The impact of ICT on urban environments governance and planning is typically linked with challenging problems. A successful city must balance social, economic and environmental needs but it should also put the needs of its citizens at the forefront of all its planning activities. A "smart city” makes conscious efforts to adopt innovative ICT-based solutions to improve conditions of living and working and to support a more inclusive, and sustainable urban environment. The strategy is built on the principles to use technologies to improve the City and to empower its citizens by making them active players in the decision making process. In the “Web 2.0 age”, Internet represents the key tool of this strategy. Web 2.0 generates new demand for citizen empowerment in terms of: (a) access of citizens to official, customized and “on demand” information and services; (b) new opportunities for direct and informal relationships of citizens with politicians and civil servants; (c) proactive role of citizens within the network. This chapter summarizes the results of a research project aimed to enlighten the issue of citizens’ empowerment through municipalities’ web portals. The study was designed in order to: (a) provide some key-elements to define the content of an efficient web strategy for municipalities, with specific focus on the issue of citizens empowerment, (b) benchmark the degree of citizen empowerment of public administrations’ websites across Italian Municipalities, through the adoption of a revised version of Citizens Web Empowerment Index (CWEI) for the assessment of the official web portals of the 104 Italian Cities with over 60.000 inhabitants.
Citizen Web Empowerment across Italian Cities: A Benchmarking Approach
BELLIO, ELENA;BUCCOLIERO, LUCA
2013
Abstract
The impact of ICT on urban environments governance and planning is typically linked with challenging problems. A successful city must balance social, economic and environmental needs but it should also put the needs of its citizens at the forefront of all its planning activities. A "smart city” makes conscious efforts to adopt innovative ICT-based solutions to improve conditions of living and working and to support a more inclusive, and sustainable urban environment. The strategy is built on the principles to use technologies to improve the City and to empower its citizens by making them active players in the decision making process. In the “Web 2.0 age”, Internet represents the key tool of this strategy. Web 2.0 generates new demand for citizen empowerment in terms of: (a) access of citizens to official, customized and “on demand” information and services; (b) new opportunities for direct and informal relationships of citizens with politicians and civil servants; (c) proactive role of citizens within the network. This chapter summarizes the results of a research project aimed to enlighten the issue of citizens’ empowerment through municipalities’ web portals. The study was designed in order to: (a) provide some key-elements to define the content of an efficient web strategy for municipalities, with specific focus on the issue of citizens empowerment, (b) benchmark the degree of citizen empowerment of public administrations’ websites across Italian Municipalities, through the adoption of a revised version of Citizens Web Empowerment Index (CWEI) for the assessment of the official web portals of the 104 Italian Cities with over 60.000 inhabitants.
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