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Participatory planning is an urban planning paradigm that seeks to involve the community of an area in the urban planning of that area. It's a way for communities to work together to identify and address problems and to create a plan to achieve a desired socio-economic goal. Participatory planning emerged in response to the centralized and rationalistic approaches that defined early urban planning work. [1]
Participatory planning is important because it ensures that the planning process reflects the interests and priorities of all major groups in the community. It also helps to build commitment to translating the plan into action. [2] It has become an influential way of approaching both traditional urban planning and international community development. [3]
There are several approaches to and theories about participatory planning. Consensus building and collective decision making is usually emphasized, and the inclusion of traditionally marginalized groups in the planning process is also often prioritized. [4]
Prior to the 1970s, community planning was generally led in a top-down way by professionals. [1] Modern community planning developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries as city governments and urban planners began to create centralized, comprehensive community plans such as the garden cities of Ebenezer Howard. [5] In this era, the rational planning model was the dominant way of approaching urban planning. [1] Professional planners would identify an established set of goals for a project, rationally weigh a set of alternatives to achieve those goals, and then create and implement a plan accordingly.
There was very little room for public participation within these rationalistic planning models. [6] While discussing the common threads in the vision and work of early urban planners, urbanist Peter Hall writes that "Their vision seems to have been that of the planner as the omniscient ruler, who should create new settlement forms … without interference or question. The complexities of planning in a participatory democracy where individuals and groups have their own, often contradictory, notions of what should happen—all of these are absent from the work of these pioneers." [5]
A rationalist approach to planning was often applied during the urban renewal programs of the mid-20th century. [7] Under these programs, large areas in major cities, often where poorer people and people of color lived, were demolished, and a new plan for the area was designed and carried out. [8] These urban renewal programs have been criticized for destroying viable communities with long histories, and displacing disproportionately black and poor people to other underserved parts of the city. [9]
In the 1960s and 70s, there was a growing wave of critical responses to these traditional rationalist approaches. [1] Scholars criticized traditional planning methods as undemocratic and unresponsive to community needs. In her influential 1961 book The Death and Life of Great American Cities , Jane Jacobs argued that centralized planning methods are disconnected from real knowledge of life in a city. [10] In 1969, Sherry Arnstein wrote a landmark essay, A Ladder of Citizen Participation, [11] describing different types of citizen involvement in municipal programs, and criticizing less participatory approaches to urban planning. [12] In the 1970s a series of planning theorists suggested alternative models of urban planning which were more participatory in nature. Prominent among them were John Friedmann's model of transactive planning, [13] Paul Davidoff and Linda Davidoff's model of advocacy planning, [14] and Stephen Grabow [15] and Allen Heskin's [16] theory of radical planning. These models constituted a shift towards a more participatory planning paradigm which has influenced modern urban planning.
At around the same time, participation became increasingly central to planning policy and practice. In 1961, landscape architect Karl Linn started the first community design center in Philadelphia. [17] Community design centers are organizations which provide planning expertise to marginalized communities. These grassroots participatory planning models became widespread, often organizing to fight major urban renewal projects. [17] In the mid-1960s, the federal government responded to widespread criticisms of urban renewal by establishing the Model Cities Program and the Community Action Program. These two programs were part of Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society, and included a focus on community participation. The legislation establishing both programs required the "maximum feasible participation of the members of groups and areas to be served". [9] These programs were influential and marked an important turn towards a more participatory vision of urban planning.
