City of Bregenz launches participation process for a barrier-free city

The city of Bregenz makes a clear commitment to the topic of "inclusion". Based on the mission statement of the "Inklusive Region Vorarlberg", the city representatives developed and implemented the participation project "Barrierefreie Stadt" in the fall of 2022. The participation project is a mix of digital participation and joint analog city walks of the city representatives with the citizens and can be seen as a prime example of how a mix of digital opportunities and in-person events enable political participation and strengthen democracy.

In a first step, the citizens were asked to use the brainstorming module with map to locate the barriers they were aware of in the city of Bregenz, as well as to provide and discuss suggestions for improving freedom of movement and orientation in public space. This kind of online procedure allows a broad participation, especially of the citizens affected by the barriers, as well as a precise description of the problems. During the period of the online participation, several analog walks with the district representatives took place, which were intended to deepen the exchange and to look for further ideas for the improvement of accessibility. All suggestions were documented on the online participation platform.

The collected results of the participation process will be viewed, sorted, categorized and provided with possible recommendations for action by a group of experts.

This condensed result will be presented to all citizens who participated in the process at a further event in January 2023. At this event, there will be an opportunity to comment on the overall result before it is presented to the city council in spring 2023.

We think: This sounds like a very promising participation process!

Here you can access the participation platform of the city of Bregenz: https://adhocracy.plus/bregenz/

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