Improving public participation in spatial planning with Web 2.0 tools

Public participation is a form of public cooperation or participation in the spatial planning process that enables subjects or groups to express views, give initiatives, and actively take part in such proceedings. Because public participation is often limited to giving remarks on finished spatial plans, it is assumed that public participation could be improved with the help of information technology: namely, new web tools. One innovation is Web 2.0, a concept introduced in 2004. This introduced many tools into the world wide web that are useful in social networks and various web services as participatory services with a huge number of users. This article analyses opportunities for interaction between public participation and Web 2.0. It presents the demands of public participation and Web 2.0 and their opportunities for enabling participation in spatial planning. The article ascertains that Web 2.0 tools are very useful in including the public in spatial-planning processes but that much preparatory work and a good technical platform are necessary.