In recent years, participatory planning has continued to evolve, leveraging digital technologies to enhance community engagement. The integration of tools such as Geographic Information Systems (GIS), virtual reality, and online platforms has made it easier for citizens to visualize planning proposals and provide feedback. This digital shift has been particularly evident in projects like participatory budgeting initiatives in cities like Paris [18] [19] and New York, where technology facilitates broader and more inclusive participation. [20] Additionally, contemporary urban planning increasingly focuses on sustainability and resilience, integrating participatory approaches to address climate change and disaster risk reduction. [21]
Participatory planning programs use a range of methods and tools to facilitate public participation in the urban planning process. Since the 1960s, planning programs have used tools such as referendums, focus groups, consensus conferences, citizen advisory committees, public hearings, and public opinion surveys to encourage public participation. [22] [23] Some planning practitioners employ more comprehensive approaches to participatory planning, such as Participatory rural appraisal. Social media and other digital tools have transformed participatory urban planning. Many organizations have integrated these participatory planning methods into their work, either conducting broad community planning projects or conducting planning initiatives for specific purposes such as forest management, [24] natural disaster risk reduction, [25] and ancient rock art management. [26]
Participatory Rural Appraisal is a method of participatory planning, used most often in the context of international community development. Participatory Rural Appraisal draws heavily on the work of Paulo Freire and his idea of critical consciousness, as well as Kurt Lewin's integration of democratic leadership, group dynamics, experiential learning, action research, and open systems theory. [27] PRA has been modified and reframed in the related models of Participatory Learning and Action (PLA), and Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR). [28] Robert Chambers, an important early practitioner of Participatory Rural Appraisal outlines a "menu" of specific methods and techniques that are central to the broad technique of Participatory Rural Appraisal, including:
Participatory Planning organizations can use digital tools to enhance and organize public participation in the planning process. E-participation has come into use in public service programs as information and communications technologies have become more available. [30] E-planning draws on the tools and techniques of e-participation in the context of urban planning. It has been described as "a socio-cultural, ethical and political practice which takes place offline and online in the overlapping phases of the planning and decision-making cycle, by using digital and non-digital tools". [31] Participatory e-planning research has generally focused on incorporating forms of participation with existing governance and urban planning processes. Some participatory e-planning programs involve the use of relatively simple digital tools like online questionnaires, surveys, and polls to consultant citizens. [30] Other programs have used information and communications technologies that were designed for everyday use — such as mainstream social media — to seek out more widespread and open-ended public input. Often, the public engages with planners through social media outlets even if their input is not directly solicited, indicating that e-planning has the potential to foster organic bottom-up participatory planning. [32] Other participatory planning processes have used existing digital technologies like virtual reality, [33] and interactive games [34] to increase participation. Some digital tools have been designed specifically to encourage public participation in urban planning.
Participatory Geographic Information Systems (GIS) are an increasingly widespread tool for participatory e-planning. Traditional GIS are computerized tools that organize a wide variety of geographically referenced information. This information is generally displayed on a computerized map. Since the 1990s there have been attempts to develop Participatory GIS systems. [35] These systems are diverse, applied in a wide range of contexts, and have incorporated different ways of asking for public participation, such as Participatory 3D Modelling. [36] Often, participatory planning practitioners will create a detailed interactive map of a community using a GIS program, and then ask for public input using the interactive map as a tool. Several planning programs have combined Participatory GIS Software with large interactive touchscreens, so a large group of stakeholders can stand around an interactive map and manipulate it to give their input. [37] GIS technology has also been integrated with other kinds of Information and Communications Technology such as Decision Support Systems, to create interfaces to bring about public participation. [38] [39]
A range of scholars, theorists, and urban planners have suggested different theoretical models to emphasize citizen participation in the planning process.
In 1965, Christopher Alexander published an influential essay, A City is Not a Tree , later expanded upon in a book of the same name. In the essay he argued against mainstream planning practices which represented cities with overly simplified hierarchical models. [40] In those models, small systems or areas in cities were thought of as subdivisions of larger systems and areas, which were in turn thought of as subdivisions of larger systems and areas, in a model that resembled a tree. Alexander argued that these models are easy to understand, but do not reflect the reality of cities, in which different systems and communities interact in complex and overlapping ways. Alexander proposed that urban planners should think of the city instead in a non-hierarchical "semi-lattice" structure. Alexander stresses that these new models require planners to incorporate much more complicated understandings of the city, and it is difficult for planners to understand all of the complicated interactions and structures that are incorporated in this semi-lattice view. [40]
Other scholars drew on this to argue for more participatory, non-hierarchical approaches to planning. Scholars argued that non-hierarchical models of the city were too complex to be understood or designed through a centralized process, and so must rely on the input and perspectives of a wide range of people. [41] This non-hierarchical understanding of how cities function laid the groundwork for the participatory planning paradigm.
Responding to the persistent gap between the desires of local communities, and traditional rationalistic approaches to planning, Sherry Arnstein wrote her essay A Ladder of Citizen Participation in 1969 to "encourage a more enlightened dialogue". [42] The ladder identifies different levels of citizen participation in government programs.
