Citizens' engagement in urban development through blockchain: a human-centered design approach

Abstract

The aim of the paper is to investigate how a BC-based platform for citizens' involvement in urban planning should be developed taking a human-centered perspective. Specifically, the paper adopts a Value Sensitive Design (VSD) approach to identify the key values driving the technological infrastructure development and design of a blockchain-based participation platform for urban planning. The study is empirical and based BBBlockchain: an App specifically conceived to improve citizens participation in urban planning decisions in two major residential development projects in Berlin. From a preliminary investigation on the information layer of participation, it can be argued that the most important values include transparency, inclusiveness and confidentiality.