'A Ladder of Citizen Participation' by Sherry R. Arnstein 3.2 Therapy In some respects group therapy, masked as citizen participation, should be on the lowest rung of the ladder because it is both dishonest and arrogant.

Concerted action, thereby enabling transformation of complex natural resource management situations. Arnstein's ladder; policy; complexity; natural. Citizen Control. Citizen Power. Figure 1 Arnstein's Ladder of Citizen Engagement (Arnstein, 1969).

Its administrators - mental health experts from social workers to psychiatrists - assume that powerlessness is synonymous with mental illness. On this assumption, under a masquerade of involving citizens in planning, the experts subject the citizens to clinical group therapy. What makes this form of 'participation' so invidious is that citizens are engaged in extensive activity, but the focus of it is on curing them of their 'pathology' rather than changing the racism and victimization that create their 'pathologies.' 3.4 Consultation Inviting citizens' opinions, like informing them, can be a legitimate step toward their full participation.

But if consulting them is not combined with other modes of participation, this rung of the ladder is still a sham since it offers no assurance that citizen concerns and ideas will be taken into account. The most frequent methods used for consulting people are attitude surveys, neighborhood meetings, and public hearings. 3.5 Placation It is at this level that citizens begin to have some degree of influence though tokenism is still apparent.

An example of placation strategy is to place a few hand-picked 'worthy' poor on boards of Community Action Agencies or on public bodies like the board of education, police commission, or housing authority. If they are not accountable to a constituency in the community and if the traditional power elite hold the majority of seats, the have-nots can be easily outvoted and outfoxed. Another example is the Model Cities advisory and planning committees. They allow citizens to advise or plan ad infinitum but retain for powerholders the right to judge the legitimacy or feasibility of the advice. The degree to which citizens are actually placated, of course, depends largely on two factors: the quality of technical assistance they have in articulating their priorities; and the extent to which the community has been organized to press for those priorities.

3.7 Delegated Power Negotiations between citizens and public officials can also result in citizens achieving dominant decision-making authority over a particular plan or program. Model City policy boards or CAA delegate agencies on which citizens have a clear majority of seats and genuine specified powers are typical examples. At this level, the ladder has been scaled to the point where citizens hold the significant cards to assure accountability of the program to them.

To resolve differences, powerholders need to start the bargaining process rather than respond to pressure from the other end. 3.1 Manipulation In the name of citizen participation, people are placed on rubberstamp advisory committees or advisory boards for the express purpose of 'educating' them or engineering their support. Instead of genuine citizen participation, the bottom rung of the ladder signifies the distortion of participation into a public relations vehicle by powerholders. 3.3 Informing Informing citizens of their rights, responsibilities, and options can be the most important first step toward legitimate citizen participation. However, too frequently the emphasis is placed on a one-way flow of information - from officials to citizens - with no channel provided for feedback and no power for negotiation.

Under these conditions, particularly when information is provided at a late stage in planning, people have little opportunity to influence the program designed 'for their benefit.' The most frequent tools used for such one-way communication are the news media, pamphlets, posters, and responses to inquiries. 3.6 Partnership At this rung of the ladder, power is in fact redistributed through negotiation between citizens and powerholders. They agree to share planning and decision-making responsibilities through such structures as joint policy boards, planning committees and mechanisms for resolving impasses.

After the ground rules have been established through some form of give-and-take, they are not subject to unilateral change. 3.8 Citizen Control Demands for community controlled schools, black control, and neighborhood control are on the increase. Though no one in the nation has absolute control, it is very important that the rhetoric not be confused with intent. People are simply demanding that degree of power (or control) which guarantees that participants or residents can govern a program or an institution, be in full charge of policy and managerial aspects, and be able to negotiate the conditions under which 'outsiders' may change them. A neighborhood corporation with no intermediaries between it and the source of funds is the model most frequently advocated. A small number of such experimental corporations are already producing goods and/or social services. Several others are reportedly in the development stage, and new models for control will undoubtedly emerge as the have-nots continue to press for greater degrees of power over their lives.

Originally published as Arnstein, Sherry R. 'A Ladder of Participation,' JAIP, Vol. 4, July 1969, pp. Reprinted in 'The City Reader' (second edition) edited by Richard T.

