Digital Collaborative Planning as a Path Toward Holistic Planning: A Case Study of Jerusalem’s Beit Safafa Neighborhood

This article examines the way citizen science can be harnessed to assimilate sources of knowledge and increase the involvement of local minority populations in planning. The ability of a digital collaborative planning process to bring together diverse sources of knowledge for holistic planning of minority neighborhoods has so far received only partial research attention. This study seeks to add to previous theoretical approaches by using local knowledge combined with “big data” to plan an urban future for Beit Safafa, an enclave Muslim neighborhood in Jerusalem. Data collection was based on a planning workshop with the participation of residents, as well as discussions with representatives of the Jerusalem Municipality and the Ministry of Environment and students in the Department of Geography and Environment at the Bar-Ilan University. Additional data was derived from real-time analysis and simulations of interactive scenarios of evaluation, impact and decision-making in neighborhood planning, using the Geodesignhub platform (GDH). The findings indicate that mixing knowledge sources in a directed way, digital process supports the creation of holistic planning that combines all urban systems. The ability of local knowledge to mediate at the points of contact between the various systems creates a uniform and seamless space. In this way, both the aspiration for democratization of the planning process and an optimal planning product for the residents are achieved.