Tyranny of the Median and Costly Consent: A Reflection on the Justification for Participatory Urban Planning Processes

Abstract

Wide participation, in the urban planning context, is justified as the means of balancing multiple interests outside the traditional decision-making setup. However, this article argues that the participatory paradigm provides at best inadequate justification to the planning process. Particularly if consensus building is the aim of the participatory process, it suffers from a number of impossibility results well documented in the political economics literature. ‘Lazy deliberators’ will arrive at the acceptance of a priori median preference, and participatory processes necessarily exclude some groups, even under equitable capability and power distribution. This article intends to contribute to the debate on the nature of participatory planning by critically analyzing the motivations of participation and limitation of the participatory planning paradigms, and advocates a temperate view on their efficacy.

On the Necessity of an Integrated, Participative and Adaptive Approach to Sustainable Urban Environmental Quality Planning

“…Participative planning aims to involve the public in planning decisions (Rydin & Pennington, 2000), which would assure at least some representation of subjective assessment of urban environmental quality. However, it is not a panacea: representation cannot be complete and is known to stall decision-making (Kaza, 2006;Rydin & Pennington, 2000). Adaptive planning is commonly associated with resilience to disturbing events, but has a pro-active connotation as well (Boelens & de Roo, 2014), which is emphasized here: the need to foresee future planning challenges and take appropriate action beforehand.…”

“…Chances of cumbersome negotiations or even stalemate as a consequence of having to strike a balance between a myriad of incommensurate quality aspects can be diminished by discussing types of urban environments representing a holistic combination of qualities, rather than considering all individual quality aspects one by one. Broad participation may result in endless discussions (Kaza, 2006), yet involvement of the public in the early stages of planning in a genuine bottom-up way is known to produce very satisfying results (e.g. Van Stigt et al, 2013b).…”

Stakeholders’ Expectations in Urban Renewal Projects in China: A Key Step towards Sustainability

“…Stakeholder participation is a powerful driving force to effective planning and development that guarantee the success of urban renewal [23,104]. However, Maitland [105] states the importance of understanding the stakeholders' willingness and awareness, in order to ensure the effectiveness of their involvement.…”

Ad hoc planning within distrust and conflict situations: the case of Yaowarat, Bangkok, Thailand

“…While cities have different groups of interests, it is possible that the process is not based on each common issue and interests; as a result, some groups of people are reluctant to participate. Thus, planners should encourage clients to reveal their preferences through interactive activities, but such participations are not entirely different [6].…”

“…(1) Networks of social exchange and delegation; (2) Reciprocity and protection of one another's interests; (3) Full and frank Information Sharing; (4) Meeting the expectations of all partners; (5) Expectations of desirable behaviour; (6) No feeling of vulnerability; (7) Control and certainty; (8) Shares values of the stakeholders and the time factor.…”