Negotiation or Schedule-Based?

Abstract

Problem, research strategy, and findings: Local governments can secure valuable public benefits from private real estate development through negotiations or schedule-based exaction programs. Nevertheless, few studies have empirically examined their relative strengths and weaknesses. In this study I compare the experiences of two major U.S. cities, Boston (MA)—where exactions are heavily negotiated—and Seattle (WA)—where public benefits are secured through statutory exaction programs with pre-established schedules. I analyze the entitlement processes of large-scale projects approved in 2016 in each city and show that both approaches have their own strengths and weaknesses. Boston was able to extract substantial public benefit packages, but uncertainty was high, and projects were subject to inconsistent decision making at times. By contrast, Seattle’s schedule-based approach was found to be fair and certain while yielding moderate public benefit packages. Despite the commonly held belief that negotiating land uses on a project-by-project basis is associated with significant process delays and a lack of transparency, the case of Boston offers a different perspective. Boston’s projects were approved in a shorter time frame and were subjected to more public meetings per project than Seattle’s.

Takeaway for practice: U.S. local governments are likely to rely on both negotiations and schedules to extract public benefits from real estate developments. Though schedule-based exaction programs ensure overall fairness and certainty of the entitlement process, project-by-project negotiation could potentially yield significant public benefits. However, uncertainty can be high in a negotiation-heavy system, which may disadvantage small-scale developers. Moreover, negotiations may open up room for poor and inconsistent decision making, which must be mitigated by establishing clear policies and standards to guide the negotiation process. Both negotiation and schedule-based processes can be designed to ensure a transparent process with multiple public participation opportunities.     

Public Participation: Technology and Democracy

Computerized visualization methods offer planners and architects some new ways to support and facilitate democratic decision-making. However, the uses of this technology in public participation are just beginning to be explored. This paper describes a community planning process in which a combination of high- and low-tech visualization methods—a Geographic Information System (GIS) and a human artist—was used to increase public participation and draw out local knowledge.     

Everyday resistance: exposing the complexities of participatory slum-upgrading projects in Nagpur

Abstract

This paper exposes practices of informal, everyday resistance by slum-dwellers against the implementation of large-scale public housing projects in India. During the last few decades, various large-scale urban projects have been implemented in order to redevelop Indian cities. In these projects, the emphasis is on community participation. By focusing on the local level, we scrutinize how these projects are put into practice. Specifically, we look at how two slum communities react, contest and protest against the implementation of a large-scale public housing project. Using two case studies in Nagpur under the Basic Services to the Urban Poor—an overarching, nation-wide slum-upgrading scheme—this paper explores how standardized, participatory large-scale housing projects often clash with social realities on the ground, which results in various forms of everyday resistance and protest.     

Forces shaping urban morphology in Southern Africa Today: unequal interplay among people,practice and policy

ABSTRACT

This article explores public participation and its impact on urban structures in Southern Africa. Often, public participation stands in opposition to existing legislation and prevailing urban policies. Using textual analysis and case studies of Harare, Zimbabwe, Johannesburg, South Africa and Luanda, Angola, this study concludes that the urban fabric and structure of Southern African cities are in a state of instability. The rise of public participation–“right to the city”–has given way to “cities of rebels” in which citizens react or rebel against urban policies and legislation. These forces threaten sustainable urban morphology and service delivery, complicating the roles of urban planners and managers.     

Where Should We Have the Meeting?

Abstract

Problem, research strategy, and findings: Scholars and practitioners in the fields of planning, public participation, and consensus building have devised a variety of techniques for participatory decision making. Despite the ever-growing literatures on public participation, consensus building, and deliberative democracy, few scholars have studied perhaps the most elemental consideration in designing participatory processes: how to create physical environments for productive interactions and conversations. In this study, we address that gap in the scholarship on participatory decision making by answering two questions: What are planners are seeking to achieve when creating venues for engagement, participation, or collaboration? What are the tools at their disposal to do so? We interviewed practitioners with significant experience in the facilitation of planning processes, selected at random from the National Roster of Environmental Conflict Resolution Professionals, and developed a set of objectives and considerations for creating effective venues for participation and collaboration in planning. Based on our analysis, we find that venue creation involves three key dimensions: determining the appropriate venue-related process objectives, selecting a location, and arranging the chosen space.

