Community Engagement in Smart City Initiatives (IEEE Publications)

Context

Project Title: Community Engagement in Smart City Initiatives
Role & Scope: UX Researcher; responsible for conducting literature review and some aspects of the interview, analysis, and combining ht final report.
Timeframe: 6 months
Team: Collaborated with researchers and smart city planners across the United States.

Smart cities aim to improve the quality of life through advanced technologies. However, decisions about smart city developments are often made at the top level, without sufficient input from the community. This exclusion of the community in decision-making processes can undermine the success and inclusivity of smart city projects.

Our project sought to explore how community engagement is addressed in contemporary smart city initiatives and how planners facilitate inclusion in these environments. The problem is crucial because effective community engagement can improve urban technologies’ success by addressing local needs and building public trust.

Gauge insights on how city planners engage the community.
Understand the level of citizen engagement across different cities.

We conducted remote interviews with smart city planners across the U.S. via Zoom to gather insights into their approaches to community engagement, particularly in light of the restrictions imposed by Covid-19. To begin, we reviewed existing literature on smart city engagement models to frame our interview questions. During the interviews, we focused on understanding the planners’ strategies and challenges, and the responses were manually analyzed, categorized, and coded to identify key themes and actionable insights.

Timeline:

Month 1-3: Planning, Literature review, and designing interviews protocol.
Month 4: Data analysis and theme identification.
Month 5: Review
Month 6: Reporting and writing up recommendations.

Participant Details

Sample Size: Conducted 5 interviews with smart city planners from cities across the U.S. working on large-scale smart city projects.
Recruitment: Planners were selected based across different US states
Ethical Considerations: All participants provided informed consent, and their responses were anonymized to ensure confidentiality.

Community-Centric Engagement: Successful engagement models prioritize community needs, focusing on real-life problems and concerns.
Data Management & Incentives: Effective data management policies and incentivized programs for community stakeholders have proven to boost engagement.
Lack of Community Practices: The absence of solid community engagement practices hinders smart city initiatives, leading to less effective and inclusive solutions.

Outcome: Based on these insights, we developed recommendations for smart city planners to enhance community engagement and inclusiveness in urban development. Our findings were published in the IEEE Journal: Smart City Engagement in Urban Technology.

Recommendations:

Planners should prioritize creating transparent communication channels that allow for ongoing community feedback and participation.
Data management policies should incorporate community engagement strategies, ensuring that the needs of the local residents are at the forefront.

Introducing incentivized programs can motivate stakeholders to actively participate in the planning process.