A Ladder of Citizenship Participation

 The reading this week was called " A ladder of Citizenship Participation" from the Journal of The American Institute of Planners (1969) by Shelly Arnstein.

This weeks presentation by Pat and Jess was strongly centred on the role and involvement various communities have in planning decisions. A group activity was set up to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of incorporating people from the community into planning decision making.From this group discussion many interesting and some controversial opinions were raised, including references to hitler, irrational people and meritocracy just to name a few.

Some of the advantages to this that were discussed included: satisfying citizens and making them feel they are making a difference to there area, it attracts a number of different perspectives around the issues that are being discussed, allows for transparency and citizens are using there power to do what they desire, for the most part this is to further imrpove there local community.

As always there are disadvantages that come along with the above,  these include: the cost, it can be dangerous giving citizens access to resources as it could lead to a misuse and waste of money, unprofessionalism may play a part as not everyone is a planning professional and conflict could quite easily occur through disagreements amongst different citizens who have opposing opinions about community issues.

So are communties being involved enough in the decisions that are ultimately going to affect themselves the most ? In 1969 planning decisions involved the upper class and excluded the poor, especially certain minorities, where as now there is increased community involvement and consultation, although the community still does not have complete control. An example of this is seen through the canberra 2030 plan- time to talk.

Nowadays on the eight rungs of the ladder of citizen participation we find ourselves around number four, in the area of tokenism.  Through local councils, governments, community forums and community events local citizens are becoming increasingly involved in planning decisions. We are moving into an era where the opinion of the people is having a greater impact on the powers at be and it is this interaction amongst the smallest of citizens to the most powerful of planners that sustainable plans and communities will come to life.