Gates and Frederic Stout, 1996, Routledge Press. Adapted into Prezi format by Angie Brown, Nexus Community Partners, 2014. Citizen Participation is Citizen Power Because the question has been a bone of political contention, most of the answers have been purposely buried in innocuous euphemisms like 'self-help' or 'citizen involvement.' Still others have been embellished with misleading rhetoric like 'absolute control' which is something no one - including the President of the United States - has or can have. Between understated euphemisms and exacerbated rhetoric, even scholars have found it difficult to follow the controversy. To the headline reading public, it is simply bewildering. My answer to the critical what question is simply that citizen participation is a categorical term for citizen power.

It is the redistribution of power that enables the have-not citizens, presently excluded from the political and economic processes, to be deliberately included in the future. It is the strategy by which the have-nots join in determining how information is shared, goals and policies are set, tax resources are allocated, programs are operated, and benefits like contracts and patronage are parceled out. In short, it is the means by which they can induce significant social reform which enables them to share in the benefits of the affluent society. 1.1 Empty Refusal v. Benefit There is a critical difference between going through the empty ritual of participation and having the real power needed to affect the outcome of the process. This difference is brilliantly capsulized in a poster painted last spring [1968] by the French students to explain the student-worker rebellion.

(See Figure 1.) The poster highlights the fundamental point that participation without redistribution of power is an empty and frustrating process for the powerless. It allows the powerholders to claim that all sides were considered, but makes it possible for only some of those sides to benefit. It maintains the status quo.

Essentially, it is what has been happening in most of the 1,000 Community Action Programs, and what promises to be repeated in the vast majority of the 150 Model Cities programs. French student poster. In English, 'I participate, you participate, he participates, you participate.they profit.' Citizen Power = Redistribution of Power 2. Types of Participation and 'Nonparticipation' The Ladder of Participation: The Lower Rungs A typology of eight levels of participation may help in analysis of this confused issue. For illustrative purposes the eight types are arranged in a ladder pattern with each rung corresponding to the extent of citizens' power in deter-mining the end product.

(See Figure 2.) The bottom rungs of the ladder are (1) Manipulation and (2) Therapy. These two rungs describe levels of 'nonparticipation' that have been contrived by some to substitute for genuine participation. Their real objective is not to enable people to participate in planning or conducting programs, but to enable powerholders to 'educate' or 'cure' the participants. Rungs 3 and 4 progress to levels of 'tokenism' that allow the have-nots to hear and to have a voice: (3) Informing and (4) Consultation. When they are proffered by powerholders as the total extent of participation, citizens may indeed hear and be heard. But under these conditions they lack the power to insure that their views will be heeded by the powerful.

When participation is restricted to these levels, there is no follow-through, no 'muscle,' hence no assurance of changing the status quo. Rung (5) Placation is simply a higher level tokenism because the ground rules allow have-nots to advise, but retain for the powerholders the continued right to decide. Further up the ladder are levels of citizen power with increasing degrees of decision-making clout. Citizens can enter into a (6) Partnership that enables them to negotiate and engage in trade-offs with traditional power holders. At the topmost rungs, (7) Delegated Power and (8) Citizen Control, have-not citizens obtain the majority of decision-making seats, or full managerial power. Obviously, the eight-rung ladder is a simplification, but it helps to illustrate the point that so many have missed - that there are significant gradations of citizen participation.

Knowing these gradations makes it possible to cut through the hyperbole to understand the increasingly strident demands for participation from the have-nots as well as the gamut of confusing responses from the powerholders. Though the typology uses examples from federal programs such as urban renewal, anti-poverty, and Model Cities, it could just as easily be illustrated in the church, currently facing demands for power from priests and laymen who seek to change its mission; colleges and universities which in some cases have become literal battlegrounds over the issue of student power; or public schools, city halls, and police departments (or big business which is likely to be next on the expanding list of targets). The underlying issues are essentially the same - 'nobodies' in several arenas are trying to become 'somebodies' with enough power to make the target institutions responsive to their views, aspirations, and needs.

Eight rungs on the ladder of citizen participation (image taken from Arnstein Ladder of Participation Citizen Power: The Upper Rungs Figure 2. Eight rungs on the ladder of citizen participation (image taken from Arnstein Ladder of Participation 2.1 Limitations of the Typology The ladder juxtaposes powerless citizens with the powerful in order to highlight the fundamental divisions between them.

