Ladder of Participation

This week, our topic in Urban planning was the "Ladder of Participation". It is a simplified category of different degrees and levels of public participation, which are (from low participation to high participation) Manipulation, Therapy, Informing, Consultation, Placation, Partnership, Delegated power and Citizen control.

What is public participation and how should citizens participate and in what form? This question have been bother me ever since I get out that debate in seminar. With increasing demand for social equality and environmental protection from the local communities while also address the needs of development, what action should government take to protect the interests of its people.We have discussed many short comes of public participation such as "unprofessionalism", some citizens has no informantion nor experience in the related field, their opinions may not be feasible, and their participation may slow down the planning process. Some scholar also suggest that it could lead to various stakeholders busy at building consensus with each other and forget or ignore the role and the goal of planning. Populism is another form of issue, the popular things might not always be the good thing for people. And democracy is often used as an excuse for the majorities to force their ideas to the minority such as the American blacks. Therefore, a wrong approach in public participate can be more problematic. Giving an extreme example here: Cuba, is at least from a liberalist perspective, a less democratic nation with lesser public participation in planning and decision making. However, it is the only nation in the world which met the WWF's definition of sustainable development; having an ecological footprint of less than 1.8 hectares per capita and a Human Development Index of over 0.8 for 2007. And it has a 99.8% literacy rate, an infant death rate lower than many developed countries, and an average life expectancy of 77.64.

There are also examples of planning without public participation of all stakeholders, where most likely to lead to discontent of the public and disadvantage the disadvantaged groups even further. Some governments like the one in Portugal provide their citizens a tokenism of participation through "Informing" and "Consultation", while in China, participation often only offered in the final stage of planning like the final drafting and auditing. They often priorities economic development over environmental protection. Is this case, clearly public intervention is required. Doctor Hu has shown us some success examples of public participation in planning where people took action on themselves to change the community.

So, sometimes less "democratic" process creates better outcome and sometimes it doesn't. When should public participate? How and in what form should we participate? I hope I can keep this discussion open and hear more ideas from everyone.

Due to the words limit, I had to leave a lot of thing out. But please join the discussion, tell me what do you think. What is your answer to those questions. I have also found some interesting articles on the topic, feel free to take a look:

Participatory Democracy and the Governance of Urban Planning in Portugal
http://www.susdiv.org/uploadfiles/ED2009-057.pdf

Rethinking Community Participation in Urban Planning: The Role of Disadvantaged Groups In Sydney Metropolitan Strategy
http://www.anzrsai.org/system/files/f1/f54/o306//ProcMahjabeen_and_others.pdf

Planning Sustainable Cities Unhabitat Practices and Prespectives
http://www.unhabitat.org/pmss/getElectronicVersion.aspx?nr=3008&alt=1

Planning and Rationalization of Public Participation in China’s Environmental Management
http://www.cscanada.net/index.php/mse/article/download/j.mse.1913035X20110501.005/1387

Frank Lloyd Wright, the greatest suburban designer

 Frank Lloyd Wright

Born: 8 June 1867 died: 9 April 1959
An American architect, interior designer, writer and educator.
Unlike his rivalry in modernist planning such as Le Corbusier who promotes internationally style of high urban concentration of planning, Frank Lloyd Wright promotes organic style of architecture. He believes organic suburban planning is a way to allow individuals to enjoy maximum freedom, to great a harmonious relationships between the architecture and the environment. Like he always said :“A free America... means just this: individual freedom for all, rich or poor, or else this system of government we call democracy is only an expedient to enslave man to the machine and make him like it.” So Frank Lloyd Wright went away from traditional thinking of planning and proposed what he called “Quadruple Block Plan.” This design strayed from traditional suburban lot layouts and set houses on small square blocks of four equal-sized lots surrounded on all sides by roads instead of straight rows of houses on parallel streets. The houses were set toward the centre of the block so that each maximised the yard space and included private space in the centre. This also allowed for far more interesting views from each house.

Picture : 1903 (Projects for Charles E. Roberts 1896 - 1903) by Frank Lloyd Wright

This first Quadruple block plan ever commissioned

Frank Lloyd Wright also pursuit the same philosophy in buildings internal fixtures, including furniture, carpets, windows, doors, tables and chairs, light fittings and decorative elements. He was one of the first architects to design and supply custom-made, purpose-built furniture and fittings that functioned as integrated parts of the whole design, and he often returned to earlier commissions to redesign internal fittings.