Galit Cohen-Blankshtain

Key research themes on ICT and sustainable urban mobility

Abstract Information and communication technologies (ICTs) are hypothesized to replace or change the use of the transport system by facilitating new or different activities. This article offers a review of more than 40 years of research regarding the relationship between ICTs and urban mobility. We discuss the expectations for the changes in travel demand, travel patterns, and the urban form as a result of the development and introduction of ICTs. Much of the interest in the relationships between ICTs and mobility is premised on the expectation of substitution effects, but empirical findings often suggest more complex effects than direct substitution. Although research on single types of travel activity may sometimes indicate simple substitution effects, examination of the broader impacts may also reveal travel generation effects as well. As such, ICTs do not simply substitute mobility patterns but change them. A growing body of research focuses on changing mobility patterns (in terms of time and space), changes in the experience of travel and changes in the perceptions of travel costs due to the interaction between old and new technologies for overcoming distance. ICTs are gradually becoming embedded within the transport system, enabling flexibility, multitasking, and an increase in human activities.

Communicating mega-projects in the face of uncertainties: Israeli mass media treatment of the Dead Sea Water Canal.

Given the potential for uncertainties to influence mega-projects, this study examines how mega-projects are deliberated in the public arena. The paper traces the strategies used to promote the Dead Sea Water Canal. Findings show that the Dead Sea mega-project was encumbered by ample uncertainties. Treatment of uncertainties in early coverage was dominated by economics and raised primarily by politicians, while more contemporary media discourses have been dominated by ecological uncertainties voiced by environmental non-governmental organizations. This change in uncertainty type is explained by the changing nature of the project and by shifts in societal values over time. The study also reveals that ‘uncertainty reduction’ and to a lesser degree, ‘project cancellation’, are still the strategies most often used to address uncertainties. Statistical analysis indicates that although uncertainties and strategies are significantly correlated, there may be other intervening variables that affect this correlation. This research also therefore contributes to wider and ongoing considerations of uncertainty in the public arena through various media representational practices.

The representative claim of deliberative planning: the case of Isawiyah in East Jerusalem

Both advocates and critics of deliberative planning often study deliberative planning processes as if they are real-life approximations of an ideal situation where the only force is the force of the better argument. However, in the course of the last decade democratic theorists came to develop a complex systemic understanding of the role of deliberation in policy making. In this view, legitimate decision making is not a one-time process but an ongoing pattern of interaction between organized institutions and the public sphere. This paper builds on recent work on political representation to develop a framework for studying deliberative planning as a type of representative claim made within a complex ecology of representative institutions and applies this framework to the case of a deliberative planning initiative in East Jerusalem. We examine the weaknesses and strengths of deliberative planning processes in a political environment that is not hospitable to public participation in planning.

The Importance of ICT for Cities: e-Governance and Cyber Perceptions

This paper offers a critical review of current debates on the importance and the potential of ICT for modern cities. Much attention is given to the opportunities offered by local e-governance, as a systematic strategy to exploit the potential of ICT for the public domain in European cities. Since the views of many experts and elected policy-makers in cities (so-called ‘urban frontliners’) is coloured by subjective expectations and perceptions, we examine in particular the extent to which the expected influences of ICT, as perceived by urban frontliners, affect their perceptions of the relevance of ICT to mitigate contemporary urban challenges. The final (empirical) part of the paper addresses the issue of the systematic study of cyber perceptions of cities in Europe.