In actuality, neither the have-nots nor the powerholders are homogeneous blocs. Each group encompasses a host of divergent points of view, significant cleavages, competing vested interests, and splintered subgroups. The justification for using such simplistic abstractions is that in most cases the have-nots really do perceive the powerful as a monolithic 'system,' and powerholders actually do view the have-nots as a sea of 'those people,' with little comprehension of the class and caste differences among them. It should be noted that the typology does not include an analysis of the most significant roadblocks to achieving genuine levels of participation.

These roadblocks lie on both sides of the simplistic fence. On the powerholders' side, they include racism, paternalism, and resistance to power redistribution. On the have-nots' side, they include inadequacies of the poor community's political socioeconomic infrastructure and knowledge-base, plus difficulties of organizing a representative and accountable citizens' group in the face of futility, alienation, and distrust. Another caution about the eight separate rungs on the ladder: In the real world of people and programs, there might be 150 rungs with less sharp and 'pure' distinctions among them. Furthermore, some of the characteristics used to illustrate each of the eight types might be applicable to other rungs. For example, employment of the have-nots in a program or on a planning staff could occur at any of the eight rungs and could represent either a legitimate or illegitimate characteristic of citizen participation. Depending on their motives, powerholders can hire poor people to co-opt them, to placate them, or to utilize the have-nots' special skills and insights.

Some mayors, in private, actually boast of their strategy in hiring militant black leaders to muzzle them while destroying their credibility in the black community. Characteristics & Illustrations It is in this context of power and powerlessness that the characteristics of the eight rungs are illustrated by examples from current federal social programs. This illusory form of 'participation' initially came into vogue with urban renewal when the socially elite were invited by city housing officials to serve on Citizen Advisory Committees (CACs).

Another target of manipulation were the CAC subcommittees on minority groups, which in theory were to protect the rights of Negroes in the renewal program. In practice, these sub-committees, like their parent CACs, functioned mostly as letterheads, trotted forward at appropriate times to promote urban renewal plans (in recent years known as Negro removal plans). At meetings of the Citizen Advisory Committees, it was the officials who educated, persuaded, and advised the citizens, not the reverse. Federal guidelines for the renewal programs legitimized the manipulative agenda by emphasizing the terms 'information-gathering,' public relations,' and 'support' as the explicit functions of the committees. This style of nonparticipation has since been applied to other programs encompassing the poor. Examples of this are seen in Community Action Agencies (CAAs) which have created structures called 'neighborhood councils' or 'neighborhood advisory groups.' These bodies frequently have no legitimate function or power.

The CAAs use them to 'prove' that 'grassroots people' are involved in the program. But the program may not have been discussed with 'the people.' Or it may have been described at a meeting in the most general terms; 'We need your signatures on this proposal for a multiservice center which will house, under one roof, doctors from the health department, workers from the welfare department, and specialists from the employment service.' The signatories are not informed that the $2 million-per-year center will only refer residents to the same old waiting lines at the same old agencies across town. No one is asked if such a referral center is really needed in his neighborhood. No one realizes that the contractor for the building is the mayor's brother-in-law, or that the new director of the center will be the same old community organization specialist from the urban renewal agency. After signing their names, the proud grass-rooters dutifully spread the word that they have 'participated' in bringing a new and wonderful center to the neighborhood to provide people with drastically needed jobs and health and welfare services.

Only after the ribbon-cutting ceremony do the members of the neighborhood council realize that they didn't ask the important questions, and that they had no technical advisors of their own to help them grasp the fine legal print. The new center, which is open 9 to 5 on weekdays only, actually adds to their problems. Now the old agencies across town won't talk with them unless they have a pink paper slip to prove that they have been referred by 'their' shiny new neighborhood center. Unfortunately, this chicanery is not a unique example. Instead it is almost typical of what has been perpetrated in the name of high-sounding rhetoric like 'grassroots participation.' This sham lies at the heart of the deep-seated exasperation and hostility of the have-nots toward the powerholders.

