Citizen Engagement in Smart City Planning: The Case of Living Labs in South Korea

Mijin Choo, Yeon Woo Choi, Hyewon Yoon, Sung Bin Bae and Dong Keun Yoon
Additional contact information
Mijin Choo: Department of Urban Planning and Engineering, Yonsei University, Republic of Korea
Yeon Woo Choi: Department of Urban Planning and Engineering, Yonsei University, Republic of Korea
Hyewon Yoon: Department of Urban Planning and Engineering, Yonsei University, Republic of Korea
Sung Bin Bae: Department of Urban Planning and Engineering, Yonsei University, Republic of Korea
Dong Keun Yoon: Department of Urban Planning and Engineering, Yonsei University, Republic of Korea

Urban Planning, 2023, vol. 8, issue 2, 32-43

Abstract: The smart city is recognized as a new city model for inclusive urban planning. Many local governments are making smart city plans to develop new policies that manage urban issues in South Korea. They identify issues through citizen surveys and decide which issues should be managed with priority. Some governments test developed policies based on citizen engagement. Most local governments use the living labs to encourage citizen engagement in smart city plans since these are public spaces where planners engage citizens to develop innovative and inclusive ideas. This study conducted a content analysis of smart city plans of local government. We analyzed the various approaches to the living lab and examined the stage of the planning process it is utilized in. Additionally, we identified the barrier to the living lab by interviewing people who participated in the smart city plan. According to the analysis, a barrier to citizen engagement exists in smart city plans; most citizen engagement is only used when planners develop ideas for setting visions and goals. It implies that citizen engagement occurs at a limited level in smart city plans and may cause planning to be less inclusive. We suggest that citizen engagement should be considered in the whole planning process to improve the inclusiveness of smart city plans and encourage sustainable citizen engagement.

Keywords: citizen engagement; inclusiveness; living lab; local government; smart city plan (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.cogitatiopress.com/urbanplanning/article/view/6416 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cog:urbpla:v8:y:2023:i:2:p:32-43

DOI: 10.17645/up.v8i2.6416

Access Statistics for this article

Urban Planning is currently edited by Tiago Cardoso

More articles in Urban Planning from Cogitatio Press
Bibliographic data for series maintained by António Vieira () and IT Department ().