In
this seminar the group and the reading, looked at the idea of citizen
participation in planning. One of the main areas that was looked at was Sherry
Arnstein’s ladder of participation as shown below:
This
diagram illustrates the point that there is many levels of citizen participation.
One of the negatives of representing participation as a ladder is the fact that
it makes the reader think that citizen control is the best and manipulation is
the worst. The problem with this is that it is not always the case in planning,
sometimes it better if the public do not have as much control over the process,
as the planners do. Though it is important to bring in citizen participation to
allow the public to have an understanding of what you are doing. I myself think
it is important to try and always be in the middle of the ladder when planning,
this allows you to be always connected to the public without leaving all the
options up to them.
During
the seminar there was also a guest speaker who discussed even more detail on
the subject of citizen participation and engagement. An example was given about
the Murray Darling Basin where there was no consultation with the public about
plans, and just told the public. There was an outcry from citizens and the
company had to talk to the people properly and ended up with same results when
they did not discuss the plan with citizens. This shows that it is always
important to have consultation with the public to make sure they are on side.
Some
participatory mechanism are public hearings, calls for submissions, opinion
gathering and participatory budgeting. All of which help to bring citizen participation
into planning. This seminar and reading was very interesting look at citizen participation.
No comments:
Post a Comment