One hopeful note is that, having been so grossly affronted, some citizens have learned the Mickey Mouse game, and now they too know how to play. As a result of this knowledge, they are demanding genuine levels of participation to assure them that public programs are relevant to their needs and responsive to their priorities. Consider an incident that occurred in Pennsylvania less than one year ago. When a father took his seriously ill baby to the emergency clinic of a local hospital, a young resident physician on duty instructed him to take the baby home and feed it sugar water. The baby died that afternoon of pneumonia and dehydration. The overwrought father complained to the board of the local Community Action Agency. Instead of launching an investigation of the hospital to determine what changes would prevent similar deaths or other forms of malpractice, the board invited the father to attend the CAA's (therapy) child-care sessions for parents, and promised him that someone would 'telephone the hospital director to see that it never happens again.'

Less dramatic, but more common examples of therapy, masquerading as citizen participation, may be seen in public housing programs where tenant groups are used as vehicles for promoting control-your child or cleanup campaigns. The tenants are brought together to help them 'adjust their values and attitudes to those of the larger society.' Under these ground rules, they are diverted from dealing with such important matters as: arbitrary evictions; segregation of the housing project; or why is there a three-month time lapse to get a broken window replaced in winter. The complexity of the concept of mental illness in our time can be seen in the experiences of student/civil rights workers facing guns, whips, and other forms of terror in the South. They needed the help of socially attuned psychiatrists to deal with their fears and to avoid paranoia.

Meetings can also be turned into vehicles for one-way communication by the simple device of providing superficial information, discouraging questions, or giving irrelevant answers. At a recent Model Cities citizen planning meeting in Providence, Rhode Island, the topic was 'tot-lots.' A group of elected citizen representatives, almost all of whom were attending three to five meetings a week, devoted an hour to a discussion of the placement of six tot-lots. The neighborhood is half black, half white.

Several of the black representatives noted that four tot-lots were proposed for the white district and only two for the black. The city official responded with a lengthy, highly technical explanation about costs per square foot and available property. It was clear that most of the residents did not understand his explanation. And it was clear to observers from the Office of Economic Opportunity that other options did exist which, considering available funds would have brought about a more equitable distribution of facilities. Intimidated by futility, legalistic jargon, and prestige of the official, the citizens accepted the 'information' and endorsed the agency's proposal to place four lots in the white neighborhood. When powerholders restrict the input of citizens' ideas solely to this level, participation remains just a window-dressing ritual. People are primarily perceived as statistical abstractions, and participation is measured by how many come to meetings, take brochures home, or answer a questionnaire.

What citizens achieve in all this activity is that they have 'participated in participation.' And what powerholders achieve is the evidence that they have gone through the required motions of involving 'those people.' Attitude surveys have become a particular bone of contention in ghetto neighborhoods. Residents are increasingly unhappy about the number of times per week they are surveyed about their problems and hopes. As one woman put it: 'Nothing ever happens with those damned questions, except the surveyor gets $3 an hour, and my washing doesn't get done that day.' In some communities, residents are so annoyed that they are demanding a fee for research interviews. Attitude surveys are not very valid indicators of community opinion when used without other input from citizens.

Survey after survey (paid for out of anti-poverty funds) has 'documented' that poor housewives most want tot-lots in their neighborhood where young children can play safely. But most of the women answered these questionnaires without knowing what their options were. They assumed that if they asked for something small, they might just get something useful in the neighborhood.

Had the mothers known that a free prepaid health insurance plan was a possible option, they might not have put tot-lots so high on their wish lists. A classic misuse of the consultation rung occurred at a New Haven, Connecticut, community meeting held to consult citizens on a proposed Model Cities grant. Cunningham, in an unpublished report to the Ford Foundation, described the crowd as large and mostly hostile: Members of The Hill Parents Association demanded to know why residents had not participated in drawing up the proposal. CAA director Spitz explained that it was merely a proposal for seeking Federal planning funds -that once funds were obtained, residents would be deeply involved in the planning. An outside observer who sat in the audience described the meeting this way: 'Spitz and Mel Adams ran the meeting on their own. No representatives of a Hill group moderated or even sat on the stage. Spitz told the 300 residents that this huge meeting was an example of 'participation in planning.'

To prove this, since there was a lot of dissatisfaction in the audience, he called for a 'vote' on each component of the proposal. The vote took this form: 'Can I see the hands of all those in favor of a health clinic? All those opposed?' It was a little like asking who favors motherhood.'

