Consultants as intermediaries: Their perceptions on citizen involvement in urban development

Abstract

Planning consultants are increasingly hired to organize citizen participation processes for urban development projects. However, the ways in which planning consultants engage in and perceive the involvement of citizens in urban development projects remain relatively understudied. This article opens the black box of consultancy employees' perceptions toward citizens in urban development processes. Employees from two consultancy firms in the Netherlands were interviewed, and several focus groups were organized. This research shows that consultants have wide-ranging views concerning the ways of incorporating citizens' interests in urban development projects. With the use of Q-methodology, a typology of how consultants engage with citizens is proposed. Furthermore, we show that the different perceptions of consultants lead to a different approach in identifying the needs and problems of citizens. This finding gives insight into the context in which decisions about urban development are made.

A citizen-centred approach to CSR in banking

“…While previous studies on citizen centricity have attracted wide attention (van der Boor et al , 2014), and have proven to be important in various areas, such as urban development (Stapper et al , 2020), or health services development (Walsh et al , 2016), the concepts have not been studied concerning community investment decision-making by community banks. Further, studies that have consulted with end-users before commencing a project (Babajanian, 2015), for example, by using co-design (Durl et al , 2017; Dietrich et al , 2017) and service design (Russell-Bennett et al , 2017), generally focus on solutions, rather than problem definition.…”

Smart as (un)democratic? The making of a smart city imaginary in Kolkata, India

“…Participation is also observed to be biased towards the middle and upper-middle classes (Coelho et al, 2013;Patel et al, 2016). In the foregoing, we have shown how management of participation and its deployment to legitimise top-down official visions (Raman, 2013;Stapper et al, 2020;Z erah, 2009), plays out in practice as city officials and their hired consultants filter and favour those concerns that appear aligned with technology-centred visions of smart urbanism.…”

“…You need to take control and do strategic planning." Thus, rather than considering citizens' belongingness to their neighbourhoods as important for co-producing a smart city imaginary (Stapper et al, 2020), the official is disdainful towards supposedly local concerns of citizens. Such disdain does not bode well for the inclusion of divergent and dissenting citizens' voices in NTK's smart city imaginary.…”

Conceptualizing the Policy Tools of Spatial Planning

“…Representatives from these local Landcare groups are represented on regional Catchment Management Committees 4 and other important fora and make significant contributions to natural resource management decision-making (Curtis, Birckhead, and de Lacy 1995). Other fiscal tools that can be used to affect procedural aspects of plan-making include the hiring of planning consultants to organize citizen participation processes for urban planning (see, e.g., Grijzen 2010; Stapper, Van der Veen, and Janssen-Jansen 2020) and the use of financial incentives (e.g., prize draws) to encourage public responses to draft plans. 5 These tools not only influence the number and type of stakeholders involved in the plan-making procedure but also potentially influence the spectrum of responses that are submitted (as a consequence of who is included and excluded or supported and unsupported) in the participation process.…”