Abstract. Our Model is designed to greatly increase public participation in urban planning and make it more citizen-friendly. We use an agent technology consisting of a pair of opinion-miner recommender agents which, through mining of the opinions of citizens, make recommendations to planners on the design of the master plan. The advantages of using recommender agent technology in our DSS Model are that it accelerates acceptance of planning proposals and creates more participatory urban planning. A particularly innovative feature of our Model is that public participation occurs both before and during the development of the master plan, and in a citizen-friendly way. With our Model, planners come up with citizen-sensitive proposals and are able to more accurately predict the reaction of citizens to them. The case of the redesign of the Diagonal Avenue in Barcelona is provided as a concluding example.Keywords: decision support system, urban planning, public participation, opinion-miner recommender agents.
The Problem: Public Participation in Urban PlanningPublic participation in the processes involved in the design and updating of urban master plans need to be improved. As things stand, it is not easy for citizens to become involved in these processes. This is due in large measure to the fact that participatory channels open too late in the timeline of master plan development. This results in a very low level of participation, which can raise doubts about the validity and legitimacy of the plan, and even lead to its rejection. The processes for ensuring participation during the design and approval of master plans have a similar structure in all countries: citizens are requested to give their opinions once the design process is over and the stage is set for the approval process