OPPORTUNITIES AND CONSTRAINTS OF ”INTERNET-ASSISTED URBAN PLANNING” WITH YOUNG PEOPLE LIISA HORELLI and MIRKKA KAAJA

Several experiments on children ́s participation in urban planning in Finland, Norway, Switzerland and Italy have demonstrated that young people are sharp analysts of their settings and creative producers of ideas for planning but the authorities are reluctant to expand their top-down, expert-based mode of urban planning to include new groups, such as young people. Will the application of internet in participatory planning provide the young some opportunities for having a say in environmental issues. It is argued in the article, on the basis of three new case studies of action research in Finland that internetassisted urban planning with young people might provide more space for young people to get involved in neighbourhood development, if the projects are carefully integrated with the planning cycle and the cultural context. A decade of experiments with participation of nearly 700 children and young people in neighbourhood development in Finland, Switzerland and France indicate that young people are sharp analysts of their settings and creative producers of ideas for planning. Nevertheless, the gatekeepers of local development – the municipalities and regional authorities – are reluctant to expand their top-down, expert-based mode of urban planning to include new groups, such as young people (Horelli, 1998). The fierce societal changes brought about by the globalisation and the rise and diffusion of the information and communication technology (ICT) are, however, gradually opening up new opportunities for the involvement of young people in several areas, including planning and development of cities of tomorrow. Finland has often taken pride in being one of the leading countries in ICT and in the building of the information society. This may be true, but the creation of the so called knowledge society is still far away. The latter is characterised, not by a one dimensional, “broadcast”approach to communication and information diffusion, but by an interactive, “from many to many”way of communicating. The shift from the broadcast society to the interactive knowledge society will eventually have an impact on all social institutions, such as education and learning, employment and working environments, business, and even planning and development. Young people are often described as the net-generation, which will master the new media and even the future. It is not only a question of a generation gap but of a generation lap in which the generations learn together, kids as teachers (Tapscott, 1997). These “booster stories” are, however, contrasted by “debunking histories”, which describe the fatal consequences of letting kids loose in the cyberspace (Bingham et al.,1999).