Civic digital twin? This Italian city shows why data without democracy is just a map By Zenith Wong Bologna's upcoming civic digital twin will combine data with citizens' lived experiences to help the city make more inclusive urban planning decisions. Stefania Paolazzi (left), Innovation Manager at the Municipality of Bologna, and Marco Pistore (right), Director of the Digital Society Center at Fondazione Bruno Kessler, are helping shape Bologna’s civic digital twin. Images: European Alternatives and Fondazione Bruno Kessler. There will never be one model citizen for city governments to base their urban planning decisions on. Two people could be in the same city, but develop diverging impressions of it because of their different backgrounds and expectations. "If I don't understand this, how can I make the city well-aligned with the expectations of all citizens?", says Marco Pistore, director of the Digital Society Center at Fondazione Bruno Kessler (FBK), an Italian applied research institute, to GovInsider. This gap between individual experience and city planning is why the Municipality of Bologna in Italy is looking to develop a socially-focused digital twin, expected to launch in December 2026. A digital twin is a real-time digital replica of the city that combines data on areas such as mobility, energy use, weather, and public services to support policymaking. Since research and development began in September 2023, the project has focused on making those datasets more representative of the city's diverse communities, giving policymakers a stronger evidence base for decision-making. Attention to diversity and inclusivity are not something extra, but principles the city wants to embed in mainstream decision-making, says the municipality's innovation manager, Stefania Paolazzi. She adds: "We really think that if you lack the comprehension of the human dimension of a city, you would never be able to have a complete digital twin." The