Digital tools and the Four-C model in urban greenery planning: how artificial intelligence and geographic information systems shape creativity, communication, and agency

This article examines how Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) mediate creativity, sustainability communication, and agency in participatory urban planning focused on greenery integration. Employing a comparative secondary analysis and a most-different-systems design (MDSD), we interpret two contrasting initiatives: an AI-assisted intergenerational workshop in Betania, Panama, and a GIS-enabled citizen science project in Sankt Augustin, Germany. A four-layer analytic pipeline guided the study, combining structured extraction, thematic synthesis, a scoring rubric, and cross-case comparison. The results show that AI facilitated participants’ comprehension and creative engagement with complex spatial information through real-time visualization, accelerated divergent ideation, and strengthened intergenerational dialogue, resulting in more than twenty design proposals and measurable increases in inclusion and motivation. GIS, by contrast, elicited distributed evidence through crowdmapping and workshops, converging lay observations into policy-relevant insights and sustaining participation over a longer timeframe. Cross-case synthesis revealed inclusive, digitally mediated participation as the common explanatory factor behind enhanced collaboration and creativity. The study contributes theoretically by connecting Csikszentmihalyi’s systems view and the Four C model to digital participation. It proposes a hybrid framework that combines AI’s generative speed with GIS’s spatial grounding, linking visionary co-design to evidence-based co-production. This approach advances both the theoretical understanding of digitally mediated creativity and the practical guidance available to stakeholders pursuing more inclusive and resilient participatory processes.