System Design
Citizen Voice in Decision Making
Exploring How Citizen Dialogue Influences the Social Future of the City
Client
Services
YEAR
PUBLISHED
UNDERSTANDING SYSTEMS (Citizen Voice in Decision-Making: TORONTO, CANADA)
Secondary Research | Service Design Brief | Futures Thinking Frameworks | Stakeholder Mapping | Systems Design Tools | Systemigram | Synthesis Map | Three Horizon Mapping | Transition By Design
2022
PUBLISHED rsd symposium (Proceedings of Relating Systems Thinking and Design, Volume: RSD11)
Client
Services
YEAR
PUBLISHED
UNDERSTANDING SYSTEMS (Citizen Voice in Decision-Making: TORONTO, CANADA)
Secondary Research | Service Design Brief | Futures Thinking Frameworks | Stakeholder Mapping | Systems Design Tools | Systemigram | Synthesis Map | Three Horizon Mapping | Transition By Design
2022
PUBLISHED rsd symposium (Proceedings of Relating Systems Thinking and Design, Volume: RSD11)
Client
Services
YEAR
PUBLISHED
UNDERSTANDING SYSTEMS (Citizen Voice in Decision-Making: TORONTO, CANADA)
Secondary Research | Service Design Brief | Futures Thinking Frameworks | Stakeholder Mapping | Systems Design Tools | Systemigram | Synthesis Map | Three Horizon Mapping | Transition By Design
2022
PUBLISHED rsd symposium (Proceedings of Relating Systems Thinking and Design, Volume: RSD11)
How can citizen dialogue influence the social future of city streets and public space?
Public spaces are the lifeblood of a community, offering opportunities for socialization and community activities, facilitating the flow of movement across the city, and inspiring a sense of place and belonging. UNESCO (2017) refers to public space as, “an area or place that is open and accessible to all peoples, regardless of gender, race, ethnicity, age, or socio-economic level”. It is this fundamental communal aspect that sets public spaces apart and makes them a vital part of the city.
From public gathering spaces such as parks, plazas, and squares, to connecting spaces such as sidewalks and streets, public spaces that are well-designed and maintained are critical to the health of any city (UNESCO, 2017). We believe public spaces should encourage the playful side of their users by promoting curiosity, wonder, and discovery. This approach nurtures a vibrant public life with access to culture, activities, services, and infrastructure that enhance the city. And most importantly, it is built to be resilient to the increasing complex challenges we face.
Admittedly, this project offers an optimistic and even idealistic outlook on the system we wish to change. Our exploration borrows from the past, observes the present, and still envisions a better tomorrow. This system of urban spaces and city streets is layered and nuanced, with many factors, histories, and challenges, and there are many systemic barriers and delays that stand in the way of change. Although initiatives and innovations can be viewed as temporary fixes, we know that small-scale innovations have the power to grow and eventually become embedded into the culture and processes of the overall system. It is our firm belief that individuals and small groups of people with the right tools can be the leverage points themselves for systemic change, in their streets, neighbourhoods, communities, and cities.
Our streets are designed to reflect our city’s values. How our streets look, feel and function should demonstrate how we want our city to be shaped.
Streets function as the spinal cord of the city. They form major nodes, junctions, and activity centers, that in turn develop a chain of networks adding to the social, cultural and economic value of the city. They are multidimensional spaces with multiple roles that shape the city.
“Streets are vital places in Toronto. They are the common space where our city comes together.”
Toronto Complete Streets Guidelines
TASK
The project set out to explore how citizen dialogue could be leveraged as a tool for human-centered design, systemic planning, and strategy development in shaping more inclusive, resilient, and socially vibrant public spaces.
The challenge was to design system methods and frameworks that bring citizens into decision-making, addressing systemic barriers while balancing the needs of diverse stakeholders.
“Streets are vital places in Toronto. They are the common space where our city comes together.”
Human Centred Design
Human-centered design is central to public space planning today. Public spaces shape quality of life—impacting health, mobility, safety, identity, and economic vitality (O’Donnell, 2018). While once built for utility and efficiency, there is now a shift toward designing parks, streets, sidewalks, and plazas around people’s needs.
Public spaces must be accessible and welcoming to all, including vulnerable and marginalized groups, reflecting the collective needs of society. Yet, citizens—who benefit most from these spaces as extensions of their living rooms—often have little influence in shaping them. Too often, public space projects lack meaningful citizen dialogue, risking outcomes that serve as vanity projects rather than truly inclusive, impactful places.
WHY CITIZEN
DIALOGUE?
Complex, socially distributed problems require listening and observing, involving participation for the whole system including all stakeholders (Jones, 2007). Citizen dialogue is a form of community engagement wherein the stakeholders participate in design by dialogue. Within the system of the public space, there are numerous intersecting and conflicting stakeholder values, models, incentives, and power dynamics. To balance the power biases in dialogic design, there should be a democratic process for decision making. In this way, dialogue is generative, constructs a shared outcome of balanced power, and generates agreement (Jones, 2007).
Research Process
We applied systems design tools and participatory approaches to map the complexity of Toronto’s public spaces and identify points of leverage.
Systemigram
Visualized the relationships between key influences, highlighting how individuals, though less powerful in the system, are the most impacted and therefore critical advocates for equitable solutions.
Transition by Design
Developed a phased intervention plan beginning with short-term initiatives (e.g., workshops, toolkits, townhalls) and scaling toward embedding citizen engagement into urban planning methodology.
