PANDORA - PArticipatory Networks and Databases for Environmental Research and Assessment. Pilot study of the Venetian community

The direct involvement of the citizens in the administration process of public goods could pave the way to a sustainable urban management; among the positive effects are that citizens express their opinions become more committed and conscious about priority issues, and that transparency and collaboration in decision-making process is increased. The general trend of increasing on line population can to lead to equation that “the citizens = citizens of the web”. The PANDORA project aims to exploit this opportunity developing through the use of ICTs, a participatory multimedia and interactive platform. In this new “virtual agorà” every citizen can express their views, needs, concerns, can exchange information, debate ideas, communicate, and even cooperate on the major themes related to sustainable development Citizen participation will result a bottom up (grass root) contribution to the public debate and eventually to the local governance.