Hey guys,
This week
for our class we looked at Participation and Contestation which in basic terms relates to the involvement
of the community within the planning process which helps them participate in
the project to increase the positive views on new developments. For our seminar we had a guest speaker by the name of
Michael Pilbrow who specialises in the field of community
participation within planning.
This area of the planning process really interested
me in the way that he spoke about how vital this element is to the overall
success of the project and how hard the surrounding community can make the development
if they are not on board with it. He put up a table that outlined the ways that
the community can be involved and spoke about different projects that lay on
different parts of the table and the reasoning behind this.
The table had 5 headings which were;
·
Inform- which was the lowest level where
it’s just simple information given to the public but they have no say in what
goes on.
·
Consult- where they get opinions of the
public but these have no bearing on the planners ideas.
·
Involve- was were the public are taken
into account in the planning process
·
Collaborate is where the public and the
planners get together and have equal say in the project but the planners still
have the final say.
·
Empower- is handing the project over to
the public and letting them have the final say in the decision making process.
I thought that this table really helped me to
understand the concept of this week which was sometimes it is necessary for the
public to have more control in the project but in other cases it is more practical
to use the expertise of the planners, as well as this how crucial a role the
community plays in not only planning but in construction as a whole.
As well as this we were given two readings which were Arnstein, 1969,
A Ladder of Citizen ParticipationFile and Harvey, 1997,
Contested Cities Social Process and Spatial FormFile. I found these interesting
but the hands on experiences of Michael for me stole the show this week if you
want to have a look at the readings the links are above.
That’s me for
another week thanks for reading until next time
