Are there approved and agreed upon Mechanisms for Participation to be relied upon in urban planning projects?

I think you need to first identify what is at stake in a planning project, and then target those stakeholders in the participation process.

Participation is essential, but must be done properly. Some examples of approaches, pitfalls, and mechanisms for participatory processes:

1. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-4762.2008.00797.x

2. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envdev.2018.11.004

3. https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)NH.1527-6996.0000290

4. https://www.islandstudies.ca/sites/islandstudies.ca/files/ISJ-6-1-2011-Kelman-et-al_0.pdf

5. http://pubs.iied.org/G02812

Real planning is done too early for participation' and is mostly geometrical.

Anyway cities are planned for hundreds of years' many generations that change continuously. So that any input by lay people becomes soon obsolete. Detailed local plans can absorb some local ideas on a very small scale.

Feng Frederic Deng , Ilan Kelman , Nahoum Nissim Cohen

Thanks very much.

In the light of urbanization, population growth and climate change, participation is essential. Not only as integral approach, but also inclusive. Good example is the Dutch experience in the Delta Plan on Spatial Adaptation (DPSA). This is build on two goals:

And 7 ambitions: https://klimaatadaptatienederland.nl/en/policy-programmes/delta-plan-sa/ Personally I was involved in developing the risk dialogue roadmap to invlove all actors in urban planning projects.

Urban planning projects are intently planned and located in specific settlements, neighborhoods, cities, towns, or any place where they are intended for the welfare of groups and citizens with different backgrounds, customs, views, cultures. The trend nowadays is to find more and more shared habitats, everywhere, even through generations.

Thus, participation has come to constitute a key issue, not an option, for the success of any urban planning project, in terms of accomplishing adequate standards of human coexistence, functionality and equal sustainable benefits.

To reply to Luis.

Its all very nice' like asking people what doctors should do or not do/

In my experience ther is not value in thus obtened opinions. But politically various groups are used to make political gains.

It is not necessarily the case that urbanization creates vulnerabilities https://jpopsus.org/full_articles/disaster-vulnerability-by-demographics

It is not necessarily the case that climate change creates disaster problems:

1. Commentaries:

(a) General https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/disaster-choice/202005/does-climate-change-cause-disasters

(b) Tectonics https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/disaster-choice/202006/climate-change-earthquakes-and-volcanic-eruptions

(c) Wildfires https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/disaster-choice/202009/does-climate-change-cause-wildfire-disasters

2. Scientific papers:

(a) https://doi.org/10.1007/s13753-015-0046-5

(b) https://doi.org/10.1007/s13753-015-0038-5

(c) https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-016-2294-0

This is why participation is so important! To find out what the people think and what they are concerned about in order to help them help themselves to overcome many repeated myths.

Urban Planning is as yet completely undefined properly. I do not see it defined by the lay.

To understand peoples needs. you are better be a sociologist or a psychologist..

And that is even more doubtful. What? Use statistics?

Medicine was created mainly by turning it into science with microscopes.

Today we have the means to see all, via Googlearth and all.

I am sorry, but disasters and so on will not achieve what civilization has done alone via cities in all history. In short human culture is here anyway.

Sorry but architects are not planners, or very seldom.

Every human participates with his body into health, but they are not advisers with that to doctors, at best they are interviewed personally. with statistics.

This cannot happen in urban planning at all.

Depending on the scale of the projects, but as an urban planner, we try to succeed on planning and designing projects based on the needs, aspirations and requirements of urban communities. I will say that every project should have an input based on social participation.

Every day are mote social initiatives trying to be part of the decision-making process of urban projects, however it is common to see how social actors are being ignored, at least in my home country, Mexico. Society it is not included in the planning, which creates social initiatives to work against projects made by the government without any previous consultation.

Dear Sergio, sorry but what you suggest is impossible and not practical. Communities change too often in all aspects, in urban cities (not villages or suburbs). Furthermore their aspirations are very far from planning possibilities and are often impossible to quantify or even qualify. What you suggest is in the sociological realm not to say in the psychological fantasy.

