The Mitdenken-platform in Monheim
Monheim am Rhein is a city of around 40,000 inhabitants in the Rhineland, in the immediate vicinity of Düsseldorf. The participation platform mitdenken.monheim.de, operated by CrowdInsights, has played a key role in the participation concept of the city of Monheim since mid-2018. Participation processes on various topics have been and are being realised via the platform:
Neighbourhood planning
- Decision on the construction of a marina at Lake Greisbach
- Redesign of the Monheim Rhine promenade
- Choice between development plans for the Hasholzer Grund Süd site
- Extension of the Monheimer Tor shopping centre
Traffic concepts
- Development of a cycling concept
- Improvement of the connection between Berliner Ring and city center
Service design
- Further development of company health management offers for employees of the city administration
- Development of offers for the cultural refinery K714
- Redesign of the employee portal for municipal employees
- Expansion of the services offered by the Citizens’ Advice Bureau
Development of goals
- Development of an action concept for intercultural education
- Development of a municipal inclusion concept
Climate protection plan
- Further development of the climate protection plan of the city of Monheim
Thanks to the active promotion of the platform by the city, which has initiated almost 20 participation projects so far, mitdenken.monheim.de now has around 1,600 registered users (strongly increasing), who can be addressed for new projects in a target group-specific manner. Since the launch of the platform in 2018, more than 2,500 responses have been collected in 19 processes. Individual projects are also flanked by analogue formats such as workshops or surveys in the pedestrian zone. The input generated offline is fed into the Mitdenken platform.
On the part of the municipality, the mitdenken.monheim.de platform is centrally managed by two coordinators in the public relations department of the municipality, who are clearly visible to citizens as contact persons in matters of participation. They also act as drivers of participation within the administration and accompany departments in the implementation of projects on mitdenken.monheim.de.
For the individual projects on the platform, in addition to the mayor, those responsible from the relevant departments act as decision-makers, such as the head of the building department for the topic of the bicycle traffic concept or the manager of a shopping centre in the project for the expansion of the same.
The findings from almost every participation process are responded to with concrete decisions or statements by the decision-makers. On average, about six months pass between the start and completion of the project, although individual processes, especially in the area of urban planning, can also take longer due to sometimes complex decision-making processes.