Urban systems incorporating AI provide new ways to monitor and manage cities, enhancing local governments’ ability to intervene, optimize and reshape urban processes. However, these systems are also socio-technical constructs, drawing inherently from, and reproducing, value-laden representations of urban life. Public participation in these systems fosters dialog, enabling deliberation on values and trade-offs and improving AI literacy. It also serves as a channel for communicating citizens’ priorities, needs and preferences to policymakers, and when objectives are aligned with anticipated impacts and expectations it can yield pivotal and rewarding outcomes for all stakeholders.
This Research Brief depicts how a participatory process focused on deliberation and value-mapping can help identify critical issues related to data collection and use, factors influencing technology acceptance, and key implementation safeguards. The Brief also highlights persistent challenges, including balancing representativeness and inclusiveness, ensuring informed participation and linking input to policy design.
