1. SMART COMMUNITIES CONNECT
World Town Planning Day Online Conference
6-7 November 2012.
Title of session
The Urbopinion: introducing new technology of public opinion research in urban planning
ABSTRACT
As an urban planner living in a country where rarely a dime is spent on organizing public participation in the process of planning and implementation, I am fascinated how, at the same time and place, hundreds of thousands of Euros are spent on market research - focus groups, phone and field surveys, advertising and more research later on, just to launch and prevail another brand of ketchup on the market!
Superficial and powerful as it is, the market that we created has alienated from us, includes us more in a life of a ketchup than in shaping of the way we live in our neighborhoods, cities, and eventually on our planet.
Another occasion when public opinion is closely monitored is during the elections, but for one purpose only – for the politicians to win the elections. And it makes all the difference…
This paper will present and inspire the potential use of the technology of mobile and on-line public opinion research in urban planning, showing how quickly, precisely and intensely all the information that reflect people’s needs and desires can be collected, further incorporating them into physical space and creating a better human habitat out of our neighborhoods and cities.
INTRODUCTION
The Process of Planning and the Role of Urban Planner
In many countries around the world, including West Balkan's, urban planning is practiced inside city and state government agencies and public enterprises. It is not really a business and is not actually on the market. The consequence of this situation is the arbitrary price of an urban plan and untransparent financial flows - "if there is money" a plan can cost hundreds of thousands of Euros, and "when there is no money" a plan can cost much less. Either way, the urban planner has no say on how money should be spent, and gets no provision for each plan he/she is responsible for. The "real deal" and a chance for anyone to make a profit come after planning, and the way to secure it in advance would be through providing suitable urban planning solutions.
The urban planner is a conflict manager, the one that has to reconcile public and private interest, and stand in front of city and ministry plans committee, explaining and defending the plan for which he/she is personally responsible (the Law on Planning and Construction in Serbia recognizes the responsible licensed urban planner). But the government representatives, closest to urban planning, are often unaware of the arbitrariness of solutions they impose, and usually are in favor of whatever suites best for investors who finance their political parties. A fact that all public utilities and services are managed by public enterprises, directed by the government, makes these kinds of impositions even easier. The public interest is covered, no further questions asked, no feasibility studies needed, and everything according to law. The job of the (responsible) urban planner is to lead these mysterious ways.
In many cities in Serbia, including Nis, the process of urban planning is static, meaning that it is not based on GIS tools and that the solutions are fixed and defined for a certain period of time (10 to 15years). During this period, a plan is revised every 4-5 years, and the solutions can be changed, but again in static manner.

