Wiki-Planning: The Experience of Basento Park In Potenza (Italy)

Today, 2.0 information technologies undoubtedly represent the most important media. The main innovation is the transition from a one-way approach where citizens are only informed, to a two-way approach where citizens can express their opinion in a wiki-way, where a strong interaction among citizens can lead to a production of important ideas and opinions substantially influencing choices. Great part of planning documents are produced adopting hidden agendas, favouritisms, unclear agreements, ambiguous administrative acts; thus, citizens are not able to find a suitable location to denounce responsibilities and to seek for remedies. Generally, citizens do not believe in participatory activities, because they have poor trust in institutions, especially in this period; they suppose that decisions have been already taken before a meeting. The typical approach to participation generally can be located at the lower levels of Arnstein Ladder. In this field, social platforms played a crucial role in the experience of Basento park in Potenza (Basilicata, southern Italy). Starting from a project designed by architects and engineers, Facebook and Twitter blogs were the means to discuss among citizens and between citizens and administrator in order to improve the project and to better explain its basic idea.