Takeaway for practice: Combining insights from existing guidance in handbooks and reports with the findings from our interviews, we developed the Venue Creation Tool to support more informed discussions and choices related to venues for participation and collaboration in planning.     

Online Participatory Technologies: Opportunities and Challenges for Enriching Participatory Planning

Problem, research strategy, and ­findings: Planning organizations are increasingly using online technologies for public engagement, but there is dispute about their value in enriching public engagement. We explore an interdisciplinary literature on the capability of online participatory tools (OPTs) to respond to the goals of participatory planning. Proponents argue that OPTs can help attract more citizens, engage a more diverse population, disseminate information more broadly, gather local knowledge, and facilitate consensus building. Skeptics argue that OPTs can intensify social injustice and an unequal distribution of power as well as create or exacerbate privacy, security, and data management issues. We critically examine the pros and cons of OPTs, assess their potential role in facilitating public engagement, and provide guidelines for their implementation. These results are time sensitive because of the rapidly changing environment of digital technologies.

Takeaway for practice: There are still many unresolved questions about the benefits of OPTs. Research suggests that they can at times be effective in addressing goals of public participation, such as inclusive planning, consensus building, learning from local knowledge, and mobilizing social action. Their effectiveness depends significantly on implementation, however. Integrating online participation strategies with the overall participation process and other digital infrastructures within the organization may foster their effectiveness. Planners collaborating with formal or informal learning networks or related professionals can facilitate the effective use of OPTs within their own organizations. Additional information is needed on which OPTs are most appropriate in which planning environments, how well OPTs meet a range of major participatory objectives, how to make trade-offs between OPTs and face-to-face methods, and the best managerial structures for ensuring their effective use.     

The Architecture of Repeated Rituals

Abstract

This paper examines the relationship between architecture and civil participation by specifically looking at the formal attributes of Rabin Square in Tel Aviv, its development as a public urban space, its nationally symbolic meaning, and its civic role. A major conclusion of this study is that public assembly and the physical space in which it occurs are indivisible, revealing architecture's unique contribution to the shaping of citizenship.     

Guerrillas in the [Urban] Midst: Developing and Using Creative Research Methods—Guerrilla Research Tactics

Abstract

This paper explores what we are calling “Guerrilla Research Tactics” (GRT): research methods that exploit emerging mobile and cloud-based digital technologies. We examine some case studies in the use of this technology to generate research data directly from the physical fabric and the people of the city. We argue that GRT is a new and novel way of engaging public participation in urban, place-based research because it facilitates the co-creation of knowledge, with city inhabitants, “on the fly.” This paper discusses the potential of these new research techniques and what they have to offer researchers operating in the creative disciplines and beyond. This work builds on and extends Gauntlett's “new creative methods” (2007) and contributes to the existing body of literature addressing creative and interactive approaches to data collection.     

Public engagement under authoritarian entrepreneurialism: the Belgrade Waterfront project

ABSTRACT

Urban megaprojects as a spatial manifestation of neoliberalism are in transitional societies considered a tool for extra-profit for private developers and a source of great corruption among the high-level public authorities. Consequently, such a relationship has negative effects on socio-spatial reality. The paper illustrates how a large-scale unitary project – the Belgrade Waterfront project – jeopardizes the public participation through: the misuse of legal procedures and spatial planning instruments, neglect of private property rights, and simulation of public debate. The conditions enabling democratic social, political and professional environment as a backbone for citizen involvement in public issues are briefly indicated in conclusion.     

Planning,Public Participation,and Money Politics in Santa Ana (CA)

Problem, research strategy, and findings: In this study, we analyze why a low-income community failed to meaningfully affect plans for the redevelopment of the Station District in Santa Ana (CA) although they used three avenues to do so: public participation, liberal democracy, and deliberative democracy. The city provided opportunities for public participation but controlled the agenda, effectively preventing residents from reframing the discussion. The liberal democratic electoral system failed residents because many were ineligible to vote, while city council members received campaign contributions from external business interests. Residents did develop extensive deliberative democratic processes that produced collaborative plans; however, these plans were not well incorporated into the official plan. In addition, the city refused to sign a community benefit agreement through which residents could hold the city and developer responsible for the redevelopment plan.

