The Public’s Acceptance of and Intention to Use ICTs when Participating in Urban Planning Processes

Urban planning/management is a complex process requiring multidisciplinary technical support and public approval. With the rapid development of information and communication technology, e-participation has brought unprecedented opportunities for urban planning and management in the sense that it potentially represents more efficiently and effectively the interests of different citizens. Nevertheless, the availability of new technologies does not guarantee success. In China, many local planning agencies began with enthusiastic ideas and investments but ended up with disappointment and frustration. Therefore, it is of critical importance to understand the general interest of the public to have access to and use information and communication technologies (ICT) in urban planning processes. This study develops a Stated Preference (SP) experiment to measure citizen’s preferences and intentions to use modern ICT media in urban planning processes. The results show that the intention to participate in urban planning processes using different ICT tools differs by socio-demographic variables. The research findings provide relevant information about the effects of different communication strategies on citizen engagement.