The Participatory Design and Management of Public Open Space through the Digital Portal

Abstract

In the European context, various e-participatory tools have been introduced in the last two decades that are often used without giving citizens a co-deciding role. The article explores this in the case of Ljubljana, the capital city of Slovenia, by analysing the public portal for the citizens' initiatives that was developed by the local government. It analyses the characteristics of the portal. Choosing a testing area, it addresses the following questions: what kind of projects are being proposed by citizens? Are these proposals addressing future development challenges or merely current maintenance issues? How does the city administration handle these initiatives at the level of communication – do they provide precise replies to questions, proposals, and arguments? Are development-oriented citizens' initiatives considered by the city authorities? The article argues that the portal is more of a crowdsourced way of monitoring the maintenance-related issues across the city and has not much to do with the collection of the citizens' initiatives related to qualitative improvements to the city. Understanding the deficiencies of such portals in the context of the Global North it points out the need for a more critical transfer of digital tools to the Global South where the participatory practices in designing and managing public open spaces are more fragile.