3 Horizons Framework
Facilitated dialogue on which aspects of the city are no longer fit for purpose, which trends and innovations point toward viable futures, and how communities can nurture emergent practices.
Synthesis Map
Captured diverse perspectives and small-scale innovations that can grow into cultural and systemic shifts.
Through these tools, we designed pathways for inclusive community engagement, empowering citizens to contribute their lived experiences and perspectives in shaping public spaces.
Iterative Inquiry
A Social - Structural Problem
To frame the system inquiry, we explore the purpose, functions, structures, and processes of public spaces through the lens of a social system. An analysis of power structures embedded in the relationships and processes of street design and function uncovers a social-structural problem at the root of this system.
As we look at the factors that are influenced by neoliberalist practices, it becomes apparent that urban space is becoming the playground for implementing various technological solutions influencing activities like the increased use of Internet of Things and regulation of movement.
Systemigram
Power Dynamics in Stakeholder Dialogue: The social systems within the public spaces of Toronto are complex. Relationships between key influences are multifaceted, and individual users are only one of several powerful stakeholders. However, individuals are the most impacted group, by the actions of other influencers. This gives individuals the unique position to argue for an equitable solution for multiple users that meets the needs of the local context.
Transition By Design
The best way to ensure this happens is by engaging community members in every step of the process. Inclusive community engagement processes shine a light on a multitude of diverse opinions and ideas, which enhance the inclusivity and liveability of public spaces and, in turn, promote social cohesion in communities. Even innovations such as workshops, toolkits, and townhalls can act as tiny steps to the greater changes we wish to see in the system. To foster the movement toward change in this system, we propose the following plan that phases interventions beginning with short term initiatives, followed by initiatives that are embedded in the public space process methodology.
Phase 1: Engage the Public
Piloting a Citizen Engagement Toolkit—including a Synthesis Map and facilitation tools—through a communication and awareness campaign that fosters inclusive dialogue, builds trust, and encourages public participation in planning, with support from advocacy groups, neighbourhood associations, and local government.
Phase 2: Build a strong Public Dialogue
This phase expands initiatives through citizen learning networks and digital platforms, introducing design tools to bridge political action and citizen dialogue. The Citizen Action Nexus becomes a long-term platform for transparent, facilitated discussions, with government stakeholders implementing and sustaining citizen-driven change in public space planning.
Phase 3: Involve Citizens as Active Contributors
This phase transitions citizens from dialogue to active contributors in solving complex urban challenges. Through the Citizens Commonweal acting as an oversight body, citizen experts are embedded in public space planning, ensuring long-term, collective, and adaptive systems that uphold community voices and shape Toronto’s future.
The Synthesis Map
The Synthesis/ System Map visualizes the complex realities of Toronto’s public spaces—past influences, present power dynamics, and future possibilities—highlighting systemic barriers that slow change. Using the Three Horizons Framework, we identified outdated practices, envisioned transformative futures, and surfaced emerging ideas with potential to scale. The Synthesis Map distilled these insights into small-scale innovations—practical, citizen-driven actions that can gradually embed themselves into culture, policy, and planning, becoming leverage points for long-term systemic change in neighbourhoods and cities.
“Streets are more than just corridors for movement. They shape the experience and memory of a city, and they are, themselves, unique places in which to linger and enjoy.”
Toronto Complete Streets Guidelines
OUTCOME
The project demonstrated how citizen dialogue can shift public space planning from a top-down process to one that is collaborative and inclusive.
Key outcomes included:
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A systemic understanding of Toronto’s public space ecosystem, its power dynamics, and barriers to change.
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A replicable engagement model using workshops, stakeholder mapping, and horizon planning to amplify citizen voices in urban decision-making.
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Identification of leverage points where individuals and small groups can influence systemic change in their streets, neighbourhoods, and cities.
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A vision for resilient, playful, and socially vibrant public spaces that promote curiosity, cohesion, and belonging.
By reframing citizens as active participants rather than passive users, the project highlighted how inclusive dialogue is not only possible but essential for the social future of cities.
Empowering Change:
When Dialogue, Design, and Play Shapes Resilient and Inclusive Cities.
I learned that citizen dialogue, when structured, can drive systemic change; systemic and foresight tools help unpack complexity and envision futures; small innovations can spark cultural shifts; participatory design strengthens resilience and trust; and designing for play and curiosity fosters belonging and improves urban life.
Cities hold today’s challenges and tomorrow’s solutions.
Cities are made of public spaces that connect people and communities, directly shaping their lives. By including citizens in design and decision-making, we can make these spaces more meaningful. Empowered citizens become catalysts for change, helping reimagine and adapt our cities—so today, we ask: what if our cities are resourceful, accessible, shared, safe, and desirable?
SERVICE DESIGN BRIEF
The project showcased is a team project completed as part of SFIN-6011-002 Understanding System course in Winter Term 2022 at OCAD University for the Strategic Foresight & Innovation (MDes) Program.
CREDITS- A. Gawli, K. Perera, M.Dimachk, N. Khan, R. Mohamed and T. Fernandes
ADVISORS- J. BOWES, P. Jones (OCAD UNIVERSITY)
Images- Freepik, Unsplash
Icons ADAPTED FROM- the Noun Project, Unsplash, Global Designing Cities Initiative PUBLICATIONS (ACADEMIC purposes only)