Key findings

and conflicts outlined by Campbell (1996) and Godschalk (2004) are hardly sufficient to depict the pluralism of values in an urban context. Therefore, an attempt was made to map the results of the research in a new conceptual model. The developed “Public Value Spheres” should and can serve both the understanding and the investigation of value conflicts in urban development. Each value is represented in spheres that can be linked and in conflict with each other.

In another representation of the spheres, instrumental and intrinsic values can be related, showing possible strategies to address multiple intrinsic values at the same time.

This study is a first attempt to empirically investigate values and their conflicts in urban planning. The identified values and value conflicts come from direct citizen participation data, as well as expert workshops with urban planners from Hamburg. They can certainly be found to various extents in other urban contexts, but no claim to completeness can be made. On the contrary, it is assumed that similar studies in other cities can reveal further values and addition- al conflicts. In particular, an extension to culturally different cities and regions would be conceivable. In general, the present work shows that the identification of values and conflicts in an urban context by means of computer-aided methods is possible and can lead to valid results.

In practice, the presented representation of values as spheres could serve as a tool to better integrate the values of citizens in urban development and to identify possible conflicts in participation processes. In this respect, digital public participation tools are often used to ask only what citizens want and not why they want it. However, in order to better identify the underlying values, the latter would be particularly useful. For citizens, a representation of different values can lead to more understanding of other points of view and to an improved (virtual) exchange. From a scientific point of view, a further linking of values and socio-demographic groups could also contribute to a more inclusive urban development.