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Participatory planning

Decentralized, whole community-based urban design process

  • 12 min read
  • 5 chapters

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The importance of participatory planning is that it ensures 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. It has become an influential way of approaching traditional urban planning and international community development.

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.

Origins

Rational planning tradition

Prior to the 1970s, community planning was generally led in a top-down way by professionals. 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. In this era, the rational planning model was the dominant way of approaching urban planning. 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. 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."

A rationalist approach to planning was often applied during the urban renewal programs of the mid-20th century. 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. 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.

Emergence of participatory planning

In the 1960s and 70s, there was a growing wave of critical responses to these traditional rationalist approaches. 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. In 1969, Sherry Arnstein wrote a landmark essay, A Ladder of Citizen Participation, describing different types of citizen involvement in municipal programs, and criticizing less participatory approaches to urban planning. 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, Paul Davidoff and Linda Davidoff's model of advocacy planning, and Stephen Grabow and Allen Heskin's 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. 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. 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". 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 and New York, where technology facilitates broader and more inclusive participation. Additionally, contemporary urban planning increasingly focuses on sustainability and resilience, integrating participatory approaches to address climate change and disaster risk reduction.

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