Arnstein describes eight different forms of participation, arranged in three categories: non-participation, degrees of tokenism, and degrees of citizen power. She advocates that government projects and planning processes should involve the forms of citizen participation that she places higher on the ladder. [42] Her critical assault has become influential on current theory and practice of citizen participation in urban planning and government programs, and is an important piece of the participatory planning paradigm. [43] [44] Participatory planning programs incorporate many different levels and forms of participation, but they generally draw on Arnstein's critique of programs that have no role for citizen input, or only incorporate tokenistic participation.
Within the participatory planning paradigm, there are several theoretical models of what participatory planning should look like. The kind of participation that these models call for varies, but they all emphasize participation as a central piece of a well-designed approach to planning. The following are several of the most influential participatory planning models.
Paul Davidoff and Linda Davidoff, in their essay Advocacy and Pluralism in Planning, proposed a participatory approach to planning called Advocacy Planning, in which planners would work directly with different groups of people in the city, including underrepresented communities and interest groups, to design plans which corresponded to those groups' specific needs. Planners would then argue on behalf of these plans in front of a central planning commission. [14]
John Friedmann proposed a transactive model of planning in his 1973 book Retracking America: A Theory of Transactive Planning. Transactive planning suggests that urban planners should engage in face-to-face conversation with members of the community who have immediate, experiential knowledge of their neighborhood. [13] In transactive planning, this dialog is paired with collaborative action, in which planners and community members all engage in the design process. [45] This model emphasizes learning and development of the people and institutions involved, rather than more specific programmatic goals. [1]
Stephen Grabow and Allan Heskin advocated for radical planning in their 1973 essay Foundations for a Radical Concept of Planning. Radical planning calls for sweeping structural changes in the planning field. Heskin and Grabow argued that planning decisions should be broadly decentralized and connected more closely to small communities that they affected most directly, and that planners should not be thought of as separate from the communities they serve. Heskin and Grabow wrote that under radical planning "the 'planner' is one of us, or all of us." [46]
A group of planning theorists in the 1980s and 1990s, including Patsy Healey and Judith Innes, developed a participatory model of planning which they refer to as communicative planning. [1] Communicative planning draws heavily on Jürgen Habermas's idea of communicative rationality, and proposes an approach to planning in which different stakeholders in the planning process participate in reflective conversations, work to resolve conflicts in their values and priorities, and collectively create a consensus plan. [47] In this process, planners work to support this deliberation and offer technical expertise when called for.
The community-driven development approach advocated by the World Bank is an example of participatory planning.[ citation needed ]
A number of examples link participatory community plans with local government planning. One widely applied example is South Africa's national policy of community-based planning methodology, and an adapted version, the Harmonised Participatory Planning Guide for Lower Level Local Governments, [48] which is national policy in Uganda. Community-Based Planning has been applied across the whole of eThekwini Metropolitan Municipality in South Africa, including the City of Durban, and is being rolled out in Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality.[ when? ]
After the bombing of British cities during World War II, planning advocates wanted to use the reconstruction planning as a way to engage the public. [49] The planners wanted more authority in the political system to play a more substantive role within their democracy. The planners created new techniques to, "communicate with laypeople, including mobilizing publicity, measuring public opinion, organizing exhibitions, and experimenting with new visual strategies." [49] They also developed a forum to educate and ask the public about various plans and policies. [49]
Cincinnati's Over-The-Rhine's Comprehensive Plan was created in a participatory planning process, but its consistent monitoring of its implementation failed. [4] Looking at Cincinnati's Over-the-Rhine neighborhood, geographers saw ways to obtain "necessary data, create a land-use GIS to analyze the data, update the data, and monitor the progress of the implementation of the Over-the Rhine Comprehensive Plan". [4] In the case of Cincinnati, it is proven that plans that are not carried out fail to live up to the participatory planning theory. Failures like that of the Over-the-Rhine plan make it harder to make progress toward the plan's goal as well as silencing participants. [4]
Forest management involves a variety of stakeholders, including the owners of the forest, locals, tourism enterprises, recreational uses, private or official conservationists, or the forest industry. Each of these parties has a different goal in using forests, which complicates planning. [50] Participatory approaches and computerized tools like decision support systems (DSS) have been used to help balance these diverse priorities. [24] The features of DSS that can help participatory processes in the context of forest management. are the following: "group decision support, possibilities to include other values than timber production, flexibility of system to include non-traditional forest data and management options, and multi-criteria decision analysis tools. [24] "
Recent examples include community-based urban development projects, such as the participatory budgeting initiatives in cities like Paris and New York, and environmental projects like the co-design of green infrastructure in European cities. [20]
Participatory planning has been discussed as contributing to the housing crisis by slowing the speed of new development projects. [51]
Planning theory is the body of scientific concepts, definitions, behavioral relationships, and assumptions that define the body of knowledge of urban planning. There is no one unified planning theory but various. Whittemore identifies nine procedural theories that dominated the field between 1959 and 1983: the Rational-Comprehensive approach, the Incremental approach, the Transformative Incremental (TI) approach, the Transactive approach, the Communicative approach, the Advocacy approach, the Equity approach, the Radical approach, and the Humanist or Phenomenological approach.
