2011 AICP Review Course PUBLIC PARTICIPATION & SOCIAL JUSTICE March 2011
Kelly O’Brien, AICP, PP, LEED AP
MAY 2011 AICP EXAM REVIEW PUBLIC PARTICIPATION & SOCIAL JUSTICE Public Participation and Social Justice [10%]
• Public involvement planning
• Public participation techniques
• Negotiation and coalition building
• Identifying, engaging, and serving underserved groups
• Social justice issues, literature, and practice
• Working with diverse communities
• Multi-cultural and gender issues
MAY 2011 AICP EXAM REVIEW PUBLIC PARTICIPATION & SOCIAL JUSTICE Why Planners Do Citizen Participation Legitimacy • Improve representativeness of democracy • Enhance social development of the polity • Foster civic engagement • Boost faith in government
Efficiency • Make better government decisions • Get programs adopted • Get programs implemented
MAY 2011 AICP EXAM REVIEW PUBLIC PARTICIPATION & SOCIAL JUSTICE Why Planners Do Citizen Participation • Planning is essentially political • Safeguards to protect the public – Constitutional protections – State statutes, e.g., zoning case notices – Local ordinances may impose stricter standards • Inform the public • Avoid conflicts • Build consensus
MAY 2011 AICP EXAM REVIEW PUBLIC PARTICIPATION & SOCIAL JUSTICE Why Planners Do Citizen Participation • 3 Cs – Coalition building – Consensus building – Conflict resolution • A planner’s primary responsibility is to the public • Know background information • Identify leadership in the community • Reach beyond the leadership
MAY 2011 AICP EXAM REVIEW PUBLIC PARTICIPATION & SOCIAL JUSTICE Causes of Injustice and Inequity • Competition for resources (power, money, position, land, opportunities, etc.) • Ignorance • Fear • Self-doubt/insecurity/complex • Conflict of interests • Attitude (envy, distrust, greed, selfishness, sheer wickedness, vengeance, etc.)
MAY 2011 AICP EXAM REVIEW PUBLIC PARTICIPATION & SOCIAL JUSTICE Social Justice Principles John Rawls, A Theory of Justice 1. There shall be equality in the assignment of basic rights and duties. 2. Social and economic inequalities, e.g. wealth and authority, are just only if they result in compensating benefits for everyone, and in particular for the least advantaged members of society.
MAY 2011 AICP EXAM REVIEW PUBLIC PARTICIPATION & SOCIAL JUSTICE Social Justice Principles David Harvey , Social Justice and the City 1. Inherent equality – all individuals have equal claims irrespective of their station or contribution. 2. Valuation of services in terms of supply and demand – who command scarce and needed resources have a greater claim than do others, provided the differences are on account of natural scarcity and not artificially created. 3. Need – individuals have rights to equal levels of benefit according to need. 4. Inherent rights – individuals have claims according to the property and other rights which have been passed on to them from preceding generations.
MAY 2011 AICP EXAM REVIEW PUBLIC PARTICIPATION & SOCIAL JUSTICE Social Justice Principles David Harvey , Social Justice and the City 5. Merit – claims may be based on the degree of difficulty to be overcome in contributing to production, e.g. those who undertake dangerous or unpleasant tasks (garbage collectors), or those who spent long periods of training (medical surgeons) have greater claims than do others. 6. Contribution to the common good – individuals whose activities benefit most people have a higher claim than those whose activities benefit only a few. 7. Actual productive contribution – individuals who produce more output, measured in some appropriate way, have a greater claim than those who produce lesser output.
MAY 2011 AICP EXAM REVIEW PUBLIC PARTICIPATION & SOCIAL JUSTICE Social Justice Principles David Harvey , Social Justice and the City 8. Efforts and sacrifices – individuals who make a greater effort or incur a greater sacrifice to their innate capacity should be rewarded more than those who make little effort and incur few sacrifices.
