Increasingly over the last decade, there has been attention and expectations on the role that Information and Communication Technology (ICT) solutions can play in increasing accountability, participation, and transparency in the public administration. In addition, attention to citizen participation is more and more at the center of the debate about smart cities. However, technological solutions have been often proposed without considering the first citizen's needs and the sociotechnical misalignment within the city, i.e., in peripheral area. This paper outlines the design and implementation process of a we-government IT tool, called MiraMap. The project has been developed in the Mirafiori District in Torino (Italy), a neighborhood, which is characterized by the problems of marginality and by several undergoing urban transformations with a very high potential for social and economic development in the next few years. This makes Mirafiori Sud a valuable case study environment to experiment new methods and IT solutions to strengthen the connection between citizens and public administration. The object of MiraMap, indeed, is to facilitate communication and management between citizens and administration in reporting of issues and claims but also in submitting proposals. Collecting and handling of this information in an efficient way are crucial to improve the quality of life in urban suburbs, addressing more targeted and better performed public policies. In order to achieve those results, we combined First Life, a new local social network based on an interactive map, with a business process management system for easing reports about claims and proposals to be handled. The research process involves an interdisciplinary team, composed by architects, computer scientists, engineers, geographers, and legal experts, with the direct participation of local administrators and citizens.

Nowadays, through ICT supports and their applications, the concept of smart cities has evolved into smart communities, where the collaborative relationship between citizens and public administration generates multi-dimensional impacts: urban sites are living labs and agents of innovation and inclusion. As a first step, this article aims to critically review the state of the art of the assessment methods of these impacts through a set of synthetic indicators; the second step is to elaborate a specific framework to evaluate quality of life through a set of impact indicators for smart communities and inclusive urban processes. According to some referenced authors, cities and communities are smart if they perform well in six smart categories: smart economy; smart people; smart governance; smart mobility; smart environment; and smart living. Considering a recent experiment carried out in Turin (Italy), the authors propose a methodology, whose trial is ongoing, based on a hierarchical multiscale framework defining a set of smart community indicators.

Nowadays, levels of crime and violence appear to be much higher in large cities in developing countries. This is the result of several factors, such as: the speed of urbanization, the inability of cities to provide sufficient infrastructure and the widening disparities in income and access to housing and services. These levels of inequality can have negative consequences from a social, economic and political point of view, with a destabilizing impact on societies and higher risks for the most disadvantaged people, especially those living in informal settlements. The paper presents the results of a study carried out by the Authors at the Department of Architecture and Design of the Polytechnic of Turin. Urban security is investigated in the context of Kibera slum (Nairobi) through the integration of two different tools, namely Participatory Mapping and Space Syntax. The research analyses the relation between criminal activities and the spatial and configurational features of the street network, with the aim to highlight some key environmental factors to take into consideration while constructing the new road Missing link #12. Specifically, the research identifies and studies seven parameters from the literature review: integration, illumination, vitality and diversity, visibility, active facades, territoriality and maintenance and image. The findings show that urban planning and design strongly impact crime occurrence. The crime hot-spots’ distribution in Kibera depends on the simultaneous interrelation of multiple components in the space.

This paper explores an innovative approach to open policymaking and citizen-responsive urban planning. It reports on project MiraMap carried out by the Politecnico di Torino (the Polytechnic University of Turin). The project engages both citizens and the Public Administration in a reporting process concerning critical issues, as well as positive trends and resources within the Mirafiori Sud administrative area of Turin (Italy), through the use of a digital collaborative platform. The experiment was a real case study geared at evaluating the use of open source technologies to foster e-participation in urban planning. MiraMap has been set up with an eye to achieving integration within the current administrative management process and to involving new actors in the decision-making process through a “collective governance” approach. Therefore, this paper seeks to set up a methodological (and technological) framework, which is seen as crucial for addressing the complexity and dynamics of urban planning and programming, by integrating the perspectives of citizens through their actual engagement.

The article is focused on the digital participatory platforms (DPPs) as a tool to enhance civic engagement through dialogue and interaction with the Public Administration and to reduce Digital Divide. To this end, the article presents the objectives and the outcomes of “My Smart Quartier,” a project funded within the ERASMUS + 2017 Program, in which the Department of Architecture and Design (DAD) of the Politecnico di Torino participates with a consortium of European partners. The aim of this project is the setting up and testing strategies and actions to reduce digital illiteracy and increase citizen participation. Best practices from the project partner countries (France, Italy, Spain, Portugal) are selected and analyzed in order to understand if they can constitute innovative ways of participation and civic engagement. Specifically, the article identifies some parameters and indicators that can be used to bring out key success factors of digital participatory platforms.

Despite the increase in the globally connected population, there is still a high percentage of European citizens who do not have basic digital skills. In the era of smart cities, the Digital Divide affects the possibility for citizens to participate in public life through the use of ICT tools. To deal with this issue, the European Union promotes strategies to develop e-government tools, such as digital participatory platforms (DPPs), in order to connect citizens with the public administration. The research proposes a survey of Italian DPPs, investigated through a questionnaire, to bring out which strategies have been adopted in relation to participation, social inclusion and digital illiteracy, transparency of data, processes, and user-friendliness of the platform. With regard to these issues, certain elements of success of the DPPs presented are highlighted.