The use of ICTs in the planning and design process of public spaces, a co creation analysis

In Latin American countries such as Mexico, society is not used to be engaged with government institutions for collecting their needs and aspirations (Swapan, 2016). In this regard, the planning and design process of public spaces gets af-fected, which brings social discontent, causing social initiatives to try to generate co-creation processes from a bottom-up perspective.(Alawadi & Dooling, 2016; Boll-Bosse & Hankins, 2018). Actually, in the last years, citizens have become more aware of their urban surroundings and want to be more involved in the ac-tivities of their community and are also willing to participate using different Infor-mation and Communication Technologies (ICTs). This situation has been strengthened by the recent COVID-19 pandemic which has brought several changes on how people interact using diverse ICTs in co-creation processes.

ICTs have contributed to the development of cities worldwide and can be focused on the social dimension of planning. Some authors define the 21st century as the period of the Neo-Planning Paradigm, where new technological tools and ser-vices allow non-geographers and planners to use geographic information sys-tems easily or visualize projects using virtual representations of a proposal through 3D applications (Foth, Choi, & Satchell, 2011). With the use of ICTs, it is possible to store, manage, share, and use data collected to co-create solutions in the cities.

Yet, citizens are not used to engage with governmental actors for collecting their needs and aspirations (Swapan, 2016). Moreover, the use of ICTs has not been appropriately explored in Mexico and Latin America for several reasons related to the lack of knowledge on how to use them or even by the expensive cost of acquiring technological equipment for their (Breen, Dosemagen, Warren, & Lip-pincott, 2015; McBride et al., 2017).

In this research we focus in the case of Mexico as in 2016 the country brought a new federal ministry that is focusing in all urban and territorial order issues and the same year was published the first federal regulation that defines and consid-ers the development of public spaces as a priority for the country, the importance of participatory processes for their development and the search for innovatice and technological solutions to achieve it.

Against this background and considering that the potential of ICT technologies to involve citizens in co-creation processes, this exploratory research has the ob-jective of identifying what are the ICTs used in the co-creation of public spaces in Mexico.. Our case of study will be the two largest cities that compose the Mexican megalopolis (Mexico city and Puebla city). By conducting this research we will provide insights on the ICT tools that enable the engagement of citizens in the planning and design of public spaces in Mexico from a co-creation perspective.