Towards a deeper integration of public knowledge into planning practice

Emerging ICT and Internet proliferation are opening new opportunities to access and collect the knowledge of citizens, both in big data and high-quality formats. Despite this potential, Internet-based planning tools that include public participation geo-information systems (PPGIS), at best, are used to compile background information early in planning processes. In a practice full of voices that represent many, sometimes conflicting interests, the knowledge these tools supply may be perceived to further muddle an on-going planning process. This conceptual study seeks to identify strategic moments for the integration of public knowledge by exploring the questions: At what moments in a planning process might planners be more/less receptive to using knowledge from the public in their work? And, what are suitable knowledge formats for use in these moments? We classify these moments according to whether divergent (idea generation) or convergent (decision-making) actions are taking place. We suggest that knowledge in big-data formats may be useful during idea generation actions within professional planning tasks such as problem formulation and scenario development. High-quality knowledge formats may be more suitable for convergent actions since verbal, face-to-face communication is important for decision making. Finally, we provide a conceptual sketch of the methods and technologies that could be used to integrate public knowledge into the abovementioned professional planning tasks.