It was a combination of the deep suspicion aroused at this meeting and a long history of similar forms of 'window-dressing participation' that led New Haven residents to demand control of the program. By way of contrast, it is useful to look at Denver where technicians learned that even the best intentioned among them are often unfamiliar with, and even insensitive to, the problems and aspirations of the poor. The technical director of the Model Cities program has described the way professional planners assumed that the residents, victimized by high-priced local storekeepers, 'badly needed consumer education.' The residents, on the other hand, pointed out that the local store-keepers performed a valuable function. Although they overcharged, they also gave credit, offered advice, and frequently were the only neighborhood place to cash welfare or salary checks. As a result of this consultation, technicians and residents agreed to substitute the creation of needed credit institutions in the neighborhood for a consumer education pro-gram.

It is not surprising that the level of citizen participation in the vast majority of Model Cities programs is at the placation rung of the ladder or below. Policy-makers at the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) were determined to return the genie of citizen power to the bottle from which it had escaped (in a few cities) as a result of the provision stipulating 'maximum feasible participation' in poverty programs. Therefore, HUD channeled its physical-social-economic rejuvenation approach for blighted neighborhoods through city hall. It drafted legislation requiring that all Model Cities' money flow to a local City Demonstration Agency (CDA) through the elected city council. As enacted by Congress, this gave local city councils final veto power over planning and programming and ruled out any direct funding relationship between community groups and HUD. HUD required the CDAs to create coalition, policy-making boards that would include necessary local powerholders to create a comprehensive physical-social plan during the first year. The plan was to be carried out in a subsequent five-year action phase.

HUD, unlike OEO, did not require that have-not citizens be included on the CDA decision-making boards. HUD's Performance Standards for Citizen Participation only demanded that 'citizens have clear and direct access to the decision-making process.' Accordingly, the CDAs structured their policy-making boards to include some combination of elected officials; school representatives; housing, health, and welfare officials; employment and police department representatives; and various civic, labor, and business leaders. Some CDAs included citizens from the neighborhood.

Many mayors correctly interpreted the HUD provision for 'access to the decision-making process' as the escape hatch they sought to relegate citizens to the traditional advisory role. Most CDAs created residents' advisory committees.

An alarmingly significant number created citizens' policy boards and citizens' policy committees which are totally misnamed as they have either no policymaking function or only a very limited authority. Almost every CDA created about a dozen planning committees or task forces on functional lines: health, welfare, education, housing, and unemployment. In most cases, have-not citizens were invited to serve on these committees along with technicians from relevant public agencies. Some CDAs, on the other hand, structured planning committees of technicians and parallel committees of citizens. In most Model Cities programs, endless time has been spent fashioning complicated board, committee, and task force structures for the planning year.

But the rights and responsibilities of the various elements of those structures are not defined and are ambiguous. Such ambiguity is likely to cause considerable conflict at the end of the one-year planning process. For at this point, citizens may realize that they have once again extensively 'participated' but have not profited beyond the extent the powerholders decide to placate them. Results of a staff study (conducted in the summer of 1968 before the second round of seventy-five planning grants were awarded) were released in a December 1968 HUD bulletin. Though this public document uses much more delicate and diplomatic language, it attests to the already cited criticisms of non-policy-making policy boards and ambiguous complicated structures, in addition to the following findings: 1. Most CDAs did not negotiate citizen participation requirements with residents.

Citizens, drawing on past negative experiences with local powerholders, were extremely suspicious of this new panacea program. They were legitimately distrustful of city hall's motives. Most CDAs were not working with citizens' groups that were genuinely representative of model neighborhoods and account-able to neighborhood constituencies. As in so many of the poverty programs, those who were involved were more representative of the upwardly mobile working-class. These findings led to a new public interpretation of HUD's approach to citizen participation. Though the requirements for the seventy-five 'second-round' Model City grantees were not changed, HUD's twenty-seven page technical bulletin on citizen participation repeatedly advocated that cities share power with residents.

