Community informatics in cities: New catalysts for urban change

Editorial

Community Informatics in Cities: New Catalysts for Urban Change.

Peer reviewe

Multimodal Transport For Smart Mobility in Emerging Cities: Case of Doha

A mobility focused smart city ensures an urban place that is shaped with latest innovations accentuating the overall well-being of its citizens. One of the significant aspects for assessing the Smart Mobility in an emerging city is the assessment of its Multimodal Transport Network. Integrating diverse transportation modes into a single route for seamless mobility is necessary to revolutionize the cities into smart cities. Qatar is currently leading the pace of smart growth by investing profoundly in smart cities infrastructure and evolving mobility technologies. This paper explores: (i) the progress of the smart mobility development and initiatives in Qatar, (ii) the Multimodal transport system in one of its smart cities, Msheireb Downtown Doha (MDD) and (iii) how the Multimodal transport system could be influenced in the light of emerging transportation technologies like Autonomous Vehicles (AVs). The study investigates in-depth the transport network of the city and makes an exploratory analysis. The qualitative approach is used in doing secondary research and performing on-site observations. On-site observations for the smart mobility assessment involved assessing indicators like walkability, cycling, inter-modality and transportation hubs and the overall public transport system in MDD. It is concluded that there is still room for improvement when it comes to developing the intermodal network for the mobility enhancement and deployment of AVs. The outcome of the study is the investigation of the smart mobility initiatives adopted in Qatar, the assessment of multimodal transport pattern of MDD, and a bus route proposal in the era of AVs.This paper was made possible by an Award [GSRA6-2-0514-19027] from Qatar National Research Fund (a member of Qatar Foundation). The contents herein are solely the responsibility of the author

Role of Social Media in Leveraging Urban Community Empowerment

Introduction: This study tries to explores the significant roles of Twitter in creating leverage community participation as part of community empowerment in urban context. Twitter’s characters encourage people to informalize current issue in easy digestive forms. This study argues that Twitter practice will improve urban community for better life in every aspects. Also this study focusing on how urban community utilize Twitter to participate in city issues.Methods: This research used several data collection and processing including online data mining through Netlytic, online observation and semi structured interview within time period from 2021–2022.Findings: The research’s finding portrayed results in three achievements. First, Twitter significantly created leverage empowerment in a form of community participation to improve the city quality of life. Second, community empowerment was gained through holistic process and come. Third, using Twitter as appropriated and integrated strategy is a design of community empowerment. Twitter, in particular #laporhendi can be alternatives space for community discussion and participation amongst residents and local government and lead to community empowerment. Practically, urban community has the same opportunity to access Twitter and creates dynamically interaction and communication in Twitter in many direction, one to one ways, or two ways.Originality: Although research about social media and community empowerment has been studied for decades, many research tends to explore and focus on rural and marginal community. There were few studies emphazise and discusses from the urban community point of view

SMART CITY: KERANGKA UNTUK PENGEMBANGAN KOTA BERKELANJUTAN

Konsep smart city telah menjadi ide sentral yang kepadanya sekarang kota-kota di dunia sedang berpaling untuk mengatasi masalah-masalahnya. Berbagai konsep smart city telah diusulkan.Tulisan ini mendiskusikan konsep smart city dan hubungannya dengan konsep kota berkelanjutan. Dimensi konsep smart city tidak dapat dipisahkan dari dimensi keberlanjutan kota. Kerangka konseptual smart city yang mengacu kepada kota berkelanjutan diusulkan pada tulisan ini

When Self-Organization Intersects with Urban Planning: Two Cases from Helsinki

Participation as self-organization has emerged as a new form of citizen activism, often supported by digital technology. A comparative qualitative analysis of two case studies in Helsinki indicates that the self-organization of citizens expands the practice of urban planning. Together, they enable the mobilization of different groups around issues related to urban space. The consequences have become visible in temporary uses of places, event making and community development through bottom-up cultures. However, the lacking links to decision-making constrains new solutions and creative actions.Peer reviewe

