A review of urban planning tools for empowering public participation

The ever-increasing proportion of humanity residing in cities has led to recognition of the rights and potential of citizens in the design of conurbations, but there remains a technical knowledge gap between communities and professional planners. This gap is exemplified in the software tools utilised in urban planning practice, yet these tools also have scope for empowering communities towards democratic and informed decision making. Given the recent proliferation of such tools, this paper evaluates a range of them, from established GIS software and rapid concept generation and analysis applications, to more novel methods emerging from interoperability platforms and the videogame industry, to help provide genuine agency to the public without compromising the quality of existing design processes. Each tool was tested through examination of its respective functions in typical industry scenarios according to a set of characteristics derived from relevant literature and ISO 25000 metrics, enabling assessment and comparison of their use cases. The research concludes that the gap between citizens and planners can be bridged through a combination of functionality from the software tools surveyed, including the computational power of GIS software, parametric modelling and generative design from rapid concept generation and analysis applications, software interoperability from interoperability platforms, and accessible user interfaces and detailed simulation from the videogame industry. Development of a workflow comprising Giraffe Urban Analytics, Speckle, and Cities Skylines II is suggested for further research, which is to be informed by the useful functionality detailed in this paper.