Abstract:

Citizens and citizen paritcipation are considered among the important elements of smart cities in the literature. The participation of knowledgeable and experienced citizens in the transformation of smart cities affects the success and sustainability of projects.Citizen participation in projects that play an important role in the transformation of cities into smart cities can be neglected. In this study, the phenomenon of citizen participation in smart cities is discussed and the smart city projects of Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality are analyzed in the context of the citizen participation model of Sherry Arnstein. The smart city projects of the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality,the official annual reports of the municipality, the official websites of the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality Directorate of European Union Relations, the Smart City Directorate and ISBAK, the project web pages and project reports have been scanned andexamined. It has been tried to understand that how the citizen participation is shaped in projects. A total of 37 completed smart city projects were examined with document analysis method in the framework of following headings: the aims of the projects, stakeholders, participation levels, forms of participation, content of participation, outcome of participation. In the conlusion of the study; it is seen that citizen participation in smart city projects of İstanbul is at non-participation and symbolic level. It has been seenthat the projects are designed as event-oriented rather than citizen-oriented, and the project stakeholders are mostly private companies, fund and technology provider agencies.Participation in projects focusing on education and information activities remains symbolic; It has been concluded that projects that include citizen participation in the design and preparation phase and that include entrepreneurial activities such as mobile participation, workshops, incubation centers have strong participation potential.

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