Collaborative Planning Through Visualization: Learning From Urban Living Labs

During recent years, the fast development of Information Technologies (IT) has introduced new opportunities for a sustainable growth of cities. This integration of IT in urban areas has generated the concept of "smart city", promoting a technology driven vision: this quantitative approach however contrasts with the social and qualitative origins of urban co-living. As a result, citizens are long away benefitting from smart technologies within urban areas. This chapter reviews how new digital tools, Planning Support Systems (PSS) and visualization tools in particular, can promote dialogue between planning practitioners, citizens and decision makers, in order to start a collaborative process. The review is illustrate by recent experiences from the city of Amsterdam and other examples.