Beyond the Townhall: How Visualization Can Strengthen Swiss Democracy
Our work on participatory urban planning was featured in Sustainable Switzerland, an NZZ initiative, in an article titled “Jenseits der Gemeindeversammlung: Wie Visualisierung die Schweizer Demokratie stärken kann” (Beyond the Townhall: How Visualization Can Strengthen Swiss Democracy).
Anyone voting on urban planning has to imagine a future that does not yet exist. The article describes how immersive 3D visualizations and AI-powered dialogue tools could make such projects more understandable and help bring objectivity to public debate.
In an experiment based on a street redesign proposal in Lausanne, participants who explored the project through virtual walkthroughs showed better retention and produced more constructive, community-minded feedback than those who saw a traditional website presentation. Citizens who could better picture the future changes engaged more thoughtfully with AI discussion partners and made suggestions that prioritized collective benefit.
The article was written by the Computational Social Science team at ETH Zurich: Carina I. Hausladen, Javier Argota Sánchez-Vaquerizo, Michael Siebenmann, Arthur Capozzi, Sachit Mahajan, and Dirk Helbing, with 3D visualizations provided by Uzufly.
A heartfelt thank you to everyone who made this piece possible: Anja Ruoss, Julia Christina Ramseier, Claudia Zingerli Glatt, Donika Fazlija, Monika Vollmer Michel, and Tina Baumberger.
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