It also urged CDAs to experiment with subcontracts under which the residents' groups could hire their own trusted technicians. A more recent evaluation was circulated in February 1969 by OSTI, a private firm that entered into a contract with OEO to provide technical assistance and training to citizens involved in Model Cities programs in the north-east region of the country. OSTI's report to OEO corroborates the earlier study. In addition it states: In practically no Model Cities structure does citizen participation mean truly shared decision-making, such that citizens might view them-selves as 'the partners in this program.' In general, citizens are finding it impossible to have a significant impact on the comprehensive planning which is going on. In most cases the staff planners of the CDA and the planners of existing agencies are carrying out the actual planning with citizens having a peripheral role of watchdog and, ultimately, the 'rubber stamp' of the plan generated.

In cases where citizens have the direct responsibility for generating program plans, the time period allowed and the independent technical resources being made available to them are not adequate to allow them to do anything more than generate very traditional approaches to the problems they are attempting to solve. In general, little or no thought has been given to the means of insuring continued citizen participation during the stage of implementation. In most cases, traditional agencies are envisaged as the implementers of Model Cities programs and few mechanisms have been developed for encouraging organizational change or change in the method of program delivery within these agencies or for insuring that citizens will have some influence over these agencies as they implement Model Cities programs. By and large, people are once again being planned for.

In most situations the major planning decisions are being made by CDA staff and approved in a formalistic way by policy boards. Thus their acquiescence to plans prepared by city agencies was not likely to reflect the views of the unemployed, the young, the more militant residents, and the hard-core poor. Residents who were participating in as many as three to five meetings per week were unaware of their minimum rights, responsibilities, and the options available to them under the program. For example, they did not realize that they were not required to accept technical help from city technicians they distrusted. Most of the technical assistance provided by CDAs and city agencies was of third-rate quality, paternalistic, and condescending. Agency technicians did not suggest innovative options.

They reacted bureaucratically when the residents pressed for innovative approaches. The vested interests of the old-line city agencies were a major - albeit hidden - agenda. Most CDAs were not engaged in planning that was comprehensive enough to expose and deal with the roots of urban decay. They engaged in 'meetingitis' and were supporting strategies that resulted in 'projectitis,' the outcome of which was a 'laundry list' of traditional pro-grams to be conducted by traditional agencies in the traditional manner under which slums emerged in the first place.

Residents were not getting enough information from CDAs to enable them to review CDA developed plans or to initiate plans of their own as required by HUD. At best, they were getting superficial information. At worst, they were not even getting copies of official HUD materials. Most residents were unaware of their rights to be reimbursed for expenses incurred because of participation.

In this chapter, the citizen/public participation theory is described. I will look at why we need to involve the people in decision making and how it can be done in different ways. The main theory applied is the “ladder of citizen participation” by Sherry Arnstein (Arnstein, 1969), which is used as a comparing tool in this research project. 4.1 Evolution of urban planning towards public participation For large part of the 20th century, urban planning was a field dominated by technological expert engineers. The foundational work of Ebenezer Howard and Fredrick Law Olmsted “laid the philosophical groundwork for large-scale urban planning efforts” (Raford, 2011) that focused on rational planning based on scientific principles and experiments. It was not until the 1970s that these large-scale urban models started to be criticized because of their dysfunctions. One of the critics was Douglas B.

Lee Jr., who identified seven core issues with the large-scale urban planning (Lee Jr., 1973). One of these was the fact that the planning was often based on assumptions about system behavior that was not based on the real-world experiences of people living in the area. Around the same time, Garry D. Brewer pointed out the influence politicians and organizations can have on the planning process, often enabling political misuse (Brewer, 1973).

At the same time, changes in society in general called for more focus on social issues as part of the planning process. Initially the focus was on learning about the social dynamics of the environment and community that was being planned. The goal was then to take this “exercise in discovery” (Healey, 1997) and use that learning to get a better insight into the needs of the community. It was Paul Davidoff who was one of the first to argue that it was impossible for the planner to have an overview of the entire needs of the citizens and that a method for greater diversity of opinions to be sought (Davidoff, 1965). This gave birth to a “communicative approach” (Forester, 1989) that “attempts to make planners aware of the value of discussion, debate and information sharing” through a culture of “greater community collaboration, consensus building, debate and discussion” (Raford, 2011). 4.2 What is public participation?

