INTERNAL QUALITY ASSURANCE CELLspa.ac.in/writereaddata/Session1aDrAshokKumar.pdf ·...

• Presented by

•ASHOK KUMAR, Ph.D. • Professor of Physical Planning

• Head, Department of Regional Planning

• School of Planning and Architecture, Delhi

THEORIZING PARTICIPATION Consensus, Conflicts and Widening

Spaces of Participation in Planning

• Participation implies ‘efforts to increase public input

oriented primarily to the content of programs and

policies’.

• Inclusion means ‘continuously creating a community involved in coproducing processes, policies, and

programs for defining and addressing public issues’.

• Both are dimensions of ‘public engagement’

• Communities of practice: situated practices that

produce distinct ways of knowing and learning

• Source: Quick and Feldman (2011:272).

PUBLIC PARTICIPATION AND

INCLUSION

• Planning unduly focuses on land

use planning

• Master plan or development

plan takes the central stage

• Public Participation revolves

largely around commenting on

the draft of a development plan

CURRENT MEANING OF PLANNING

PUBLIC PARTICIPATION AND PLANNING

THEORIES

Planning

Theory

Role of the

Planner

Arenas of

Participation

Nature of Public

Participation

Rational

Planning

Model

An

unbiased

expert

Public

planning

agency

Informing and securing

information for legitimation

purposes; No feedback

mechanisms for people

Advocacy

Planning

Model

Pleader for

her clients

Places

created by

diverse

interest

groups

Diverse interest groups

prepare plural plans with

the help of advocate

planners

Equity

Planning

Model

Provider of

choices

Public

planning

agency,

media, etc.

Informing and securing

information for legitimation

purposes; Fairness central

to the planner

PUBLIC PARTICIPATION AND PLANNING

THEORIES

Planning

Theory

Role of the

Planner

Arenas of

Participation

Nature of Public

Participation

Political Economy

Model

Part of the state

Production and

Reproduction arenas of the state

Radical transformations; Resources and power with

people, not state or capital

Radical Planning

Model

Minimalist Enabler

Communities and planning

agency

People set the agenda for themselves; An exercise in

community development apart from delivery of outcomes

Collaborative Planning Model

One of the stakeholders

Created by stakeholders themselves

People are fully responsible for planning after deliberations under ‘communicative rationality’

• Planning is inherently ideological in its discourses and

practices

• Planning visions and ideals are reflective of desires of

conflicting but dominant privileged minorities shaping

public interest

• Something is missing in a good city and then dominant

groups impose desired solutions through master

signifiers

• Planning obscures agonistic conflicts of difference

between actors and imposes common policies by using

master signifies such as containment, sustainability,

smart cities, etc.

A LACANIAN VIEW OF PLANNING

•

A TYPOLOGY OF INTERESTS

Form What ‘participation’ means to the implementing agency

What ‘participation’ means for those on the receiving end

What ‘participation is for

Nominal Legitimation – to show they are doing something

Inclusion- to retain some access to potential benefits

Display

Instrumental Efficiency – to limit funder’

input, draw on community contributions and make projects more cost-effective

Cost – of time spent on

project-related labour and other activities

As a means to

achieving cost-effectiveness and local facilities

Representative Sustainability – to avoid

creating dependency Leverage – to influence

the shape the project takes and its management

To give people a

voice in determining their own development

Transformative Empowerment – to enable people to make their own

decisions, work out what to do and take action

Empowerment – to be able to decide and act for

themselves

Both as a means and an end, a

continuing dynamic

Source: White (1996: 7-9).

