A SDI and Web 2.0 based Approach to Support E-Participation in Municipal Administration and Planning Strategies

SUMMARY Citizen's participation is commonly accepted as important, necessary and (in Germany and many other countries) to some extent required by law. Furthermore, existing and upcoming challenges like demographic change and monetary tightness call for the publics intensified involvement in municipal administration and planning. The internet is considered to be of particular value for additional participation. Following this assumption, various attempts have been made within the last two decades to deploy the World Wide Web (WWW) - partly combined with GIS functionalities - for supporting public participation in political and planning matters. Still, the adoption of GIS based tools for e-Participation in practice has been disappointing. A number of recent trends that come under the heading of Web 2.0 raise hopes again, e.g. the popularity of Google Earth and Google Maps, social networking and mobile services like Twitter. If these trends (and the philosophy of the Web 2.0) could be used for political and planning matters, e-Participation might gain a new quality and reach a considerable number of additional citizens. Furthermore, Spatial Data Infrastructures (SDI) are being established throughout Germany driven by EU-directives. These lead to an increasing availability of qualified geodata (viz. data related to a spatial context), of which municipal administration and planning could benefit. Besides, combining SDIs and Web 2.0 trends generates an additional value with regards to municipal e-Participations efficiency. But in what way could GIS based e-Participation benefit from Web 2.0? What design would be adequate for a GIS based e-Participation tool using Web 2.0 technologies as part of a municipal SDI? These questions are answered within this article. Furthermore the intended implementation of such a tool in the City of Wiesbaden, Germany, is described. ZUSAMMENFASSUNG Die Partizipation der Offentlichkeit ist eine weitgehend akzeptierte Notwendigkeit, deren Mindestmas in Deutschland sowie in vielen anderen Staaten heute sogar gesetzlich vorgeschrieben ist. Bestehende Problemlagen (bspw. der demographische Wandel oder die prekare Finanzsituation der Kommunen) durften zudem die Notwendigkeit weiter verstarken, die Offentlichkeit aktiv am administrativen und planerischen Handeln auf kommunaler Ebene teilhaben zu lassen. Gemeinhin wird dem Internet eine entscheidende Rolle in diesem Zusammenhang beigemessen - auch und gerade fur den kommunalen Kontext. Dieser