Sergio Alvarado Vazquez

Dear Mr. Sergio,

These social initiatives to work against projects submitted by the government without any prior consultation represent a predictable reaction. However, some governments and their management systems through committees of planners and scientists may be guiding the government to this form of governance. I mean, these projects in this way are probably part of the policy, so I imagine that planners need to understand that in their projects in these contexts.

Dear eng. Nahoum Nissim Cohen

Thank you very much for your participation, coming through your deep experience, as I see it.

However, what Mr. Sergio Alvarado Vazquez has proposed may make the task of the planner more difficult. But in my view, it does not reach the point of impossibility. I agree that it may not be practical because societies are often changing rapidly in all areas, particularly in the urban part of those communities.

Increasing community aspirations is a corollary of increasing the welfare ceiling, which requires a parallel effort from planners to closely meet these aspirations and activate community participation items according to the nature of the situation, the nature of the projects, and the scope of planning possibilities available.

On the other hand, community engagement is supposed to contribute to understanding the determinants of planning from different opinions to be part of the solution and not cause the creation of a problem or complexity of the solution.

Psychological fantasy or imagination through hearings may also bring up ideas that are not actually workable. Still, mere imagination is a gateway to ideas that may find room for themselves in the future.

It is always the planning problems that planners endure at different stages of planning. There may be mechanisms that allow citizens to approach, listen to, and accept their participation for the planner to do what he deems most appropriate. That is just my understanding of the above.

With all my respect for all opinions.

Dear Usama, your views are well balanced, and thanks for your understanding. The complexity of urban planning being enormous, it is very important to put a scale to any argument. On my scale, it is the physical one that has to endure change. I have therefor tried to understand and define urbanity. As you well know, there is no definition of the term, to the detriment of the subject. Science cannot operate without a good definition. After writing ten books on the subject i have to conclude that "urbanity" is the task imposed on the citizens thereof, namely the produce of civilization. This has been the major achievement of the city. I put this forward as the chief aim of the planner. How was it done? we have to provide the answer.

Dear Dr. Nahoum Nissim Cohen

Again, I wish to thank you.

I feel the sensitivity of the words that are written by an actual scientist that bears the issue of urbanization; after you had written and prepared many books specialized in urbanity, you find yourself again in front of the first point, which is the definition of urbanity, and I am thrilled with this quote:

"Urbanity" is the task imposed on the citizens.

Nevertheless, the question remains whether urbanization is the responsibility of citizens. Does this not mean that citizens have the right to participate in planning?

Does this not open the gate for these citizens to participate, whatever the scale of this participation? Kindly, Let me express about: they are allowed to participate in the extent that they do not hinder planners in the planning process, which has already become well-established with its principles in the specialized literature.

Again, you have my sincere respect.

you are right. but there is nothing to participate in if the plan has failed. most of plans of urban life, fail. That is the only question. I suggest you see some of my lectures in youtube. thanks

Thanks, Dr. Nahoum Nissim Cohen

Kindly, give me the lectures' URL on YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9S_HBsMu4Y&list=PLWwAH8frnVG-Gj7GJYvt1ti41zwQVzfPY

Probably, it could be useful to add to this very interesting discussion and your high valuable considerations also some references from very different points of view, like the work of Jane Jacobs and Pierluigi Crosta about the citizens' role of city-shapers, and how it could be considered as a different onthology of the urban planning technique.

Nothing to do with planning This is a specialized subject, and the role of participation is always late in the day, relevant to minor effects. To my mind and I am lone in this, The effect of J.Jacobs on American cities was totally minimal. Those cities were not planned, most of them, they were divided to sell plots at maximum profits. The ills of plans are very complex and require a wide and reach experience. Citizens are not ever aware of the long term effect of planning, as peoples status , mind and needs change every generation.