New information technologies in public participation : a challenge to old decision-making institutional frameworks

Given the progress in information technology (IT) in the past 30 years, I hypothesized that new conditions exist for considerable improvements in public participation in decision-making. In order to test my hypothesis, I developed a prototype of an Intelligent Multimedia System to support public and technical consultation and, together with Internet-based collaborative tools, introduced it in the environmental impact assessment review process, for the solid urban waste incinerator of S. Joao da Talha, Portugal. Supported by the evidence gathered from this experiment and by my analysis of the qualitative jump these IT developments represent, I argue that it is possible to use this new IT to capture and represent meaningful planning knowledge and with it enable multiple improvements in the public consultation, both qualitatively and quantitatively. On the other hand, observing the institutional responses and constraints during the process, my findings strongly suggest that the current institutional and regulatory context, inherited from old frameworks, is an impediment to fully set in place the improvements enabled by these IT developments.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2002

Author dc:creator

• Ferraz de Abreu, Pedro Manuel Barbosa

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Joseph Ferreira, Jr.

• Urban Studies and Planning.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/8521
• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Identifier URI

http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/8521

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/8521