Tokenism or Political Activism? Some Reflections on Participatory Planning

With the communicative turn in planning theory and the emergence of governance, public participation has become a central issue with respect to inclusionary discourse and the institutionalization of more democratic planning practices. A multitude of participatory planning practices have been implemented with reference to different theoretical perspectives and technical approaches ranging from the traditional to the radical model. Although the current debate about these different participatory activities has brought to the fore an increasing gap between rhetoric and the reality of various models, there are few attempts to compare them in practice. A comparison of participatory activities according to traditional/tokenist and radical models, respectively, should be of interest in the current debate on the crisis of participatory planning and barriers to the institutionalization of participatory planning. This paper discusses tokenist participation in the development planning of Hammarby Sjöstad in Stockholm, Sweden and political activism in a deprived community, Enziteto in Bari, Italy. These two different examples of planner–'community' interaction show the necessity to understand power politics that underlie the ideal of public participation in planning.     

Democratic design experiments in urban planning – navigational practices and compositionist design

In the field of urban planning, public participation and inclusion of citizens have been practised and researched for many years. However, a focus on co-creative urban planning practices seems to have gained more focus over the last decade and calls for new urban planning practices, which allow experimentation and imagination, and at the same time take its outset in the existing networks in the city (such as visions, strategies, regulations and practices) when planning for the future. In this article, we investigate how a compositionist design programme can be translated into the practices of urban planners. We find that the notion of ‘democratic design experiments’ in many ways meet the demands of the increasingly complex field of urban planning and set out to explore how such a design programme can be applied in practice. We suggest ‘navigational practice’ as a way of describing how urban planners deal with ‘drawing things together’ in urban space and introduce ‘sensitivity’, ‘staging’ and ‘mobilization’ as interconnected elements of this practice. We exemplify the significance of these navigational practices by analysing two democratic design experiments in the area of urban waste management in Copenhagen. The article concludes that compositionist design is a powerful contribution to the framing of urban planning projects and that navigational practice can be a productive way of operationalising democratic design experiments in the urban context.     

Is Public Participation Making Urban Planning More Democratic? The Israeli Experience

The article examines the alleged connection between the goal of democratization of the Israeli planning system and 'public participation in planning'. It begins by claiming that the planning system in Israel is a non-democratic environment within the democratic state. This situation has stimulated the enormous development of theoretical and practical work relating to 'public participation'. Yet, statutory and voluntary participation mechanisms in Israel have not been able to influence the decision-making structure in planning. Moreover, most public organizations and NGOs that are supposed to represent the voice of the public are far from being genuine public delegates. The article also relates to the power/knowledge problem, stating that participation processes cannot escape it. The article highlights the widely experienced tensions between the democratization of planning through more consultative and participative processes, the role of elected representatives and of civil society movements which choose co-operative rather than oppositional strategies.     

Education,practice and professionalism: a comparative history of the development of urban and regional planning in Italy and Australia

This paper outlines the historical relationship between planning legislation, planning practice and planning education in Italy and Australia by identifying the positive and negative roles of institutional influences and the emergence of professional planning communities. The key findings revolve around the gap between plan preparation and plan implementation, and the role of institutions and professional communities in resisting political interference and maintaining a technocratic imperative within planning systems. While the exertion of professional power can be seen to achieve positive planning and development outcomes, it is often at the expense of the democratic traditions that have come to characterize postmodern planning systems.     

Quasi-Quisling: co-design and the assembly of collaborateurs

In recent years, various critiques of participative approaches to design processes have been presented. Participatory urban planning has been subject to a specific form of criticism, which posits that such processes are ‘post-political’, inasmuch as they merely legitimise the power and political agendas of elites. In reviewing a case of participatory urban planning in Gothenburg, Sweden, this article suggests that actor-network theory can be operationalised as an alternative means to account for democratic deficiencies of co-design practices. It thus uses the concept of translation to describe how the original interests of participants may be betrayed, as successive translations cause objectives to drift. It also suggests that the key agency in these unfortunate betrayals is not human, but emerges through the material modes of collaboration. The article thus endeavours to contribute to the debate on how co-design processes may become more effective means to democratise urban planning and design.     

Communicative planning as counter-power

This article presents a theory of communicative planning in which the power of citizens is conceived as a resource in the promotion of long-term planning against the short-term interests of investors in public planning. Its point of departure is the depiction of three planning paradigms – traditional synoptic, incremental and participatory planning – and a critical discussion of different theories within the latter. In the light of this, it is argued that, in practice, planning authorities most often regard public participation as a problem, rather than as a potential. The article dismisses this conception and (a) conceptualizes planning on the basis of a Habermasian theory of communicative action and power, (b) shows that the participation of citizens is necessary to secure the inclusion of ethical and aesthetic rationalities in the planning process, and also that (c) citizens may constitute a counterpower to short-term investor interests in planning by (d) strengthening the respect for long-term solutions and the common good. This becomes a structural necessity when it comes to securing sustainability and democratic justice in planning. The article conceptualizes the difference between planning and politics, since in the former, power is constituted in the actual process, not given in advance.     

