The Role of Immersive Virtual Spaces in Enhancing Civic Participation and Its Narrative: An Explorative Study in the District of San Giovanni a Teduccio (Naples)

Participatory approaches are increasingly employed to engage citizens in the decision-making process, enabling them to actively articulate their opinions and suggestions. However, nowadays these attempts often come up against a feeling of general disillusionment among the population, especially in some territories, due to the low perception of the positive changes that have taken place and the lack of trust in the institutions, which are often considered too distant and closed in their ivory palace. The new technologies and, specifically, the metaverse with its virtual immersive environments (IVEs) can play a fundamental role in this context, facilitating the meeting between decision-makers and end-users, strengthening the narrative of the territories and their local identity, and representing a place for citizens to put forward their demands by overcoming a variety of territorial and social limits. This paper explores the issue, attempting to lay the groundwork for a future improvement of immersive and virtual co-design processes.