2. General Public in Urban Planning
The law in Serbia does not require public participation in initiating urban planning. It is only upon the city government to decide whether a new plan should be done, and the decision is published in the official gazette, far away from citizen’s eyes.
Public participation is organized in 30 days of public insight into the draft of a plan, but in the late phase, when the solutions are already defined and agreed upon. The public insight is advertised in a local newspaper and posted on the entrance of the city administration building. Either way, many people stay uninformed and hardly anything is being done to improve it.
There is an overall depression in public opinion in Serbia, a collective state of disinterest of an average citizen for the greater cause, tired of struggling for survival on every day bases, as if there is nothing he/she could do to make a difference.
The situation is unacceptable, if we just realize that who we call the public are not just the biggest “consumer” of urban space, but there are also the landowners and potential investors among them. Citizens’ associations (NGOs) should also play an important role in all phases of urban planning.
THE URBOPINION SOLUTIONS
The inspiration for this project comes from my involvement in market and public opinion research, where I have learned about data collection and data processing. Proposed solutions are my attempt to make a difference; help the community gets more involved in urban planning, but also help urban planners become more responsible. In this way, the Urbopinion mission would be to make both the public and urban planners smarter in the process of planning, and the vision, to make the Urbopinion solutions become an integral part of urban planning procedures.
Around the world, online and mobile applications are already being used in city management, but the Urbopinion would specifically relate to the process of urban planning. I am presenting an idea of how it would work, the solutions are still developing, but I intend to have the experimental implementation of the solutions very soon. Here I would like to inspire urban planners from all over the world to engage the public more in what they do, but also offer a model that could be used worldwide.
The Concept
The Urbopinion would serve as an online application working on computers, tablets and smart mobile phones. The Urbopinion website would have a simple and smart design for a “digital citizen” to use.
Some of the proposed solutions are based on urban planning practice in Serbia, but they could be adjusted according to procedures and laws in other countries.
There would be four public categories: Landowners, General Users, Potential Investors and NGOs, and two main sections: Urban Planning Initiatives (UPI) and Urban Planning in Progress (UPP).
On the Home page, there would be a (Google) map with predefined areas. The user should easily find an area of his/her interest, click on it and follow the instructions. He/she would give the opinion in form of a questionnaire, but in advanced version, the user would be able to draw predefined lines, hatches and signs over his/her area of interest.
The data would be collected and processed using tools and techniques of market and public opinion research, with add-ons for collecting location information (in the UPI section). GIS based application would be further developed. Different kinds of reports would be made for each plan, and placed under the section Reports. This would be a Log-in section, only to be used by authorized personnel (the Urbopinion administration and responsible urban planners).
The urban planning team, headed by the responsible urban planner, would then make the first draft of a plan, relying on Urbopinion reports and official city, regional and national strategies, applicable laws and conditions, prescribed by different public utility enterprises and other major institutions.
The draft would be put on the website and then the public would be asked about the priorities for plan implementation. According with official city, regional and state strategic priorities, the urban planning

3. team would then create The List of Priorities for plan implementation (although the law in Serbia does not require it).
The Urbopinion Home map
This is where the Urbopinion mission would officially end, and city administration procedure could start:
- The concluded draft of a plan would go to city committee, where the responsible urban planner would have all arguments for the proposed solutions, based on both public and private interest.
- After passing the committee, the city administration for planning should properly organize the official public 30-day insight, advertizing it in all available media.
The Extended Concept
Urbopinion solutions could be further developed for outsourcing current city administration work, such as:
- Organizing an on-line legal procedure for public insight, as addition to current; for this purpose, Public Insight section would be put on the website,
- Informing the public on the adopted plans and their direct implementation, helping them understand adopted rules of planning and regulation; for this purpose, Help section would be developed.
Urban Planning Initiatives (UPI)
Every urban and spatial plan in Serbia has to foresee:
- The areas for direct implementation, in which there is no further planning, but only urban and architectural projects and designs, for which the rules of planning and regulation apply,

4. - The areas foreseen for urban planning, for which the public is not included in the decision making process, and it is only upon the government to decide where to plan next.
The Urbopinion would include the public in initiating urban planning right from the start. As soon as spatial or urban plan was adopted, a gray surface would appear on the Home page map, representing areas foreseen for urban planning. A click on it would lead to the UPI section.
The UPI would serve for collecting data on two-in-one universal question: Where and why should a new urban plan be made? After choosing public category, one would enter the questionnaire, in which he/she would first have to put a placemark inside the grey area defined in Google map (survey application add-on).
Urban Planning in Progress (UPP)
As soon as the decision on making a new plan was officially confirmed, a colored surface representing a scope of the plan, would appear on the Home page map. A click on it would automatically lead to either one of two pages:
- A page where a digital citizen could choose a public category which he/she belonged to, and enter the questionnaire on planning solutions, answering two-in-one universal question: What do you need/wish and where?
- A page where a digital citizen could fill the universal questionnaire on The Priorities, if time determined for questioning solutions had elapsed, and the plan had entered the Urbopinion phase of determining priorities for plan implementation. The universal question would be: What do you think should be done first?
In these questionnaires, a citizen would locate his area of interest entering an Urban Block Code (UBC) from the UBC map, representing the scope of the plan and codes of urban blocks.
Public Categories and Questionnaires
There would be four public categories, each of them having different needs and interests, so the questions would differ for each of them:
- The landowners would be asked more about their property and what they intend on doing with it,
- The potential investors would be asked about their area of interest and their ideas for investment,
- General users would be asked about how they are using the space, and what their (material) needs and desires were
- The NGOs would be asked about their suggestions on making spatial conditions closer to their general objectives.
The Urbopinion public categories
The principle for formulating questionnaires would be to rewind the process of planning, meaning they should contain questions that would represent the final solutions for the plan. Together UPI and UPP sections would have eight different questionnaires and the universal 9th for The Priorities.