Beyond the Blind Spot: Enhancing Polyphony Through City Planning Activism Using Public Participation GIS

A key advantage of public participation GIS (PPGIS) tools has been seen as increasing the polyphony of urban planning by reaching the wisdom of crowds. However, the challenge is to enable participation for those who do not have the skills or resources. This article describes participatory action research where the authors of the article collaborated with a local city planning activist at the Kontula Mall, Helsinki (Finland) to improve the participation of a group marginalized from the renewal process (i.e., immigrant entrepreneurs) using a PPGIS tool (Maptionnaire). The case study provided insights into the potential for city planning activism to bring out marginalized groups’ perspectives and use PPGIS. Moreover, the research also revealed barriers to polyphony in current planning practices. Nevertheless, planning activism can enable the participation of the marginalized by coming into contact with them, providing them with information, and bringing their perspectives to the collaboration. The PPGIS tool can serve as a platform to collect participatory data through different response modes. Local activism can also facilitate the questionnaire’s co-design, testing, and marketing. Therefore, a bottom-up approach can be a way to improve the impact of PPGIS and enhance polyphony in urban planning

Expert yet vulnerable: Understanding the needs of transit dependent riders to inform policy and design

Transportation is a crucial resource that links people to jobs, social networks, community and services. The transit dependent -- those who do not own private vehicles -- occupy a unique position. They are expert in their knowledge of public transportation while vulnerable to the failures and limitations of transit. This paper presents the results of a study that is aimed at understanding the lived experience of transit dependent riders. Using a framework of structuration theory as an analytic lens, we provide a thematic analysis of qualitative data including interviews with socially connected groups of people and video diaries. The results demonstrate the expertise that transit dependent riders have about transit and its policies and how they deploy that expertise in productive and cunning ways to make the system work for them. The analysis of this data resulted in three categories of agency to consider when designing for vulnerable populations: resourcefulness, reciprocity and powerlessness. The paper concludes by advocating for a human-centered approach to designing systems in community informatics and offers a set of guiding questions for designers of information and communication technologies (ICTs) to consider, especially with regards to vulnerable populations

Exploring knowledge management perspectives in smart city research: a review and future research agenda

There is a growing body of literature calling for work on the emerging role of smart cities as information hubs and knowledge repositories. This article reviews the existing smart city literature and integrates knowledge management perspectives to provide an overview of future research directions. By demonstrating the multi-stakeholder relationships involved in smart city development, it takes a crucial step towards looking into the role of knowledge management in future smart city research. Eighty-two peer-reviewed publications were analyzed covering smart city studies in various research domains. The systematic review identifies five different themes: strategy and vision, frameworks, enablers and inhibitors, citizen participation, and benefits. These themes form the basis for developing a future research agenda focused on knowledge sharing and co-learning among cities via three research directions: socio-technical approaches, knowledge sharing perspectives and organizational learning capabilities. The paper also proposes a series of knowledge-driven policy recommendations to contribute towards the UN Sustainable Development Goals

Smart City Dimensions and Associated Risks: Review of literature

Countries have been working on implementing smart city concepts in different regions. The need for the use of information and communication technology in various forms is needed in such cities. There are different dimensions that are to be considered for smart city planning and implementation. This complexity of the dimension, the use of technology, and their integration bring the risk perspectives into the implementation of the smart city concept. If such risks are not adequately understood and addressed, they can create issues in terms of privacy and security and, therefore, the functioning of smart cities. In this review, the identification of dimensions, smart city assessment tools, the available technologies, and the technical and non-technical risk parameters related to smart cities implementation are discussed. The current methods of risk assessment and the possible enhancements are highlighted. The findings of the literature review illustrate that not all smart cities adapt all of the smart city dimensions. The dominant technology used in smart cities' applications is found to be the Internet of Things, Artificial Intelligence, and blockchain. The paper also provides some research directions for the design, implementation, and operation of smart cities. 2021 The Author(s)N\A, There is no funding recived to complete this review paper.Scopus2-s2.0-8511950365