• Planning involves all those activities, processes, outcomes and transformations that are related

in some way with the production, reproduction

and destruction of built environment

• Planning is a distributional and re-distributional

of resources, and thus conflictual in nature,

some people will win and others will lose

• From sociétal guidance to social transformation

(John Friedmann, 1987). Action oriented

SUGGESTED SCOPE OF PLANNING

• Public participation means involvement in

the processes of development plan

making, more specifically commenting

on the draft a development plan

• Exclusion of implementation of planning

policies even emanating from

development plan

• Some participation may take place

during monitoring or feedback

CURRENT VIEW OF PUBLIC

PARTICIPATION

• Inviting objections or suggestions from the

general public on a draft of the plan

• Public hearings through constituted

committees: Board of Enquiry and Hearing

• Public Grievances Cells

• Open Houses for monitoring and review: An

ongoing process in Delhi

CURRENT SPACES OF PUBLIC

PARTICIPATION IN PLANNING

• Predetermines broad policy planning

agenda

• Assumes equality of participation and

deliberations among citizens

• Aims at securing legitimation about

planning policies reflected as the public

interest

• Attempts to secure consensus about

planning policies

IMPLICATIONS FOR PUBLIC

PARTICIPATION

• Undermines multiplicity of public interests

• Consensus downplays differences

• Consensus threatens freedoms by eliminating

possibility of engagements in conflicts

• Exclusion of some voices and foreclosure of

certain possibilities

• Consensus is utopian in a highly politicized

planning environment

Source: Sager (2013: 12).

CONSENSUS AND ITS PITFALLS

• Restricted view of public participation

• Leaves out a number of arenas of

participation as it leaves out a lot of

activities to be considered as planning

activities proper

• Not radically transformative

• Not re-distributional enough: power and

resources

IMPLICATIONS FOR PUBLIC

PARTICIPATION

• Public participation means involvement of

citizens in any processes, and outcomes

related with the production, reproduction

and destruction of built environment

• Public participation is transformational and

re-distributional making planning a

profession firmly based on ‘spatial justice’

• Public participation involves conflict

resolution rather than obtaining consensus

PUBLIC PARTICIPATION IN

PLANNING REDEFINED

• Closed spaces or provided spaces

• Invited spaces

• Claimed spaces or third spaces

Gaventa (2006: 26-27).

SPACES OF PUBLIC PARTICIPATION

• Decisions are made by a set of actors behind

closed doors, without any pretense of broadening

the boundaries for inclusion

• Within the state, …these [are] ‘provided’ spaces

[where] bureaucrats, experts or elected

representatives make decisions and provide

services to ‘the people’, without the need for

broader consultation or involvement

• Provided spaces

CLOSED SPACES OF PUBLIC PARTICIPATION

• People ae invited as users, citizens or beneficiaries

are invited to participate by various kinds of

authorities

• Invited spaces could be institutionalized ongoing, or

more transient through one-off forms of consultation

• With rise of participatory governance, these spaces

are seen at every level, from local government, to

national policy and even in global policy forums

INVITED SPACES OF PUBLIC PARTICIPATION

• Spaces which are claimed by less powerful actors from or

against the power holders, or created more autonomously by

them.

• Organic spaces which emerge out of sets of common concerns

or identifications’ and may come into being as a result of

popular mobilization and like-minded people join together in

common pursuits

• Third spaces (Soja 1996): These spaces range from ones created by social movements and community associations, to those

simply involving natural places where people gather to debate, discuss and resist, outside of the institutionalized policy arenas.

CLAIMED SPACES OF PUBLIC PARTICIPATION

After Gaventa (2006: 26-27).


Type of Space Spaces in Planning Spaces in

Development

Closed Spaces Planning Agencies

generally, SEZ, and

Corridor Development:

DMIC

Bureaucracy in

general

Invited Spaces

Development Plans,

Resident Welfare

Associations, CDPs

73rd and 74th

amendments to

the Constitution

Claimed Spaces Sit ins protest in Delhi for

Master Plan participation,

Dharavi: enumeration and

community design, SEZ in

Raigarh

Noida Land

Acquisition

• Low gainers and losers to protest

• Deep differences among social groups

• Caste, religion, region and language

• Economic inequalities

• Diversity of epistemologies (knowledge)

• Government policies

• Government policies and diverse interests

CONFLICTS IN PLANNING

POWER OVER Ability of the powerful to affect the actions and thought of the

powerless.

