 Hello everyone, again, let's talk about urban planning. So we'll explore now planning technologies and their impact on planning systems. We have our guest with us, Ian Babylon. Ian and I will discuss the promises, the challenges of digital technology and data-driven decision-making in public participation. So our focus here in this talk is on Britain's planning systems. We will examine together the adoption of digital tools and Ian will present a conceptual model for smart engagement. Ian, welcome to our episode. Hi. Planning technology, plan tech. Tell us about its importance lately in the field of urban planning. Right, so it's quite a complex topic because of the terms that get used. But plan tech is one of the main ones, but it gets confused with other terms in the UK, like PropTech in Scotland in the policy, they talk about play stack. And so there are differences in overlaps between the terms and it kind of depends on the ways the terms are used. So this is kind of, you can't sound like a little pedantic academic point, but actually there are very practical implications which is also what the paper is about. So really in a nutshell, if we look at plan tech, it really looks at how to make development management more efficient and effective. So make it quicker and also make sure that the right things are done more effectively. And so that's really about processing planning applications, doing that well because in the UK as in other countries, austerity has meant that there are more restricted budgets for doing this and there are fewer people with more work. So less money, fewer people, more work to get through very important volumes of planning applications, especially as the government is pushing for more housing to be built amongst other projects. And then another side of plan tech, what gets subsumed within plan tech is commuting engagement. And the two don't always meet, development management and commuting engagement. It's kind of a more, there's a gap between these two things sometimes. There is more commuting engagement and say strategic planning, local development policies, policymaking, then when it comes to development management, commenting on the planning applications that integration of community engagement is less clear, but in the policy, they kind of group together with the aspect of making planning processes more effective and streamlined. So this is a good kickoff to the conversation. So if we were to look at the research gap, so it would be, as you say, I'm assuming bridging plan tech with community engagement. So this is a research gap of your article. That's one of them. There are others kind of beyond this paper, but addressed by the papers that we've cited, which is, how do we do planning with less money and fewer people? That's a perennial challenge. And there's also research gaps in there because actually now there's more collaboration with other people like researchers and things like that, people like that to make, integrate more collaboration with citizens and so on and other partners. People talk about place-based partnerships. So these are things that are also a bit beyond the paper, but our paper feeds into that. And what else? Please guide me. That's okay. Should we jump to the findings? Sure. All right, so tell me, so your focus, the focus of your article is in Britain. So let us know about the findings. Right, so the findings we wanted to make to have a finding which was more conceptual and a finding which was more practical. And we wanted to do both of these also by adopting a framework, a theoretical approach that fitted both of these things. And so we found that a critical pragmatic approach will be the best way for us to address also what we see as the research gap between approaches that tend to be very critical of neoliberal planning, development and so on. And that's a reality. And then there's also this other reality of focusing, of having excessive enthusiasm about technology, how it's going to save the world and save planning. And so we thought something, nuance is always good. And so we thought trading the middle way would be nice. And so that we wanted to have a contribution in that direction. So our findings basically we kind of grounds our evaluation of British national policy. So we chose representative high level policy documents for planning in England, Wales and Scotland. And we identified documents that are roughly equivalent. Every nation has its own dynamics so it's a bit difficult to choose exactly the right policy documents, but we found the ones that kind of match across these nations. And our main findings was that there's really only one policy document in UK, I mean in Britain that really engages with plant tech. It doesn't always necessarily use the term plant tech. It uses lots of different terms, but that document is the Transforming Places Together which is published by the Scottish governments. It was published in 2020. And they really kind of like set a blueprint for digital planning as well as digital community engagement in planning. And then there's the planning for the future white paper by MHCLG which is the Department for Planning in England, England and Wales. Now it's called D-Lock, changed name recently. And that kind of landmark policy paper was got mixed analysis from academics in the industry but it does have a very clear focus on both improving the speed at which planning applications get processed but also the quality of the outcomes and what gets built, what gets developed. So it's really focusing on greater speed and quality and then also integrating community engagement through digital means. So it's got this big kind of data-driven focus on how to make decisions in planning and that includes community engagement. So the people since 2020 have been analyzing this in many different ways, academics and industry and people have worked with these things also, software companies delivering digital engagement but it's an ongoing journey and debate. Okay, and I imagine that, so let's try now to bridge your research or findings with real life situation. So I imagine first of all that creating, developing plan tech have quite the impact for the work of urban planners and policy makers. So I want you to tell us more about that. And also, so