Kolding Smart City

Co-Creating Citizen Plans for Sustainable Cities

In the Danish Kolding Municipality, there are three centre cities: Christiansfeld, Lunderskov, and Vamdrup. They are all well-functioning centre cities with trade, institutions, housing, and businesses. For each of these centre cities, a citizen plan has been developed based on an inclusive process that includes the wishes and visions for the future development of the cities. Each citizen plan serves as a reference document for both citizens and the political and administrative authorities in the municipality regarding the citizens' wishes and priorities for ongoing project development and urban planning.

Kolding Municipality works to develop the entire municipality, and these citizen plans are a tool for prioritizing efforts and projects that support the development of the centre cities as attractive places for residents. In 2016-2017, citizen plans were developed for Lunderskov and Vamdrup through collaboration between Kolding Municipality, Vamdrup City Forum and Lunderskov Local Council, respectively. These citizen plans summarized the initiatives that citizens wished to prioritize for the future of these two cities. A citizen plan for Christiansfeld was developed in 2021-2022.

Citizen Plans

The citizen plans express local interests and are a shared reference document when selecting and prioritizing initiatives in the centre cities. The citizen plans are a comprehensive view of different preferences and potentials for strengthening the centre cities. Thus, it is relevant to consider the citizen plans as a dynamic tool where relevant parts are revisited or updated according to the current needs and ongoing developments.

An example of the citizen plans process can be seen in the first and second citizen meetings in Lunderskov in 2016. The first citizen meeting was a workshop held in March 2016 to gather ideas for the development of Lunderskov. The workshop began with a communal meal and singing. After a presentation, the future of Lunderskov was discussed in eight groups covering various topics. Each group's discussion was facilitated by a member of Lunderskov Local Council or an employee from Kolding Municipality. Approximately 150 enthusiastic citizens attended, spending 3 ½ hours discussing the future of Lunderskov. All the input was collected and incorporated into a draft citizen plan, which was prioritized and discussed at the second citizen meeting.

The second citizen meeting focused on prioritizing the many ideas and proposals that emerged during the first meeting and discussing the realization of the highest-priority projects. The draft citizen plan had been published on the local council's website several weeks prior, allowing everyone time for preparation. During the meeting, after a brief presentation, participants had the opportunity to vote on ballots distributed to all attendees. Subsequently, the ballots were transferred to large posters, one for each of the citizen plan's topics. The votes were counted, and participants could discuss how the highest-priority projects could be realized. All of this was refined and gathered in the official city plan, which is available for everyone on the Kolding muncipality website.

Link: https://www.kolding.dk/borger/bolig-byggeri-og-flytning/centerbyer/centerby-generelt/

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InfraPublics Lesson

Urban planning processes often are required to reach out to or even co-create with citizens. It is in the hands of municipalities and cities to design and implement such processes in ways that citizen input is actually reflected in the final plans and strategies. Quite often, such public participatory processes will raise different hopes and aspirations, not all of which can be realised at a given time. Urban and regional development is a matter that citizens care about and in which scenarios for future developments play an important role. Mapping such scenarios and consequences for future developments is a core task of journalists following these debates and presenting different options alongside each other.

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Voice

Sarah Barns

“It's only through reviving a culture of active citizenship, rather than cybernetic or digital capacities per se, that we will see any kind of shift in the direction we are heading in.”

Senior research fellow (RMIT) and creative director