Flipped transparency in Community Strategic Framework. A bottom-up approach for transparent planning and urban design in Italy

Abstract

Efficient public participation in planning provokes transparency as an unavoidable condition. However, almost always, transparency is only partial. The main decision-makers prefer opaque mediation and negotiation processes. The weakest actors are disadvantaged. The aim of this paper is to present some methods and techniques for flipped transparency built for bottom up processes by small interested groups (instead of government). It is possible to hypothesize more planning plurality that is able to develop in parallel with the official one. It is thus possible to develop more effective and transparent public participation. The construction of the plan can take shape through the combination of the strategic choice approach and the wiki environment. In addition to being completely public through the web, the system is simple to manage, low in cost, and able to trace the decision-making process through a detailed step by step documentation in which it is possible to explore the chronology showing the contributors to the planning process. and suitable for interaction among stakeholders. Finally, the paper outlines an approach to constructing urban design rules, again using wiki. In this case the wiki environment is accompanied by a revision of Christopher Alexander's pattern language.