I have been doing for long time and I still am doing a lot of hands on work - active urbanism, design workshops, prototyping together with people from different backgrounds. Especially I love to work with youth - teenegers between 13-17years .

As we look into increasing citizens’ participation in urban planning, we can draw a parallel to what actually forms space: the mental space, social space and physical space. I could almost describe the ability to combine these three elements as extended reality (XR).

Instead of focusing on the technology as such, redesigning the planning culture is something I would really urge people to discuss.

“ Our objective should be to lift the planning culture to another level “

In order to develop a more inclusive planning culture, we should start each planning process with the question ‘why’. Why is the participation needed, and what is the call to action for the people? Based on this, the second question ‘how’ can be defined to map out the steps to participate from the participant’s perspective. Only after clarifying both of these can the third question be answered: ‘what technology to use, the hardware, the software, the Oculus or HTC or anyother to come. XR is not an answer to all questions and it wont work just because it is novel and trendy.

The development of technologies is also exceedingly intertwined. A lot of opportunities lie in the combination of XR with chatbots, 5G networks and city sensing.

If it requires questioning the cause - let it be. Question!

Non of technologies will work as a patch for old systems. The way of thinking about urban planning in new age with new tools and fresh mindsets is what we should aim for.

p.s If you are interested how this topic rolls out - follow augmentedurbans.com.
Big thanks to collegues @Jalmari and @Paivi.