Takeaway for practice: We suggest that planners have an obligation to improve the participatory process by empowering community residents to set the agenda and frame the issues at the local level while addressing the role of corporations in local politics and in campaign finance, and by seeking to achieve elections that more fairly represent spatially segregated public interests. Less-ambitious changes to the public planning process will fail to achieve a balance of power among low-income communities of color, city officials, and those representing private market interests.     

“Soft edges” in residential streets

A multitude of surveys has established that life in residential streets and other public spaces is a major attraction and a very highly valued amenity. Trends in the 198 —such as declining household size and technological changes affecting both the character and amount of work— point towards a growing importance of lively residential streets for formal and informal social activities. This article discusses a number of conditions for supporting this function of residential streets. The focus is primarily on the importance of creating “soft edges” by way of frontyards/forecourts/porches in order to provide better opportunities for staying in the public spaces for residents of all ages. Studies of residential street life in Australia, Canada, and Scandinavia are presented to support the conclusion that “soft edges” may be a most important way of promoting an active life in present‐day residential streets.     

Book Reviews

Problem, research strategy, and findings: We evaluate the role of transportation in improving the employment outcomes of participants in the Moving to Opportunity (MTO) for Fair Housing Voucher Program, a 10-year demonstration project designed to enable low-income families to improve their outcomes by moving out of high-poverty neighborhoods. We use longitudinal data from the MTO program to assess the role of transportation—automobiles and improved access to public transit—in moving to, and maintaining, employment. We use multi-nomial logistic regression to predict changes in employment status as a function of change in automobile availability and transit accessibility, controlling for other potential determinants of employment. We find that keeping or gaining access to an automobile is positively related to the likelihood of employment. Improved access to public transit is positively associated with maintaining employment, but not with job gains. Although we cannot say for certain whether car ownership preceded or followed employment, it is clear that having a car provides multiple benefits that facilitate getting and keeping a job.

Takeaway for practice: Policies to increase automobile access among low-income households—even in dense urban areas—will most clearly enhance job gain and job retention. While auto programs are unpopular with many planners, they would improve the lives of low-income families who currently have the least access to cars. In addition, supporting moves to transit-rich neighborhoods may help households maintain consistent employment.     

Keeping It Real

Problem: It is easier than ever to reach out to the public, but as communication channels proliferate, it becomes difficult to compete for people's attention. Also, it seems as though fantasy and spectacle (even in news coverage) have the best chances of capturing an audience. Can planners create what Duncombe (2007 Duncombe, S. 2007. Dream: Re-imagining progressive politics in an age of fantasy, New York, NY: The New Press.  [Google Scholar]) calls “ethical spectacles,” where planning projects get noticed, but still gain substantive public input?

Purpose: Currently, reality television shows are the masters of “spectacle” and viewer participation. This article uses the reality TV formula to critique a televised planning event sponsored by the council of governments for the Greater Kansas City region. The model for successful reality TV offers strategies for improving televised planning processes by making these programs more dynamic and interactive. The reality TV formula includes the following: real people, uncontrolled situations, immediacy and intimacy, an emphasis on conflict in which participants balance individual and community needs, an observational style, a “confessional space,” editing to create an entertaining package, and interactive elements (voting, texting by home viewers).

Methods: The study uses genre criticism to compare and contrast the Imagine KC televised town meeting with the successful reality TV formula.

Results and conclusions: Planners can use reality TV to create “ethical spectacles” and more effectively draw attention to planning issues while creating two-way dialogues with the public. Duncombe's (2007) ethical spectacles are directly democratic, fostering community while allowing for diversity. They also take up real issues but explore alternate futures. These are all familiar to planners who have used more typical public participation techniques (e.g., surveys, charrettes) while adhering to the American Institute of Certified Planners’ code of ethics.

Takeaway for practice: While reality TV offers planners strategies for creating compelling televised public participation programming, reality TV is not without its faults. Planners should avoid the exploitative manner in which reality TV producers regard the participants, as well as its manipulative style and aesthetic of humiliation, which emphasizes drama and conflict over documentary realism and ethical considerations. If planners are going to use the medium of television, the reality TV formula provides an attractive option for those seeking to inform and interact with a large, diverse audience.

Research support: None.     

