Creating smarter cities: Considerations for selecting online participatory tools

The abundance of online public participation tools has made it difficult for planning organizations to decide which tool will best meet their needs. Understanding the benefits or challenges of specific tools, facilitation requirements, or how individual tools may best advance the public participation aims is not always easy. This article builds on theories of planning, organizations, and information science to discuss various factors that cities and planning organizations should consider in deciding whether and how they should choose online participatory tools. While the technical capability of online technologies in facilitating participation and decision making should be examined, the capability of planning organizations and communities in adopting these technologies should be considered as well. This article argues that planning organizations should choose a participation platform based on the capacities of their organization, the characteristics of the communities that are going to use the tool, user-community norms and rules, and the tool's capabilities.