you mentioned that there are a few governmental documents that contain plan tech strategies or even the concept of plan tech. So let's look at how your research and real case scenarios can be linked together. Right, so that extends that further elaborates the contribution of the paper. So basically a lot of the policy looks at ways to improve engagement through digital means. And if we look at the policy papers, for example, we mainly see that they wanna focus on bringing broadband and that's very important, fast broadband to people but then statistics show that only, so there's up to 1.5 million households that don't have broadband currently and also 20% of internet users only access internet through their mobile. And it's a bit difficult with all those digital platforms to do effective engagement on a small smartphone screen. And it might not be the case that everyone has a smartphone either among these people. So really the policy implications of that are that we still need in 2023 and then going forward to net zero policy and so on. In the decades to come, we will always need as we see it to combine analog in-person methods as well as digital methods. And that's the best way to involve people, both different people but also engage people in different ways because different methods allow to create different outputs. And what we see is true innovation is the capacity to combine these methods not just side by side, but in a way that the digital analog shape each other over the course of planning projects. So what happens online shapes, what happens in person and vice versa and from beyond this paper, including this paper, what we've seen is the state of the art over the past 10 years, the people who do true innovation and engagement, smart engagement, all the people who do both in that kind of way in a recursive way. Okay. And back to the research now. Where do you think a researcher should turn their attention to now? So what's left to find? Right. So because of the focus and the pace of innovation, technologically speaking and policy in terms of policy, things move quite fast and there's not necessarily that much space for reflection. So there's especially the case in policy and in industry and researchers might also depend on the limitations of the project funding. So this is beyond the paper, but this directly affects opportunities to conduct research on the topic. And so what we see, what we mentioned in the conclusions is really that need for longitudinal long-term studies that compare how in-person and digital methods get used in specific cities across specific types of projects and comparing these over really the long-term, not just three years, which is quite common for say research funding or even policy grants for innovation, but rather five years, 10 years because from previous experience, this is where the change really happens, how trust gets built with citizens. You can really transform situations and that's quite uncommon. If you look in the literature, it's just very exceptional that you find such studies but these are the most insightful. So these would really help to tease out our empirical findings, but also the conceptual framework that we adopt from Benon Davies, his unified conception of information and technology beyond the kind of modern and quick innovation that we find, where we think that conceptual frameworks such as Benon Davies approach, which builds draws inspiration from the Inca and Empire, you know, really conceptualizes in kind of universal terms, what's data, what's information, what's knowledge. We see that it helps to kind of really step back and really engage more practically with the kind of bling bling of innovation that we see today because if you're too close to the subject of study or innovation itself, it's not innovative anymore. It's just little things that happen here and there. But if you want to really engage, we see that. You really need to think more broadly about these issues. Of course, some tips for the future. Are there, Ian, any materials and more content for our listeners to further explore plan tech and its impact on urban planning? So, obviously, all the papers we cited in the article are worth reading and then there's many more. But from these, I think there are kind of four that really encourage people to read. So, Benon and Davies framework, it's not easy to read, but it's very rewarding. And then the work by Mark Tudor Jones and Alexander Wilson, that's really to the point of plan tech and also the capacity of planners to deliver plan tech. Also the work of Rob Kitchen and colleagues at Maino's University. And then also last but not least, the Commonplace Reports published in December, 2020, Engaging for the Future, that's a really good one because that's a software company providing real data from 10 years of projects and being quite critical about the topic. You don't always hear companies being critical about their subject domain. They're often over-enthusiastic, but they really engage with it because they see the challenges firsthand in their projects. Okay, perfect. And these, to our listeners, these four materials that Ian suggested, if you scroll down, you'll find on the recommended materials section, you'll find these materials available. Ian, let's go to the grand finale of this conversation. So if there is anything you want our audience to remember about this talk, the punchline, what would it be? So if you wanna conduct smarter engagement, make it digital. So I didn't explain that, but digital is both physical in person and digital. And why it's digital? Because it's both at the same time. So that's an explore that, not just take my word for it, but how does it work? Where you live, where you work? Does it really work? Is it really worth the investment? Perfect, straight to the point. Ian, it was a pleasure. Thank you so much. For our listeners, if you are watching us on YouTube, you can find all the resources. As I mentioned before, all the materials on the Let's Talk About Urban Planning website included the article that Ian, Vavo and I have talked about today. You can also listen to this episode wherever you get your podcasts. You can just subscribe to our newsletter if you scroll down and you can find us on Twitter at Kojitatiu LTA.