How to Grow? Online Consultation about Growth in the City of Hamburg: Methods, Techniques, Success Factors

This paper is concerned with the online public engagement ‘Leitbild Metropolis Hamburg – Growing City’ which has been conducted in the context of the EU project DEMOS (Delphi Mediation Online System). The result of DEMOS is an innovative Internet platform facilitating democratic discussions and participative public opinion formation. The test of the DEMOS approach and the software system during the online discussion in the City of Hamburg was one of the most successful projects in electronic democracy or participation ever conducted on a municipal level. The paper introduces the DEMOS approach and system, describes the political background of the discussed ‘Leitbild Growing City’ and the results. The authors try to identify success factors for online public engagement projects.