Citizen participation is a key element for Paris to become a smart city, a representative of the General Secretary of Paris’s city hall said. In 2015, the city of Paris launched a project called "Paris, smart and sustainable city" ("ville intelligente et durable"), which intends to transform Paris into a "sustainable, connected and open city".
While this program includes a technological part, involving the deployment of sensor networks and data collection and analysis, it also promotes the co-construction of policies and collaboration between Parisians and civil servants to help build efficient public services, he said.
A local platform to submit ideas
One example is the online portal called "Madame la Maire, j’ai une idée" (Lady Mayor, I have an idea, in English) the goal of which is to provide a central platform to help people contribute to the life of the city.
Paris’s inhabitants can make proposals and share ideas on projects. "Ideas are then debated, augmented, enriched in a collaborative approach", Anne Hidalgo, Mayor of Paris, said on the website.
The portal has primarily served to define the budget of the city. Parisians can submit ideas on budgeting at the city level or at the area level. People can then vote for the proposals they‘d like to see applied. According to Benjamin Favriau, Project Manager, Smart City, in the General Secretary of Paris’ city hall, 5 000 proposals were submitted for the 2015 budget, "hundreds of them were proposed for a vote".
The portal also provides workshops to help citizens, experts and civil servants to co-construct projects. Workshops have been opened to debate on the Grand Paris logo and to help improve hospitality in Paris.