The religion of the mithras cult in the roman empire mysteries of the unconquered sun Beck,Roger

ABSTRACT

For most of its history, candomblé was a marginal and persecuted spirit possession cult. From the 1920s onward, however, the cult evolved into the “trademark” of Bahia, a state in northeastern Brazil. The color white—a spotless and impeccable white—has come to dominate the public face of the cult: evoking positive connotations such as cleanliness and purity, the color helped to portray candomblé as the splendid cultural heritage of the Bahian state as well as a respectable African religion. However, the “politics of white” has always been intersected by a “poetics of white,” as Bahian artists, writers, and other image producers sought to destabilize the condoned meanings of white. Hinting at that which is absent from the impeccable surfaces of candomblé's public appearance, this “poetics of white” produced a layered public understanding of the cult. As people engage in speculations over the “true” candomblé that lies hidden behind its public façade, claims to be “in the know” reconfigure the notion of cultural capital, and new standards of belonging come into being.     

Reading the Phone Book: Cultural landscape myths in public art

Representations provide an accessible and challenging means of investigating the cultural landscape. While on the one hand images can be read as simple depictions or denotations of landscape, on the other they are rich in meaning, encapsulating a community's idealized vision of itself. The way in which a particular body of popular art—New Zealand's telephone book covers—conveys both 'real' and 'imagined' views of landscape is explored. These images privilege certain ideas about identity, with the selective visual language expressing a range of myths about the relationships between culture and landscape. The populist nature of these works holds a mirror up to society's values, and at the same time projects these ideals onto society, through the high public profile of the images.     

Neighborhoods of Affinity

Problem, research strategy, and findings: Planners have traditionally focused on how the physical characteristics of neighborhoods influence people's activity and travel -patterns, overlooking an equally important factor: the social nature of neighborhoods. We focus on one kind of neighborhood characterized by strong social ties: gay and lesbian -neighborhoods of affinity. Gay men living in a neighborhood of affinity—those with a high percentage of coupled gays and lesbians—take shorter work and non-work trips. The mix of local activity sites and social connections results in some gay men conducting a substantial share of their lives within these neighborhoods and nearby. These results are independent of the design or density of the neighborhood. We do not, however, find similar results for lesbians, perhaps because they have less residential mobility.

Takeaway for practice: Gay and lesbian neighborhoods of affinity represent the kinds of supportive communities where local travel is possible for many activities, behavior that planners seek with so many public policies. Planners must explore how the social and physical environments of neighborhoods interact with one another when they focus on the impacts of physical design and infrastructure on community outcomes.

Research support: None.     

V: News from the Schools of Architecture

Abstract

The entry of Western democracy into Asia represents one of the most significant dimensions of the East-West cultural dialectic. The transformative formal and intellectual influences of Western democratic concepts on Asian urbanity and identity formation therefore remain paramount to the discourse on Asian cities today. This document explores the search for democratic space in Japan—the first non-Western democracy in the world. By tracing the evolution and shifts of Japanese public space over the last six decades, it attempts both a re-reading of the Japanese city as a democratic construct, and of democracy itself as a culturally appropriated model.     

Old Roads and Memories of St Henrik of Finland

Abstract

The growing interest in pilgrimages has led to their being organised in Finland—a traditionally protestant country. They are certainly arranged with the best of intentions. Yet, the ‘St Henrik’s Road’, which purports to follow a mediaeval pilgrim route between Turku and Kokemäki, leaves much to be desired. There is no evidence that such a route ever existed—the hypotheses about it have been accepted much too uncritically. The present propaganda for the pilgrimages along ‘St Henrik’s Road’ lulls the general public into believing that the fragments of the mediaeval landscapes connected with the memories of Henrik, the national saint of Finland, are taken care of. The finances for the management of cultural landscapes are, however, scarce, and other sites more truly connected with the history of the saint, or of greater historical importance, are therefore in danger of being neglected.     

The use of direct democracy to decide housing site allocations in English neighbourhoods

Abstract

The aim of this article is to reclaim the democratic legitimacy of self-selecting and informed publics in citizen engagement in housing development planning. It argues for an approach to public participation in which the issues, and the articulation of conflicting attachments to those issues, are understood as the occasion for democratic politics. The article illustrates this approach in an analysis of the use of direct democracy to decide housing allocations in the policy of neighbourhood planning in England. Drawing on literature from Science and Technology Studies and actor–network theory, it evidences the public articulation of house-building as a matter of concern and identifies the agency of housing in enrolling publics, translating interests and in fostering debate and contention. It concludes that the articulation of conflicting interests can deepen democratic engagement in housing development planning and open up the exclusions through which this issue is currently framed.