Life is a scene and we are the actors: Assessing the usefulness of planning support theatres for smart city planning

There are numerous studies on the identification and explanation of the implementation gap of planning support systems (PSS), that support the smart planning process by analyzing and visualizing data, but which are currently not systematically used in urban planning practice. There is insufficient knowledge about how the PSS implementation gap can be bridged and how PSS can be embedded into the planning process. This study provides insight into how the City Analytics Lab (CAL) can contribute to the promise of smart planning. It aims to first determine how CAL can yield the promise of smart planning. Then it provides insight into how CAL can contribute to close the PSS implementation gap. Accordingly, we organized fifteen workshops and surveyed planning practitioners (N = 89) at CAL to assess its usefulness for smart planning as well as its contribution in bridging the PSS implementation gap. The results show that users are positive towards the usefulness and usability of the support tools in the CAL, in particular the collaborative nature of the lab through its interactive tables and software applications. With regards to the PSS implementation gap, we find that there is a continued and increasingly successful conversation between the CAL and it's PSS tools and planning practice (i.e. ‘technology-to-people’) by collaborating with local governments, industry partners and other universities. However, further refinement of the lab through continued conversation between users and developers (i.e. ‘people-to-people’) is necessary, where tools are codesigned and user preferences and participation protocols are further considered. More broadly this research suggests that Planning Support Theatres, such as CAL can assist in reducing the technology adoption barriers commonly experienced in the application of PSS in practice. Such Planning Support Theatres, also provide a space to support new ideas and interactions importantly between both the key actors and the technology and the actors themselves. •This paper studies the implementation gap of planning support theatres.•Little is known about how they can be embedded into the planning process.•The case of the City Analytics lab is considered as an example.•It is found that an increasingly successful conversation is being held.•However, user preferences and contextual factors are difficult to generalize.