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Description:
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During the last decade , the Internet and Geographic Information System (GIS )
have made changes in the relationship between governments and citizens in many
developed countries . Citizens , in such countries , have been given more chances to
participate in the decision making process of the spatial issues relevant to them . Such
participation has helping to make urban planning more democratic and to make planners
plan with the public rather than plan for the public . In Saudi Arabia (a developing
country ) , participation of citizens in spatial decision making is very limited . Such
limitation is more severe when considering women due to the circumstance of gender
segregation in the Saudi society . While males may somehow muddle through ways to
express their views about spatial issues to the planning authority , females have no ways
unless they behave against the local norms . There is a persistent need for implementing
distance participation for women in Saudi Arabia . This research examines whether
developing and employing an Internet / GIS participatory approach can facilitate (without conflicting with the local conservative cultural norms ) women’s participation in
the municipal decision making process of the neighborhood’s outdoor recreational
facilities . The goal was primarily to adapt the technology to serve the society instead of
necessitating the society to change its inherited norms to be able to advance . The
research involved an exploratory ethnographic case study carried out in a selected
residential community in the city of Jeddah , Saudi Arabia .
The research was carried out in two phases where the current status of public
participation in the Saudi community planning was investigated first , and then a
prototype for an Internet /GIS system for female public participation was developed and
evaluated . The research found that there is a legitimate enthusiasm amongst the public
and officials of the research sample for adopting e -public participation . Such enthusiasm
is supported by a number of political , economical , technological and religious reasons .
However , the findings showed that adopting e -public participation is more promising in
the near future than currently due to different reasons including the current relatively
small number of Internet users in Saudi Arabia . Since such research is the first of its type
to be conducted in the Saudi context , the findings can serve as a road map indicating that
adopting e -public participation in Saudi Arabia is promising and worth researching . |