MAY 2011 AICP EXAM REVIEW PUBLIC PARTICIPATION & SOCIAL JUSTICE Social Justice Issues/Approaches
• Location of infrastructure • Access to jobs • Access to education
• EISs/EAs – environmental justice • Reverse commuting • Brownfield and infill development
MAY 2011 AICP EXAM REVIEW PUBLIC PARTICIPATION & SOCIAL JUSTICE Environmental Justice • Subset of social justice concerned with the distribution or misdistribution of environmental consequences, the inequality in exposure to environmental hazards and risks among certain sectors of the population. • Analyzing the spatial and temporal impact of natural resource exploitation like mining, logging, fishing, or cash crop production on vulnerable groups like indigenous people, subsistence farmers and fishermen. • In the urban setting, issues of industrial pollution and other effects of industrialization and urbanization on disadvantaged groups.
MAY 2011 AICP EXAM REVIEW PUBLIC PARTICIPATION & SOCIAL JUSTICE Evolution of Participation 60’s participation • Decide, Announce, Defend • Participation as PR • Isolate Participation from Technical Work • The Public Hearing
MAY 2011 AICP EXAM REVIEW PUBLIC PARTICIPATION & SOCIAL JUSTICE Evolution of Participation The 60s era: – urban renewal – highway stalemates – riots
Participation is necessary in order to: – Make decisions more just – Made decisions smarter – Achieve better implementation – Transfer power to the people
MAY 2011 AICP EXAM REVIEW PUBLIC PARTICIPATION & SOCIAL JUSTICE Evolution of Participation Advocacy • Planner represents special interests • Argues in “coin of public interest” • Conflicted and unstable roles • Wide evolution/effect
MAY 2011 AICP EXAM REVIEW PUBLIC PARTICIPATION & SOCIAL JUSTICE Evolution of participation Empowerment • Build planning skills in the community • “Teach to fish”
MAY 2011 AICP EXAM REVIEW PUBLIC PARTICIPATION & SOCIAL JUSTICE Evolution of participation Collaboration • Stakeholder identification • Planner as mediator • Win - Win
MAY 2011 AICP EXAM REVIEW PUBLIC PARTICIPATION & SOCIAL JUSTICE Pioneers of Citizen Participation and Advocacy Planning Saul Alinsky
Considered to be the founder of modern community organizing
Envisioned an “organization of organizations.”
In his book Rules for Radicals, he “showed the ‘have-nots’ how to organize their communities, target the power brokers and politically out-maneuver them. ”
MAY 2011 AICP EXAM REVIEW PUBLIC PARTICIPATION & SOCIAL JUSTICE Alinsky’s Rules • Power is not only what you have but what the enemy thinks you have. • Never go outside the experience of your people. It may result in confusion, fear, and retreat. • Wherever possible go outside the experience of the enemy. Here you want to cause confusion, fear, and retreat. • Make the enemy live up to his/her own book of rules. Ridicule is man's most potent weapon. • A good tactic is one that your people enjoy. • A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag.
MAY 2011 AICP EXAM REVIEW PUBLIC PARTICIPATION & SOCIAL JUSTICE Alinsky’s Rules • Keep the pressure on, with different tactics and actions, and utilize all events of the period for your purpose. • The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself. • The major premise for tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition. • If you push a negative hard and deep enough it will break through into its counterside. • The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative. • Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it and polarize it.
MAY 2011 AICP EXAM REVIEW PUBLIC PARTICIPATION & SOCIAL JUSTICE Pioneers of Citizen Participation and Advocacy Planning Sherry Arnstein • Author of ground-breaking article "A Ladder of Citizen Participation" about the hierarchy of public involvement. • The article builds heavily on her earlier experience as chief advisor on citizen participation for the US department of housing and urban development. • The article has been reprinted 80 times and translated into Chinese, Japanese, Dutch, French, and German.
MAY 2011 AICP EXAM REVIEW PUBLIC PARTICIPATION & SOCIAL JUSTICE Pioneers of Citizen Participation and Advocacy Planning Sherry Arnstein • Describes a ladder of participation with eight rungs, each higher rung representing a larger extent of citizens power. • Influenced how planners and communities go about engaging the public in the planning and decision-making process • Provided the theoretical framework for advocacy planning • Organized planners' understanding of meaning public participation as a way for citizens to be equal partners in shaping programs and plans.
MAY 2011 AICP EXAM REVIEW PUBLIC PARTICIPATION & SOCIAL JUSTICE Arnstein’s Ladder of Citizen Participation • Participants and residents control a program or an institution. • Negotiations between citizens and officials give citizens power. • Power is redistributed between citizens and powerholders. • The have-nots advise, powerholders still making decisions. • Citizens' opinions sought (through surveys, meetings, etc.).
