The Reading: A Ladder of Citizen Participation by Sherry R.
Arnstein
This week we discussed citizen participation in planning. I
think it links well with the previous week of planning advocacy and the ideas
of social inclusion through advocacy. It’s also a visit back to the 1960s,
which seems to be the decade for big ideas and new directions in planning.
So there are 8 rungs on the Ladder of Citizen Participation.
In ascending order, they are manipulation, therapy, informing, consultation,
placation, partnership, delegated power, and citizen control. I think in the
past there has been a fear of participation. Maybe government bodies didn’t
want to hear public criticism, or maybe, as we discussed in the tutorial, there
may have been a level of elitism which prevented community ideas from being
considered as they did not come from a well informed and educated place. All these
prejudices only serve to restrict holistic planning.
The rungs are relatively self explanatory, with manipulation
and therapy relating to non-participation, informing, consultation and
placation relating to tokenism, and partnership, delegated power and citizen
control relating to citizen power. It is the advantages and disadvantages of
social planning and citizen participation which are interesting to discuss, and
this was done well with the group activity. My group represented the advantages
of citizen power and we discussed the benefits ranging from collaborative
planning and active citizenship to how the community should be responsible for
civic decisions as they are the most qualified to represent themselves.
However, after reading Dan’s post from last week (http://planningemporium.blogspot.com.au/)
and hearing Richard talk about how it was mainly older people at community
meetings he attended in Batemans Bay, it strikes me that maybe the community
cannot represent itself. Or at least the people that are impassioned about
planning meetings do not adequately represent the community. This has to have
some effect on the final result, or maybe this is why people feel like their
ideas aren’t valued; when the people who attend the meetings are disproportionate
compared with the whole community. I certainly wouldn’t want people speaking on
my behalf, so I better hope I’m actively involved in community decisions. But
should planners take the initiative and get people involved? Shouldn’t they use
their power to provide the basis for citizen participation; isn’t it their responsibility?
I guess it comes down to citizen control to achieve citizen participation and
power. Planners need to direct discussions and ensure appropriate community
representation in forums and discussions, which in turn links to advocate
planning from last week. More fundamentally, can a community handle the citizen power that is granted to them through complete participation? It seems the 60s had something going on after all...
I completely agree. I would not want to be represented by other people in my community. It is interesting that only older people attended community meetings which therefore means that maybe other demographics of the community are uninterested or uninformed. Planners should be taking the initiative and getting people involved to therefore consider all demographics of a community! :)
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