Regulatory Power,Network Tools and Market Behaviour: Transforming Practices in Norwegian Urban Planning

Planning changes can be initiated formally through revisions of statutory rules; alternatively changes can arise informally through amendments to everyday planning activities. This article explains how local planning authorities in Norway introduce new planning practices relating to the management of land and planning procedures. The observed new practices have been introduced even though the formal hierarchical structure of the planning law has stayed unchanged. They are analysed as outcomes of the changing use of tools under the three models for co-ordinating behaviour: hierarchy understood as government, market and network. First, the existing planning system is analysed to explain the legal possibilities for changing planning practices informally. Two categories of practices are then discussed: the use of the detailed development plan as an implementation instrument, and the use of the regulatory power in framing interconnections and responsibilities towards stakeholders. The main conclusion is that regulatory tools have lost some strength in favour of tools under the network model, and that the observed changes in planning practices are mostly a result of mutual dependencies between these two models for co-ordinating behaviour.     

加强规划沟通均衡决策权力

文章尝试以沟通规划思想方法分析我国城乡规划过程中的权力现状．提出规划决策者的权力观念急需转变．公众参与规划决策权力的法律保障有待进一步提高等问题．设想在以下方面改进规划决策、提高规划的科学性和民主性：决策权力的均衡分配和决策者沟通意识的养成;公民参与意识的培养;信息公开机制;沟通调解机制;换位思考教育等。     

The managerial turn and municipal land-use planning in Switzerland – evidence from practice

New Public Management (NPM) reforms are intended to increase efficiency and support a more managerial approach to public problems. This paper examines how NPM-type reforms have led to the growing influence of finance and real-estate departments in local level planning in Switzerland. Drawing on over 50 interviews, the paper maps the growing influence of flexible private-law or incentive-based instruments as complements to more binding instruments (typically zoning) in land-use planning practices. NPM reforms have prompted a renewed interest in public property, forcing municipalities to position themselves in relation to the necessity to sell or retain public land. The results show that NPM has affected practices of land-use planning in Switzerland, but the outcomes are more complex than a one-to-one takeover and there is variation across the country. The Swiss case study helps extend the wider international debate about NPM and planning. This paper highlights the complex impacts of managerialism on planning reform as well as ongoing tensions between increased efficiency in plan implementation and public scrutiny.     

The neglected places of practice

This paper situates the micro-politics of planning in the array of places in which practice occurs. Using a case study of the attempted siting of a sanitary landfill in Iowa (USA), it argues that places of practice influence not only planning deliberations, but also who participates and the transparency of the planning process. These places are thus central to our understanding of planning events as well as to the realization of democratic and just planning. The paper concludes with a discussion of the differences among place, space, and context, and a call for practice-based theorists to attend to practice places.     

Does Participatory Planning Promise Too Much? Global Discourses and the Glass Ceiling of Participation in Urban Malawi

This article discusses how global ideas on co-production and citizenship built from below are translated into community mobilization and participatory planning practices in urban Malawi. It shows how limited national and local resources, disconnections from national and urban policies of redistribution, and a local politics shaped by both clientelism and democratic reforms create a glass ceiling for what global models of community mobilization and participation are able to achieve. It calls for a more systematic and empirically diverse research agenda to better understand how participatory discourses and practices embedded in grassroots organizing are transferred and mediated in place.     

The urban context for adjustments to the planning process in post-soviet Russia: Responses from local planners in Siberia

This paper examines changes to planning practices in different types of Russian cities that inherited varying levels of administrative status and economic diversification during the Soviet period. Considered the hallmark of the previous regime, planning faces a tenuous fate because of its perceived incompatibility with a democratic, market-based society. For many cities, urban development plans created during the Soviet period do not represent or accommodate the needs of post-Soviet society. Local planners, whose main responsibility previously was to execute these now-defunct plans, are redefining their role within city administration in order to remain relevant. The responses to these fundamental issues at the local level vary by city-type because of post-Soviet realities distinctly impacting each type of city.     

Monitory Democracy as Citizen-driven Participatory Planning: The Urban Politics of Redwatch in Sydney

This article analyses a case of citizen-driven participation in urban planning in Sydney, Australia. Drawing on a case study of the local resident action group REDWatch the analysis is undertaken within the context of the hybrid forms of technocratic, participatory and neoliberal planning that are operating in the New South Wales planning system. Framed by the concept of monitory democracy, the analysis explores the four key features of monitory forms of civic action: (1) monitoring powerful social actors; (2) encouraging difference, disagreement, debate and change; (3) making formal power structures more transparent and accountable; and (4) fostering new forms of informal political power. The findings demonstrate that analyses of formal community consultation events and participatory planning policies are far too narrow to determine the civic utility of citizen participation in planning. Expanding the analytical borderland beyond the formal structures of the planning system exposes important informal citizen participation practices that are operating from outside of planning systems. Unlike formal state-driven participatory planning events and policies, these informal citizen-driven participatory planning practices can deal with planning hybridity and conflict, which are increasingly central to many contemporary planning systems.     