Public participation is a process in which people can influence projects and decision making on issues that are relevant to their lives and the environment they live in. By providing the public with necessary information and allowing their voices to be heard, the quality of plans is expected to improve with the citizen’s ideas, opinions and knowledge.

It also gives the power holder a chance to assist them in understanding the problem, the alternatives and possible opportunities. A wide range of participatory methods has been created in different countries throughout the world with new ways of interacting. People can meet face to face and discuss ideas and express their opinions.

There are also online participation methods where the information might just go in one direction, feeding the public with information without allowing them to influence the project. Some of these online participation projects can also be a two-way flow between the citizens and the power holder, making sure that different opinions are heard, whether it be concerns or ideas. In every project, a decision has to be made on what kind of process should be used and at what level the citizen participation should be. The level of participation between projects can vary. There is not necessarily an agreed upon, appropriate level. The idea that “more participation is better” does not always hold true because the more citizens get involved, the more time is required on both sides.

This can especially be the case in large-scale projects in low-income communities where it may simply not be practical or feasible for the community to spend the time required to achieve the highest levels of participation (Imparato & Ruster, 2003). 4.3 Why public participation? Involving the community or citizens in the public participation process can build the trust that the public has in the responsible power holders. Projects are expected to be transparent when more people are involved, all of whom have a better understanding of the process. The expected benefits of increased participation are that it might improve the project design and help provide a solution that people can afford and are willing to pay for. It is also expected to provide relevant local knowledge and allow it to be taken into account in the slum upgrading process.

By giving citizens a voice and allowing them to participate, they are more likely to feel they have gained ownership of the project and at the same time enhance their sense of responsibility (Imparato & Ruster, 2003). 4.4 The Ladder of Citizen Participation The “ladder of citizen participation” was first described in an article by Sherry R. Arnstein (Arnstein, 1969). The article provides an overview of the different ways the public can be involved in decision making.

It describes eight levels of participation, which are divided into three main categories. Even though it was first published over 40 years ago, planners, architects, politicians, power holders and many others still acknowledge these different levels of participation. These levels can be represented as a ladder, as shown in Figure 4-1.

Arnstein categorizes the first two levels in her ladder of citizen participation as non-participation, this is where the public is not directly involved and may be manipulated into thinking they are part of decision making, where the power holders have created a phony form of participation, perhaps around a decision already made. At the first level there is manipulation where people are “educated” and may be advised to sign proposals they believe to be in their interest. Corex Cardscan 60 Drivers Windows 7.

The Ladder of Citizen Participation Source: Picture based on (Arnstein, 1969) The second level of the participation, which Arnstein calls therapy, involves the power holders “curing” the people. The power holders promise to assist the citizens and have them engage in different activities where their opinions may be “cured”, and in the end accepted by the citizens. Arnstein refers to the third, fourth and fifth levels as tokenism. This is where the citizens become involved but only to certain extent. The informing level is where the citizens are informed of what is happening. This is a one-way information process, where people receive the information in newspapers, in the media, online or by other means.

Consultation is the fourth step, in which citizens’ opinions can start to affect the power holder’s opinion. This is a common form of citizen participation utilized in urban planning.

If consultation and information is taken into account as part of the planning process, this can be effective. However, if the consultation and information is not taken into consideration at the end of the day, this step will be of limited value and could therefore fall back into the non-participating level. The fifth level in Arnstein’s ladder is where a citizens’ opinion will start influencing the power holder’s decision. Arnstein calls this level in the ladder placation. At this level, citizens may be hand-picked to sit on a governing board that makes decisions on the planning process.

According to Arnstein, this process is more likely to work if the board members are equally split (citizens and power holders), so the citizens cannot be outvoted in the process. The last category in the participation ladder is what Arnstein calls citizen power. This is where the citizens get to influence the decision making directly.

At the sixth level the power holders and citizens create a partnership. Arnstein considers partnership relatively high on her ladder as she believes this can keep both citizens and power holders content. The seventh level is what Arnstein calls delegated power. At this level the citizens can start taking control, and the power holders need to start negotiating with the citizens. Compared to the example given for placation (the fifth level), the majority of the board members would be the citizens. This would mean that the power holders would need to negotiate decisions with the board members. The final level is what Arnstein calls citizen control.