Participatory democracy, participant democracy, participative democracy, or semi-direct democracy is a form of government in which citizens participate individually and directly in political decisions and policies that affect their lives, rather than through elected representatives. Elements of direct and representative democracy are combined in this model.
Citizen participation or public participation in social science refers to different mechanisms for the public to express opinions—and ideally exert influence—regarding political, economic, management or other social decisions. Participatory decision-making can take place along any realm of human social activity, including economic, political, management, cultural or familial.
Participatory design is an approach to design attempting to actively involve all stakeholders in the design process to help ensure the result meets their needs and is usable. Participatory design is an approach which is focused on processes and procedures of design and is not a design style. The term is used in a variety of fields e.g. software design, urban design, architecture, landscape architecture, product design, sustainability, graphic design, industrial design, planning, and health services development as a way of creating environments that are more responsive and appropriate to their inhabitants' and users' cultural, emotional, spiritual and practical needs. It is also one approach to placemaking.
The United Nations defines community development as "a process where community members come together to take collective action and generate solutions to common problems." It is a broad concept, applied to the practices of civic leaders, activists, involved citizens, and professionals to improve various aspects of communities, typically aiming to build stronger and more resilient local communities.
Participatory budgeting (PB) is a type of citizen sourcing in which ordinary people decide how to allocate part of a municipal or public budget through a process of democratic deliberation and decision-making. Participatory budgeting allows citizens or residents of a locality to identify, discuss, and prioritize public spending projects, and gives them the power to make real decisions about how money is spent.
Neighborhood planning is a form of urban planning through which professional urban planners and communities seek to shape new and existing neighborhoods. It can denote the process of creating a physical neighborhood plan, for example via participatory planning, or an ongoing process through which neighborhood affairs are decided.
Public participation, also known as citizen participation or patient and public involvement, is the inclusion of the public in the activities of any organization or project. Public participation is similar to but more inclusive than stakeholder engagement.
Participatory GIS (PGIS) or public participation geographic information system (PPGIS) is a participatory approach to spatial planning and spatial information and communications management.
Public consultation, public comment, or simply consultation, is a process by which members of the public are asked for input on public issues. This can occur in public meetings open to all in written form, as well as in deliberative groups. Surveys and deliberative groups can be conducted with self-selected citizens or with statistically representative samples of the population which enables the identification of majority opinion. Its main goals are to improve public involvement and influence, as well as the transparency and efficiency of government projects, laws, or regulations.
Janaagraha Centre for Citizenship and Democracy (www.janaagraha.org) is a non-profit trust, working towards the mission of transforming the quality of life in India's cities and towns. Founded in 2001 by Ramesh Ramanathan and Swati Ramanathan, it started as a movement to include people's participation in public governance and has now evolved into a robust institution for citizenship and democracy. The core idea of Janaagraha's work does not revolve around fixing problems but instead seeking to fix the system that can solve the problems. To achieve this objective, Janaagraha works with citizens to catalyse active citizenship in city neighbourhoods and with governments to institute reforms to city governance.
