Co-Production In Planning And Design: Finding A Balance Between Collective And Individual Responsibility

Co-Production In Planning And Design: Finding A Balance Between Collective And Individual Responsibility

Naber, A.C.
Enserink, B.

Technology, Policy and Management

Multi Actor Systems

2011-04-11

Worldwide, the trend in policies and legislation is towards wider citizen participation. This development coincides with a move towards more government deregulation and market liberalization as well as an exponential growth of the Internet and an increasingly better educated and equipped citizenry. These developments together result in a Zeitgeist that profoundly challenges the traditional relationship between government, experts and citizens as established in the 20th century. To study the balance between deliberation and analysis and between collective and individual responsibility, two cases in urban development in the Netherlands are analysed. Both cases experiment with more citizen involvement in planning and design, but each one of them leaves different degrees of freedom for individual action and uses different participatory methods. In Smallingerland, extensive use is made of the Internet to reach out and reap the benefits from the “wisdom of the crowds”. Only two conditions frame the stage: The building location and the concept of sustainability. In Enschede, the master plan is more directive concerning the architecture and use of materials, dividing the new residential area in three different zones according to the construction guidelines. And more traditional participatory methods have been used to invite citizen and expert inputs. This paper reports on initial findings concerning crowdsourcing and the construction of publics, the outcomes of the participatory process, and the relationship between citizens, experts and the state in the network society.

citizen participation
information and communication technologies
internet
decision making
urban planning

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:f83135c2-b781-4a4c-a908-48eb9a507929

IRSPM XV: 15th Annual Conference of the International Research Society for Public Management "Value, Innovation and Partnership", Dublin, Ireland, 11-13 April 2011

Institutional Repository

conference paper

(c) 2011 The Author(s)