The words describe this level, since it gives the citizens the power to decide. This can be achieved through referendums, but since those are often costly and difficult to arrange it would most likely slow down the process substantially. They are therefore often only utilized for larger decisions. In many cases, local authorities do not, however, give their citizens full control in such elections, but treat the results instead only as advisory for the final decision made by the city council or other such decision making bodies. 4.5 Examples of participation A participation process is not a standard process. When a process for participation is decided upon, a decision has to be made on what kind of process should be used and at what level the citizen participation should be. Different approaches can be used, such as workshops, open houses, community meetings, surveys and PPGIS, which can all be acceptable and deliver valuable results if done in the right manner.

According to KENSUP, one of the core concepts was to involve the slum dwellers in the upgrade process. A set of residents was chosen to participate to represent the slum dwellers. This might correspond to what Arnstein calls a consultation level of participation. However, a study done by Amnesty International reveals that the residents feared that this would only be a one-way dialog. They feared that there would be little consultation and that issues important to them, such as the affordability and suitability of the new public housing, would not be put on the agenda. With reference to Arnstein’s ladder, this could be identified as non-participation, where the community has only been informed of plans and are made to feel that their voices are being heard, thinking they are a part of a decision that may already have been made by the government (Amnesty International, 2009).

Map Kibera has run a project in the slums of Kibera in which the residents of the slum participate and create maps of their community. By allowing the residents to map their own surroundings and gather information about the community, the citizens have gained some control of the environment they live in. A partnership between the citizens and Map Kibera has been made, and the residents are gaining a physical map with vital information that they can share with the government and the world. From New Delhi in India we can find similar examples of citizens gaining real citizen power through technology.

There, Public Participation GIS (PPGIS) was used by the community to map their area. The residents, armed with maps, then submitted applications to the Delhi State government requesting service improvements. After mapping their community, they had realized that they had the right to demand more water taps for their community, as water standards were not being achieved. Knowing that 135 households were sharing the same water tap gave them the knowledge and power to negotiate for more taps to be connected (Hoyt, Khosla, & Canepa, 2005). 4. Doyle Brunson Super System 2 Francais Pdf Merge. 6 e-Participation In the paper Participation and Geographical Information: a position paper, Carver discusses a new ladder (see Figure 4-2) of participation proposed by (Smyth, 2001), based on Arnstein’s ladder, that looks at how, through the internet, it is possible to increase the number of people participating (Carver, 2001).

E-Participation ladder Source: Picture based on (Smyth, 2001) The traditional methods of community participation, such as attending meetings, often held in churches, schools or other community buildings during the evening or when people are attending work often do not represent the opinions of the broad community because many cannot attend meetings during the scheduled time. These meetings may be dominated by a minority of the vocal citizens. It can also often be difficult for the average person to understand what is going on (Carver, 2001). In developed countries, online participation has opened up opportunities for more people to participate and for them to get a better understanding of the whole project. To enable online participation, or e-Participation as it has become known as, citizens only need some form of internet access to express their opinion and to gather information (Carver, 2001).

The e-Participation ladder defined by Smyth and described by Carver reflects an online application of Arnstein’s ladder of citizen participation (as described in chapter 4.3). The first step of the e-Participation ladder, which corresponds to Arnstein’s levels of non-participation, represents one-way communication, such as using a basic website. Through a website, citizens can be given access to urban planning information but have limited ability to influence it. The second step of the ladder, which corresponds to Arnstein’s levels of tokenism, allows citizens to have a discussion around urban planning, but there is no guarantee that any of that discussion will be taken into account when decisions are being made.

The third step of the ladder maps to Arnstein’s consultation level. Citizens are asked for their input through online surveys without the ability to control what is being surveyed or how the results of the survey are being utilized.

The final step in the ladder maps to Arnstein’s citizen power level, where, through an online decision support system, the citizens are given the final say in making decisions. Carver also points out that for many organizations the ability to move to two-way communication is difficult because of a communication barrier. The first step is easy because all it takes is displaying the information online, while the other three two-way communication levels all require that information is processed and analyzed.

They also require more sophisticated technology solutions to implement the two-way communication mechanism. Little research has been done on online participation in urban planning in developing countries and the applicability of technology to enable citizen participation in those countries. New research is, however, underway that focuses on the use of technology to enable better governance (Ford, 2011).