POWER TO Capacity to act; to exercise agency and to realize the potential of

rights, citizenship or voice.

POWER WITHIN Gaining the sense of self-identity, confidence and awareness that is a

precondition for action.

POWER WITH Synergy which can emerge through partnerships and collaboration with

others

COMPREHENDING POWER

• Visible power: observable decision

making

• Hidden power: setting the political

agenda

• Invisible power: shaping meaning and

what is acceptable

Source: Adapted by Just Associates from VeneKlasen and Miller (2002) after Gaventa (2006: 29).

FORMS OF POWER

• Global

• National

• Local

PLACES OF PARTICIPATION

THE POWER CUBE

.

Source: Gaventa (2006: 25).

• Half of U.S. assets owned by just 400 people

Merrifield (2014: 77).

• India’s 100 richest people own assets equivalent to

one fourth of country’s GDP (Roy, 2012).

• Neo-Haussmannization: “a process that likewise

integrates financial, corporate and state interests,

yet tears into the globe and seizes land through

forcible slum clearance and a handy vehicle for

dispossession known as “eminent domain”

(Merrifield (2014: 73).

SPATIAL INEQUALITY

• New development plan for Dharavi,

Mumbai

• Over 300 square feet space for each family

• Similar amount of space for residents of Kathputli Colony

in Delhi

• Antilla: Mukesh Ambani’s House • Estimated 1 million square feet space for the family

• Unbridgeable inequality

SPATIAL INEQUALITY

FACES OF UNBRIDGEABLE INEQUALITY

• Built environment not part of a development

plan making process

• Projects resulting from central and state

government policies

• Jawaharlal Nehru Urban Renewal Mission

• Special Economic Zones

• Corridor development

• Smart cities

WIDENING AND DEEPENING OF

SPACES OF PARTICIPATION

• Delhi Metro by the DMRC with separate act

• Housing for the income poor under JNNURM

• 25,000 dwelling units constructed in Delhi by 2014

• Resident Welfare Associations in Delhi

• Created a wall between the urban poor and elected

representatives



• Participation in Plan Making: Master Plan,

Zonal Plan, Local Area Plan, etc.

• Participation in redevelopment plans such as

in Dharavi;

• Participation in development projects: Slum

redevelopment in Kathputli and Kalkaji, etc.

• Participation in reform programs such as

JNNURM and Stakeholder Workshops in CDPs



• Public participation concerns everything

related with built environment

• Public participation is used as a vehicle for

coordination among policies not part of

development plan

• Public participation’s primary goal is to

resolve built environment related conflicts

NATURE OF REINVIGORATED PUBLIC


• Participation during implementation planning

policies emanating or not from a development

plan

• Large part of the built environment takes shape

during implementation, which is distinct from planned vision of a city

• Planning policy also made during implementation

• From informing and securing feedback to

planning policy framing by citizens



• Public participation as an instrument for

identification of diversities and diverse

perspectives

• Public participation explores possibilities of

social interactions to formulate planning

policies

• Public participation redistributes power and

resources in favour of the urban poor (after

Arnstein, 1969).

WIDENED AND DEEPENED SPACES OF

PUBLIC PARTICIPATION

• Participation during implementation planning

policies emanating or not from a development

plan

• Large part of the built environment takes shape

during implementation, which is distinct from planned vision of a city

• Planning policy also made during implementation

as in street level bureaucrat (Lipsky, 2010).

• From informing and securing feedback to

planning policy framing by citizens



• Hope: Development plans being prepared

with citizen involvement such as in Kerala

• Hope: Metropolitan Planning Committees

and District Planning Committees

• Hope: Public Participation Bills

• Hope: Converting DPCs and MPCs from

sector plans to spatial plans

HOPES OF WIDENED AND DEEPENED


• Planning and therefore participation is

aimed at conflict resolution

• Planning and therefore participation is

aimed at re-distributive spatial justice

• Planning and participation is about radical

transformations not ritualistic involvement

• Participation extends upto implementation

CONCLUDING REMARKS

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