Beyond the “Brno Bronx”: Digitally Mediating Spatial Justice and Romani Integration in Cejl

This exploratory study examines a single collaborative Geodesign workshop held in Brno’s Cejl neighbourhood, locally stigmatised as the “Bronx,” and asks whether digital mediation can help address the segregation, territorial stigma, and institutional antigypsyism faced by its Romani residents. Held at the Museum of Romani Culture, the workshop used the Geodesignhub platform to bring planners, researchers, institutional stakeholders, and community representatives into a sustainable, structured, map-based negotiation. Drawing on the workshop record and the platform’s process analytics, we trace how proposals emerged, changed, and survived across nine design iterations. Community-oriented proposals made up almost half of the final scenario and were not marginalised in the recorded negotiation, and the principle of a mandatory affordable-housing allocation for developers was retained. However, few Romani residents took part directly, facilitators entered most of the diagrams, and the outcomes have no binding force. We conclude that digital traceability can make planning negotiations more transparent and open to scrutiny, but that it cannot on its own overcome digital divides or the institutional constraints that sustain exclusion.