MAY 2011 AICP EXAM REVIEW PUBLIC PARTICIPATION & SOCIAL JUSTICE Arnstein’s Ladder of Citizen Participation • Citizens are advised of rights, responsibilities, and options. • Citizens involved in extensive activity to cure them of pathology. • Citizens arranged on advisory committees or boards merely to "educate" them or to get their support.
MAY 2011 AICP EXAM REVIEW PUBLIC PARTICIPATION & SOCIAL JUSTICE Pioneers of Citizen Participation and Advocacy Planning Paul Davidoff • Planning theorist responsible for the creation of the "advocacy planning" paradigm • Criticized mainstream physical planning and its neglect of minorities and the poor • Developed the concept of the "advocacy planner". – Said the practice of plural planning requires educating planners to engage as professional advocates in the contentious work of forming social policy. • Founded the Suburban Action Institute in 1969, whose members challenged exclusionary zoning in the courts, winning in the Mt. Laurel case.
MAY 2011 AICP EXAM REVIEW PUBLIC PARTICIPATION & SOCIAL JUSTICE Pioneers of Citizen Participation and Advocacy Planning Norman Krumholz • Chief of Planning in Cleveland from 1969 to 1979 – Conditions in the city were deplorable. – Development process was exploitative. – Local politics were inadequate. – Disproportionate impact on the minority poor • Professor of urban planning at Cleveland State University. • Former president of the American Planning Association (1986-1987) • Former president of AICP (1999) • Received APA Award for Distinguished Leadership in 1990
MAY 2011 AICP EXAM REVIEW PUBLIC PARTICIPATION & SOCIAL JUSTICE Pioneers of Citizen Participation and Advocacy Planning Norman Krumholz • Books and articles include: – Re-Inventing Cities: Equity Planners Tell Their Stories – Revitalizing Urban Neighborhoods – Making Equity Planning Work: Leadership in the Public Sector • “Provide more choices to those who have few, if any choices.” • The AIP’s Code of Ethics was Krumholtz’ beacon: “A planner shall seek to expand choice and opportunity for the needs of disadvantaged groups and persons, and shall urge the alternation of policies, institutions and decisions which militate against such objectives.”
MAY 2011 AICP EXAM REVIEW PUBLIC PARTICIPATION & SOCIAL JUSTICE Interactive v. Conventional Planning
Interactive Planning Conventional Planning Includes information/feedback, Limited information/feedback; maybe consultation and negotiation some consultation Interaction occurs early on and Early interaction with implementers; throughout the planning process, with affected interests not involved until late full range of stakeholders in process Assumes that open participation leads Assumes that better information leads to better decisions to better decisions Planner as value-committed advocate Planner as value-neutral expert
Focuses on mobilization of support Focuses on manipulation of data Plan = what we agree to do Plan = what we should do Success measured by achievement of Success measured by achievement of agreement on action plan's objectives
MAY 2011 AICP EXAM REVIEW PUBLIC PARTICIPATION & SOCIAL JUSTICE Public Participation Techniques Meetings • Public Hearings – City Council or Planning & Zoning Commission – Technical presentation with group Q & A • Community Meetings – Typical meeting type for planning purposes – Useful for topic or area oriented concerns, e.g. zoning case opposition, neighborhood plan, comprehensive plan – Can be hosted by different groups over particular issues • Facilitated Meetings – A moderator helps focus discussion and obtain input – Useful for timekeeping and topic or area oriented concerns
MAY 2011 AICP EXAM REVIEW PUBLIC PARTICIPATION & SOCIAL JUSTICE Public Participation Techniques Open house – Information displays – Individual Q&A Education – Information display, – Presentation – Fact sheets
MAY 2011 AICP EXAM REVIEW PUBLIC PARTICIPATION & SOCIAL JUSTICE Public Participation Techniques Surveys • Most common methods – Face-to-face Interviews – Phone Interviews – Mailed Questionnaires • Concerns – Sample Size – Question Bias – Cost
MAY 2011 AICP EXAM REVIEW PUBLIC PARTICIPATION & SOCIAL JUSTICE Public Participation Techniques Surveys • Face-to-face Interviews – require pre-contacts to arrange personal meetings – result in the highest rates of return – multiple contacts, travel, and time involved make it the most expensive
MAY 2011 AICP EXAM REVIEW PUBLIC PARTICIPATION & SOCIAL JUSTICE Public Participation Techniques Surveys • Phone Interviews – time-consuming – Use of computer-assisted telephone interviewing (CATI) technology for delivery and recording of responses in a phone survey can also increase costs – refusals are generally higher in a phone survey than in requests for face-to-face interviews, and the costs are typically somewhat lower
MAY 2011 AICP EXAM REVIEW PUBLIC PARTICIPATION & SOCIAL JUSTICE Public Participation Techniques Surveys • Mailed Questionnaires – least expensive method in terms of time and money – typically yield the lowest return rates – allow researchers to obtain a large amount of information from a large sample – give respondents time to consider their answers – potentially allow respondents to remain anonymous – reduce interviewer bias – geographic flexibility – common choice among survey researchers
MAY 2011 AICP EXAM REVIEW PUBLIC PARTICIPATION & SOCIAL JUSTICE Public Participation Techniques Visioning Techniques
– “What is our preferred future?”
