The City of Zurich draws a positive conclusion from the evaluation of the city debate and comments in a report on the most intensively discussed topics.
The considerable and positive response to the online city debate shows a proven interest of the population in an online exchange on questions of urban development. The city therefore considers it useful to increasingly include online forms of exchange and dialogue in future projects and processes for urban and district development and wants to examine suitable forms and channels.

In the online city debate, five thematic discussion forums with one to two host persons (host) were offered:

• "How should Zurich change structurally?"
  Host: Patrick Gmür, Director of the Office of Urban Development
• "Where are Zurich's borders?"
  Host: Brigit Wehrli, Director of Urban Development Zurich until 11/2011
• "How do we want to live together?"
  Host: Mirjam Schlup Villaverde, Director of Social Services
• "How do we live with 2000 watts?"
  Hosts: Bruno Hohl, Director of Environment and Health Protection, and Felix Schmid, Deputy Energy Commissioner of the City of Zurich
• "How do we move around the city?"
  Host: François Aellen, Director of the Civil Engineering Office of the City of Zurich

The five discussion forums were moderated by employees of Stadtentwicklung Zürich in shifts.

The discussion was committed and constructive over all three days. The participants launched a total of 337 discussions, which included an average of six contributions. The 1996 contributions resulted in a text volume of around 660 A4 pages.

People from 216 Swiss municipalities took part in the debate. Three quarters of the participants came from the city of Zurich, 14 percent from the canton of Zurich and 8 percent from the rest of Switzerland.

 An announced part of the online city debate as a pilot project is that the city of Zurich will comment on the most intensively discussed topics.

Due to the topics discussed, the city sees itself fundamentally strengthened and confirmed in its actions in many areas. Ongoing projects and planned projects of the City of Zurich are already addressing the challenges raised in the debate. For some of the ideas and aspects discussed, the scope for action is limited to urban level.

The host directors, in cooperation with the municipal service departments involved, have prepared statements on the most intensively discussed topics.

The comments are summarized in the evaluation report from page 38.

The evaluation report includes a quantitative and a qualitative evaluation as well as the statements of the City of Zurich on intensively discussed topics of the online city debate.

In addition, the findings on the new medium of the virtual discussion forum for the city of Zurich will be recorded.

From the considerable and positive response to the online city debate, the City of Zurich draws the conclusion that there is a proven interest of the population in an online exchange on questions of urban development. The city therefore considers it useful to include online forms of exchange and dialogue in future projects and processes for urban and district development.

Depending on the type and orientation of the projects, different forms can be imagined:

• Large online city debates such as the one held in September are suitable for mood images, for example in drafts of city-wide strategies.
• In addition to the informal participation procedures for specific local projects, which have already been carried out and tried and tested many times, the possibilities of virtual participation (eParticipation) are to be explored in the future.
• For the exchange with the population on published urban reports and studies or on current, clearly defined questions and topics, the exchange can be intensified with temporarily open online dialogue and feedback platforms (web forum).

The City of Zurich is happy to provide interested parties with information on future online exchange projects.

The online city debate on Zurich's urban development was carried out as part of the current legislative focus "Shaping the city and districts together" in the sense of an experiment.

In addition to raising awareness of the complexity of the topic by providing a discussion platform and content suggestions, the city also aimed to gain insights into new forms of communication and participation.

The Zurich Urban Development Department was commissioned with the implementation and evaluation of the online city debate.