5. Since the landowners would claim the landowning rights, their identity checks would be a necessity. A suitable time for them would be arranged to come in person or send their legal representative, to show their ID and sign the questionnaire they had previously fulfilled.
Some of the potential investors and NGO’s would be e-mailed for further communication, after checking their data with national business register agency.
The possibility of leaving the e-mail address would exist in all categories, which would bring to automated informing of a person about all the decisions and urban planning procedures under UPI and UPP sections, and in the later version, the Public Insight (PI) section.
Exemplary (basic) questionnaire for a landowner under UPI section:
A. Where is your real estate located? Put the placemark on this map (link).
B. Why do you want urban planning for your real estate?
1. I want to change building regulation on my property:
a. Horizontal - I want to build or to extend to the front, back or to the side,
b. Vertical - I want to change the number of floors or height.
2. I want to change predominant land use of my property
3. My property has no access to public street, and I want to connect to it
4. My property has no access to basic infrastructure (power, heat, water, sanitation or telecommunication), and I want to connect to it
Personal data
 Gender:
 Age: 18-35 36-49 50-65 66-79 and 80+
 Cadastral number(s) of parcel(s) where my real estate is located
 Total land occupancy of my property (whole parcel or my share in it) (approximation ±10m2)
 Identity checks (data would be kept private):
- Name:
- Contact e-mail:
(Check) I want to be informed on the later phases of this plan by e-mail
IMPORTANT: For your initiative to be valid, please come to our office or send your representative in the next (6) months, with documentation confirming your identity (ID) and your landowning rights.
Thank you for taking initiative in urban planning
Quotas
For the Landowners and General Users quotas would be specified for each plan, depending on the existing number of landowners, based on the Cadastral data, and the approximate number of users (active users (sitting and walking) and passive passersby (using means of transportation)). To assess the number of current active and passive General Users, demographic analysis would be required.
a) UPI quotas
The initiative would become valid if the urban planner could define an area for which:
1. There were a certain number of initiatives from all four categories.
If such a border could be defined, that satisfies the rules for the Landowner’s quota. The needed number of Landowners would depend on the specified coverage of total land in their possession, e.g. 30% coverage would mean that the quota would be achieved if the total amount of urban land in possession of Landowners had reached 30% of total coverage. The percentage of coverage would differ, as inversely proportional to the Landowners and Active General Users ratio (higher if the ratio was smaller).
The quotas for General Users would depend on the ratio between the estimated number of total users within specified borders, and the size of that land. The estimated passersby would be added as one fifth to one tenth to total General Users.
The number of Potential Investors and NGOs would be unlimited.