Visual Preference Surveys – “What does our preference look like? – Criticized for potentially eliciting inaccurate measurements of a communities preference.
MAY 2011 AICP EXAM REVIEW PUBLIC PARTICIPATION & SOCIAL JUSTICE Public Participation Techniques Delphi Method
– Allows participation of community residents—as experts and as analysts—in several rounds of “policy-thinking – Used to develop a consensus between two or more groups in conflict; views of each group are presented in successive rounds of argument and counterargument, with the rounds gradually working towards a consensus – The Delphi procedure was developed by staff at the RAND Corporation in Santa Monica, California, in the early 1950s to predict the Soviet Union’s strategic targeting system
MAY 2011 AICP EXAM REVIEW PUBLIC PARTICIPATION & SOCIAL JUSTICE Public Participation Techniques Nominal Group Technique
– Variation on brainstorming – Question is asked to a group and each individual answers, all answers are recorded and prioritized by the group as a whole – Effects: • Requiring individuals to write down their ideas silently and independently prior to a group discussion increased the number of solutions generated by groups • Round-robin polling also resulted in a larger number of inputs and fostered more equal participation. • The increased number of heterogeneous inputs led to high quality decisions • More unique ideas, more balanced participation between group members, increased feelings of accomplishment, and greater satisfaction with idea quality and group efficiency
MAY 2011 AICP EXAM REVIEW PUBLIC PARTICIPATION & SOCIAL JUSTICE Public Participation Techniques Nominal Group Technique When to use NGT
– When some group members are much more vocal than others. – When some group members think better in silence. – When there is concern about some members not participating. – When the group does not easily generate quantities of ideas. – When all or some group members are new to the team. – When the issue is controversial or there is heated conflict.
MAY 2011 AICP EXAM REVIEW PUBLIC PARTICIPATION & SOCIAL JUSTICE Public Participation Techniques Charrette Planning or Design Charrette • Short, intense collaborative process usually used to design projects, plan communities, and/or build consensus • Can vary in makeup (professionals/citizens) depending on the goal • A charrette is not: – A one-day workshop – A multi-day marathon meeting involving everyone all of the time – A plan put together by a select few that will affect many – A “visioning session” that lacks a plan with an implementation strategy
MAY 2011 AICP EXAM REVIEW PUBLIC PARTICIPATION & SOCIAL JUSTICE Public Participation Techniques SWOT Analysis
– Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats – More in-depth analysis – Different ways to tally preference
MAY 2011 AICP EXAM REVIEW PUBLIC PARTICIPATION & SOCIAL JUSTICE Sample Question Which of the following are newer challenges planners face in surveying community residents?
I. Telephone surveys leave out those who cannot afford telephones II. Telephone surveys are very expensive III. Telephone surveys omit those who only use cell phones IV. Telephone surveys leave out those who utilize call waiting
A. I and II B. III only C. II and III D. None of the above
MAY 2011 AICP EXAM REVIEW PUBLIC PARTICIPATION & SOCIAL JUSTICE