Collaboration-based Urban Planning Platform: Modeling Cognition to Co-create Cities

Given the need to strengthen citizen participation in urban planning processes, related research is aimed at considering citizens as “sensors” in order to use their collective intelligence. In other words, people who interact as active members through the use of collaborative and social platforms generate valuable data that is used as input for intelligent systems. The stagnation of the construction sector in large cities and the resulting housing situation have led researchers to seek new technological answers where participation from people, together with policies established by the government, jointly create new environments and solutions of housing. This study aims to present the design of a social Web application that promotes collaborative-based urban planning within the context of cognitive cities. Specifically, after studying the theoretical bases and analyzing data collected in two Ecuadorian cities, we propose a non-functional prototype. The proposed methods approach to what will be a Web application that embeds a model of cognitive urban planning, and were evaluated by local government collaborators. The prototype was built depending on the requirements specification and the intelligent components that will allow citizens to collaborate and interact in a smarter way. We conclude that involving people in the co-creation of their cities (by collaborative computer-mediated means) may improve their living conditions and place urban resilience as a challenge that can be overcome.