6. In UPI, there would also be time quotas, meaning that after a certain period, an initiative is no longer valid. This period should be defined according to short and long term urban strategies. In Nis, it could be 4-5 years.
b) UPP quotas
For planning in progress, the quotas would count as in the UPI section, but would have an informative character. Whatever the participation was in each category, it would be taken into consideration. The quotas would define the level (quality) of participation. There would be three levels (small, medium and high), and quotas for each of them.
Time quota for UPP in Serbia would be 30 days, which would begin to count after the decision on making a new plan had been pronounced (using all available media), as it is the time needed for collecting official conditions from relevant city, regional and state government institutions.
The time quota for The Priorities should be less than 10 days.
The Urbopinion Reports
Branding It would be possible to incorporate any visual identity into Urbopinion reports - logos, colors, fonts and other visual elements of the client (city, municipality, public or private enterprise dealing with planning etc). Different charts and tables could also be created to adapt to visual identity of the client. Real-time reporting It would be possible to track all received data in real time. Just a mouse click would be needed to update the reports. It would also be possible to predefine the time of update, so that every morning the reports would wait on the Urbopinion website, or we could define the time by adjusting it to predefined quotas – the moment the quota was fulfilled, the report would be created. Created reports could be sent to planners by e-mail or could be sent to their smart phones. Cross-tab analysis One of the best Urbopinion functions would be the possibility to present data using different aspects of analysis, which suites best to our users (urban planners). A cross-tab would be two dimensional matrix that would enable each question from the questionnaire to be crossed with another (see the example below). The data would appear in tables so that urban planner could easily analyze them. Data Filtering Filtering the data using advanced logic (and/or) would enable predefining the parts of received data that would be shown in the report. There would be endless combinations of presenting the data and extraction of data sets, as would their quick and clear presentation with charts and tables. If-then system would enable easy and fast presentation of the data sets and subsets, filtered by specified criteria. Data Export Known formats of data exports would be supported – PDF, Excel, and Word. Data could also be exported to the SPSS software for more complex analysis. Data Distribution There would be an excellent integration of the Urboinion application with social networks, such as Facebook, Twitter and Google+, and the possibility of easy and quick distribution of both questionnaires and reports using social networks. This is of the utmost importance, because the accent in data collecting is put on the public, a large number of which visits these most popular networks every day. E-mail distribution of the reports would imply, and it would be possible to protect each with a password, so there would not be an unauthorized use.

7. Exemplary (basic) report for the Landowners in UPI section:
Total land occupancy: 18238m2

8. Exemplary (basic) cross-tab analysis report for the Landowners UPI section:
Landowners who want to change the predominant land use of their property:
Total land occupancy: 12650 m2

10. Issues on Promotion
According to the official statistics, around 41% of households in Serbia are using Internet. The total population was around 7.2 million in 2011, and there are currently 3.4 million Serbian facebook accounts. If we add that the Urbopinion would mostly apply to predominant urban areas, these figures may be pointing at the possible success of such on-line application for urban planning in Serbia.
There are a great number of landowners, potential investors, general users and NGOs on facebook. Once they become familiar with the Urbopinion, they would use it as a habit.
Besides media, a way to promote the Urbopinion solutions would be by posting information on the back of monthly bills, for all households in the scope of a plan.
However, for some it would still be a problem to understand the basic concept of democracy and human rights upon which this whole idea is made. From all public categories, the hardest to involve would be the investors, feared from anyone questioning their intentions, which could make “their crowns fall of their heads”. If the procedure were not obligatory, they would certainly find a way to avoid being visible to anyone but the very few.
In countries where planning is mostly kept under government control and jurisdiction, this kind of public participation would be subjected to strict government supervision, and would possibly fail to develop a real market for its services.
In more developed economies and communities, the Urbopinion should respond well and improve to the advanced level very quickly.
THE CONCLUSION
The Urbopinion solutions could fit well in both developed and undeveloped communities. In cities where the level of public engagement is urban planning is high, the Urbopinion could better manage and speed up the process, decreasing the number of meetings and public debates. In less developed and engaging communities, it would raise awareness, educate and increase its transparency.
With Urbopinion solutions, the overall outcome of urban planning could change, in a way that a plan would really reflect the needs and desires of citizens. Collected information would be valuable in developing urban planning instruments worldwide - regulatory, economic, financial and behavioral, where the use of new technologies is now becoming a necessity.