Institutional Impediments to Planning Professionalism in Victoria,Australia

It is common for urban spatial planning professionalism to be understood primarily as the expertise and skills required of practitioners in their assigned roles, putting aside the importance of the governance mechanisms within which planners work. However, urban spatial planning is located across a range of governance mechanisms, requiring particular understandings of the possibilities and problems of professionalism in this setting. The case of Victoria, Australia, is used to demonstrate how the institutional roles of planners strongly influence the exercise of their professional judgement and action. The concept of ‘mediatization’ is used to show how particular governance arrangements can result in a fragmented professional knowledge base that erodes planners' ability to act as a meaningful force for collective change. It is argued that planners, when being ‘professional’, need to consciously acknowledge and take on roles as democratic facilitators of knowledge development via planning processes. This enlarged role would begin with an appraisal of the existing institutional impediments to the process of democratic planning in a given setting.     

This land can sustain us: cooperative land use planning on the Oneida Reservation

Land use planning in indigenous communities often takes place within state-based planning initiatives, leaving indigenous governments to serve as token participants. Through these initiatives, state-based governments have the ability to wield their power and control the planning process to the detriment of indigenous governments. This study sets forth an alternative option involving cooperative land use planning practices where neither government controls the planning process. Drawing upon a case study of the Oneida Reservation in Wisconsin, USA, this study explores ways to increase cooperative land use planning relationships between indigenous and state-based governments. As one of the few empirical studies to apply critical planning theory to advocate for increased cooperative land use planning, this paper proposes a series of recommendations that can help indigenous and state-based governments avoid conflicts and work toward cooperative relationships.     

The international diffusion of planning: A review and a Canadian case study

This article notes the different approaches to the international diffusion of planning ideas and practices. It briefly reviews the principal body of work by planning historians to highlight the key themes of such studies. This previous work is then used to develop a simple typology of diffusional episodes, based on the power relationship between the two parties to the diffusion relationship. Thus several forms of imposition and several forms of borrowing are identified. This typology is then used to inform a case study of Canadian planning, focusing particularly on Vancouver. The case study shows how Canada's planning was shaped by recurrent encounters with two major international planning traditions, those of Britain and the US, particularly the latter. These encounters initially resulted in episodes of undiluted borrowing, alternately, from both traditions. Increasingly after 1945, however, these borrowings became more selective, first from Britain and then from the US. By the late 1960s, other international influences were also apparent and Canadian planning exhibited a more synthetic approach, achieving real distinctiveness. Interpretations based on context and the autonomous roles of individuals are considered but greatest emphasis is placed on the role of the reformist and professional milieux in determining the origins and extent of Canadian borrowings. The article concludes by suggesting that the existence, however weak, of such milieux within the country importing planning ideas and practices may be crucial to the distinction between borrowing and imposition.     

Towards democratic planning? Negotiating change in St Kilda,Melbourne

Are planners ‘dealmakers’ caught up in selling urban areas to the highest bidder, or are they negotiators concerned to maintain democratic planning and social diversity in areas that are subject to gentrification? This paper explores this question through the example of two sites in St Kilda, Melbourne. The sites highlight planning strategies used at the local government level by planners who are attempting to negotiate change and to maintain the social and cultural diversity of the area. The first example illustrates the processes of ‘democratic planning’ where planners question what is ‘legitimate’ and draw on discourses of local need. The second example illustrates the problems of co‐opting local culture within a process of democratic planning that is based on community consultation. Together, the examples illustrate the need for tighter local government policies, including stricter policies about the use of developer contributions, and a closer and more critical focus on the term ‘community consultation’, if democratic planning is to be achieved.     

THE LIMITS OF STRATEGIC PLANNING FOR CITIES

ABSTRACT: Developed in the private sector, strategic planning is rapidly being applied to cities. This article describes public sector strategic planning, places it in the history of urban planning and evaluates its goal orientation and effectiveness. Strategic planning is shown to be closely related to rational-comprehensive planning; as such, it is open to the same types of criticisms that have been leveled at rational planning reforms. At the same time, strategic planning is differentiated from traditional rational planning by its focus on future environmental trends. While external trends are important, the article concludes that they are rarely decisive for local policy making. Claiming to be a technique that can be used to support any goals, in practice, strategic planning often biases the planning agenda in favor of economic growth over other goals, such as redistribution of wealth or democratic participation. Strategic planning focuses on the effects of policies and is not concerned with the process of decision making; the values of democratic participation and checks and balances lie outside of the techniques of strategic planning. The article concludes that strategic planning is not wrong—simply incomplete. Strategic planning has a place, albeit a limited place, in democratic decision making.