Geodesign is a set of concepts and methods used to involve all stakeholders and various professions in collaboratively designing and realizing the optimal solution for spatial challenges in the built and natural environments, utilizing all available techniques and data in an integrated process. Originally, geodesign was mainly applied during the design and planning phase. "Geodesign is a design and planning method which tightly couples the creation of design proposals with impact simulations informed by geographic contexts." Now, it is also used during realization and maintenance phases and to facilitate re-use of for example buildings or industrial areas. Geodesign includes project conceptualization, analysis, design specification, stakeholder participation and collaboration, design creation, simulation, and evaluation.
Urban planning education is a practice of teaching and learning urban theory, studies, and professional practices. The interaction between public officials, professional planners and the public involves a continuous education on planning process. Community members often serve on a city planning commission, council or board. As a result, education outreach is effectively an ongoing cycle. Formal education is offered as an academic degree in urban, city, rural, and/or regional planning, and more often awarded as a master's degree specifically accredited by an urban planning association in addition to the university's university-wide primary accreditation, although some universities offer bachelor's degrees and doctoral degrees also accredited in the same fashion; although most bachelor's degrees in urban planning do not have the secondary-layer of urban planning association accreditation required for most positions, relying solely on the university's primary accreditation as a legitimate institution of higher education. At some universities, urban studies, also known as pre-urban planning, is the paraprofessional version of urban and regional planning education, mostly taken as a bachelor's degree prior to taking up post-graduate education in urban planning or as a master's or graduate certificate program for public administration professionals to get an understanding of public policy implications created by urban planning decisions or techniques.
Geographic information system (GIS) is a commonly used tool for environmental management, modelling and planning. As simply defined by Michael Goodchild, GIS is as "a computer system for handling geographic information in a digital form". In recent years it has played an integral role in participatory, collaborative and open data philosophies. Social and technological evolutions have elevated digital and environmental agendas to the forefront of public policy, the global media and the private sector.
Urban planning, also known as town planning, city planning, regional planning, or rural planning in specific contexts, is a technical and political process that is focused on the development and design of land use and the built environment, including air, water, and the infrastructure passing into and out of urban areas, such as transportation, communications, and distribution networks, and their accessibility. Traditionally, urban planning followed a top-down approach in master planning the physical layout of human settlements. The primary concern was the public welfare, which included considerations of efficiency, sanitation, protection and use of the environment, as well as effects of the master plans on the social and economic activities. Over time, urban planning has adopted a focus on the social and environmental bottom lines that focus on planning as a tool to improve the health and well-being of people, maintaining sustainability standards. Similarly, in the early 21st century, Jane Jacobs's writings on legal and political perspectives to emphasize the interests of residents, businesses and communities effectively influenced urban planners to take into broader consideration of resident experiences and needs while planning.
Sherry Phyllis Arnstein, was the author of the highly influential journal article "A Ladder of Citizen Participation". Working as a special assistant to the assistant secretary at the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW), she developed the insights that led to the development of her seminal paper in the field of participatory decision making.
Planning cultures are the differing customs and practices in the profession of urban and regional planning that exist around the world. The discourse, models, and styles of communication in planning are adapted to the various local conditions of each community such that planning approaches from one part of the world are not necessarily transferable to other parts of the globe. Planning culture can refer to how planning professionals undertake their practice in a given location, where they are "affected by both individual and collectively shared cognitive frames" that shape their view of the world. Planners, as stated by Simone Abram, are "constantly in the process of actually producing culture". The concept of planning culture also encompasses how planning actually unfolds within a community, as shaped by its culture and influenced by its people. Differing cultural contexts produce different planning and policy responses to issues "bound to specific local (cultural) contexts". Examples of planning cultures include those specific to different countries, regions, and parts of the globe, as well as differing cultures that exist within the same location, such as indigenous planning cultures.
Communicative planning is an approach to urban planning that gathers stakeholders and engages them in a process to make decisions together in a manner that respects the positions of all involved. It is also sometimes called collaborative planning among planning practitioners or collaborative planning model.
Zenia Kotval, is a professor of Urban and Regional Planning at Michigan State University, specializing in community engagement and economic development.
Participatory democracy "is founded on the direct action of citizens who exercise some power and decide issues affecting their lives". Participatory democracy refers to mechanisms through which citizens are involved in public decision-making processes, not as an alternative to representative democracy but as a complement to it.