, and social
divides within their territories (World Commission on Environment and Development
1987; World Conservation Union 2006; WSIS, World Summit on the Information
Society 2003).