Citizen participation and urbanism: from principles to implementation

Abstract

Citizen participation in urban planning has gone from identifying with the mandatory process of public information to having autonomy in the different laws, differentiating two interrelated issues but each with its own nationality: public information and citizen participation.

Citizenship becomes a fundamental element in the shaping of urban models, actively participating in their definition. New technologies, transparency, governance and awareness of the value and asset of citizenship, aware of the weaknesses and opportunities of its people or city, become a reality that some laws have come with Urban. From the mere enunciation as principles, in recent times concrete criteria and mechanisms aimed at achieving an effective and real involvement of citizens in the definition of the town or city in which they aspire to live begin to be implemented.