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Ontario Planners: Healthy Communities Sustainable Communities

OntarioProfessionalPlannersInstitute

Institut desplanificateursprofessionnelsde lOntario

Ontario Professional Planners Institute

May/June 2013, Vol. 28, no. 3

Keeping up with the

Changing Planning Environment

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28| ONTARIO PLANNING JOURNAL 2 8

Crowdsourcing is one way that people are seeking totake greater control of their world and it can be aneffective planning tool to transform communicationand generate high quality ideas. However, planners

need to be cautious in determining when and how to use thistechnique to leverage public engagement.

From reader to creator

We can all recognize that a significant shift happened whenonline interactions changed from people being passive websurfers to becoming active creators of content. This began withbulletin boards, and then blogs, and hasin turn given way to the predominance

of social media. Each Facebook-like,blog comment or tweet is an act ofcreation and adds another point of viewto the information online. Everyone isnow a potential online author.

One of the first, and arguably mostsuccessful, web projects that used thepotential of having access to these manydifferent creators working together, wasthe user written and edited informationresource, Wikipedia. It launched the era of crowdsourcing forthe general public.

Crowdsourcing, as defined by Wikipedia is: the practice ofobtaining needed services, ideas or content by soliciting

contributions from a large group of people, and especially froman online community... The general concept is to combine theefforts of crowds... where each one could contribute a smallportion, which adds into a relatively large or significant result.

Over the past couple of years crowdsourcing has entered thefield of planning with both professionals and lay peopleembracing it. For example, a public park design contest for theChicago Olympic bid used crowdsourcing a few years ago, andthe visioning process for a redevelopment site in Bristol,Connecticut used this approach to gather urban design and siteprogramming ideas and also inspired the creation of acommunity association. Also, the City of Hilos (Hawaii)planning department shows how a municipality can usecrowdsourcing in a more structured framework. It uses a

crowdsourced placemaking program to facilitate theimplementation of the communitys vision through suggestedprojects and a voting mechanism.

DIY crowdsourcing in action

Community-focused DIY activism has recently become morecommonplace and has been highlighted throughout planning-oriented and mainstream media alike. This movement oftenseeks ideas for community improvement and implementation

from crowdsourcing. For example the initial parklets thatreclaimed parking spots and turned them into mini parkshave spread throughout the world as Parking Day, and theguerrilla urbanism chair bombing that improves the builtenvironment with citizen-installed street furniture. The Builda Better Blockmovement has been able to take this DIY urbanimprovement approach to another level of sophisticationthrough the creative use of crowdsourcing that provideswidespread support from like-minded citizens.

While each of these examples began as a temporary project,they have all resulted in permanent improvements. Also, eachhas been developed outside of what would be understood asthe standard planning process. They are on-the-groundexamples of grassroots community action facilitated to some

degree by crowdsourcing, and arguably changing therelationship between citizens, their communities and planners.

Planning through crowdsourcing

More traditional planning processes such as envisioningprocesses, design charrettes, information centres and openhouses are also being adapted using crowdsourcingtechniques. Typically these involve online focus groups withopportunities to comment/vote on options to indicatesupport. The parameters are generally set in advance andquestions are posed to the crowd for further refinement.

The added benefits of crowdsourcing include increasedaccessibility, ease of data tracking, novel communication tools,

and reducing power inequalities. However, before initiatingany exciting new crowdsourced urban design exercises, or anofficial plan wiki to leverage citizen insights, planners need toexamine them closely to understand their inherent propertiesand limitations.

Planning as popularity contest

An interesting crowdsourcing tool is Community PlanIt. Thisgame-like platform was used during in the development of therecently-released, groundbreaking plan, Detroit Future City.Once participants have completed a series of challenges theycollect coins and can then support preferred proposals bycashing in their virtual money. The top three proposals are

given real world funding.At first the discovery/game process only has a few steps

unlocked. But by defeating the pesky Crats, one is able tochoose which real-world cause to support. The Crats aretech-no-crats: an individual who makes decisions basedsolely on technical information not public opinion. Andthats where it gets interesting. This particular tool is intendedto be both engaging and entertaining; however, underlying thegame is a portrayal of planners as the people frustrating thepublic will.

Social Media & Contemporary Technology

The voice in the crowdBy Robert Voigt, contributing editor

Robert Voigt

http://bristolrising.com/about-bristol-rising/http://ourdowntownhilo.com/http://rebargroup.org/parking-day/https://vimeo.com/11219756http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntwqVDzdqAUhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntwqVDzdqAUhttp://communityplanit.org/http://communityplanit.org/http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntwqVDzdqAUhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntwqVDzdqAUhttps://vimeo.com/11219756http://rebargroup.org/parking-day/http://ourdowntownhilo.com/http://bristolrising.com/about-bristol-rising/

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This cartooned simplification may just be entertainment, but itmay also cloud judgment and restrict dialog. When communityengagement techniques, such as crowdsourcing reduce complexdecisions to games and measures of populism, the practice ofplanning is weakened, and so are the results. Deliberate actionand caution is needed when exploring the use of crowdsourcing.

Artificially elevating the value of public opinion withoutcontextual parameters and practical technical analysis/information can result in unrealistic expectations, attributionof adversarial positions, or oversimplified challenges resulting

in poorly articulated solutions and actions.

Pay to plan

As crowdsourcing moves into crowdfunding (where projects arefunded by the crowd), the implications for planning becomeamplified. Crowdfunding is quickly becoming common andrecognized for its power in other fields. This kind of supportfor a project was in fact responsible for one of this yearsAcademy Award winners (a Kickstarter crowdfunded moviewon Best Documentary, Inocente).

The potential power of this should not be minimized.Projects like the Low Line, an urban subterranean park, havealready gathered some meaningful financial support through

Kickstarter. This gives rise to several questions: How are issuesof social equity addressed when people with more financialresources are voting or bidding for projects that most directlyaffect them? Are municipal planning resources reallocated toaddress these projects in an accelerated timeline? In efforts toreduce budgets, are these projects managed as opportunitiesthat cannot be missed while others are postponed?

Who is the crowd?

Whenever a group of participants is self-selecting, it isimportant to be aware of assumptions relating to theirmotivations and interests. This is as true of crowdsourcingapproaches as it is of traditional participatory planningpractices. One of the primary assumptions appears to be thatpeople are motivated to participate due to community-mindedness, however, there is no proof that this will be thecase for each project.

With the advantages of online tools also come somedisadvantages, such as the loss of the ability to recognize thesubtleties of vocal tones, facial expressions and body languageevident in face-to-face communication. Online tools canimprove accessibility and equalize power imbalances, but theycan also amplify them by removing the communicator fromhis or her audience. Planners need to be aware of theselimitations and the impacts of online anonymity. Questionsabout representation, access and the common good are aspresent with crowdsourcing as they are with more traditionalcommunication and engagement methods.

Robert Voigt, MCIP, RPP, specializes in urban design,community health, active transportation and organizational

development. He authors CivicBlogger, a website focused onplanning issues. Voigt is a member of the Municipal UrbanDesigners Roundtable and the OPPI Urban Design WorkingGroup. Robert is a member of OPPIs planning issuesstrategy group and chair of its community design workinggroup. He can be reached atrob@robvoigt.com, on Twitter@robvoigt, or Google+ and LinkedIn.

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