Abstract

Liisa. 2010. The methodology of user-sensitive service design within urban planning. Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design.

As e-planning takes place in a complex and dynamic context, consisting of many stakeholders with a diversity of interests, it benefits from an evaluation approach that assists in the monitoring, supporting and provision of feedback. For this purpose, we have created a new approach to e-planning, called the Future-making assessment. It comprises a framework and a set of tools for the contextual analysis, mobilisation and nurturing of partnerships for collective action, in addition to an on-going monitoring and evaluation system. The aim of this chapter is to present and discuss the methodology of the Future-making assessment-approach (FMA) and its application in a case study on e-planning of services in the context of community development, in a Helsinki neighbourhood.

As planners and decision-makers experiment with information and communication technologies (ICTs), it’s important to explore and analyze these attempts in different planning systems and contexts. The aim of the article is to compare the use of and aspirations attached to e-planning in Helsinki, Finland and Sydney, Australia. This comparison will highlight the interrelationship between planning context and its amenability to an e-planning approach and shows there are shared themes in both cases: firstly, the complexity involved in reconciling the aims of the e-planning experiments and their connection to the planning process itself (roles, objectives, implementation of tools and processes). Secondly, the way that e-planning opens up cracks in the façade of administration, and thirdly, the ways in which e-planning provides possibilities to reshape existing planning procedures. The authors argue that the different planning and governance contexts affect the adoption of e-planning and this adoption is necessarily a selective process.

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