scholarly journals Participatory Planning Pedagogy

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 199-227
Author(s):  
Ildiko Gabriella Kovács
Keyword(s):  
Participatory Planning ◽  
Right To The City ◽  
Non Profit ◽  
Public Elementary Schools ◽  
Local Municipality ◽  
Local Decision ◽  
Future Potential ◽  
Child Friendly ◽  
Local Decision Making ◽  
The City

This paper describes a Children’s Right to the City initiative of a Canadian provincial non-profit organization. The program and its underlying Participatory Planning Pedagogy (PPP) and curriculum follow a student-led and rights-based approach that builds upon global Child Friendly Cities scholarship. The goal of the program is two-fold: First, to uphold children’s participation rights in local decision-making by ensuring that young people’s perspectives are sought out and included in community planning initiatives, and second, to provide meaningful sustainability and citizenship education through participatory planning, and real-world local problem solving that promotes social change. Working in close collaboration with planning teams of the local municipality, the program is implemented within local public elementary schools. This paper will outline the PPP curriculum’s implementation in practice, present the underlying theories informing this work, and discuss benefits, challenges, and future potential of this children’s rights initiative.

scholarly journals An Urban Revolution Through Age Friendly Cities? The Case Of Toronto

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Meghan Joy
Keyword(s):  
Senior Citizens ◽  
Right To The City ◽  
Local Policy ◽  
Public Provision ◽  
Non Profit ◽  
The Public ◽  
Policy Actors ◽  
Policy Program ◽  
The City

This dissertation examines the claim that Age Friendly Cities (AFCs) represents an effective and revolutionary policy approach to population aging. The AFC approach is a placebased policy program intended to enhance the ‘fit’ between senior citizens and their environment. Mainstream accounts of AFCs claim that the program represents a paradigmatic shift in the way we think about aging, to move away from an individual health deficit approach to one that seeks to improve local environments by empowering seniors and local policy actors. However, initial critical literature notes that while AFCs may offer the potential to expand social and physical infrastructure investments to accommodate diverse population needs, they are being popularized in a conjuncture where the public sector is being restructured through narrow projects of neoliberalism that call for limiting public redistribution. This literature calls for further empirical studies to better understand the gap between AFC claims and practice. I heed this call through a qualitative case study of AFCs in the City of Toronto; a particularly relevant case because the recent Toronto Seniors Strategy has been critiqued for being more symbolic than substantive. My research represents a critical policy study as I understand AFCs not as a technical policy tool but as a political object attractive to conflicting progressive and neoliberal projects that use rhetorical and practical strategies to ensure their actualization. My approach is normative as I seek to provide insight for a transformative ‘right to the city’ for senior citizens through the AFC approach. I use literature on citizenship to understand the multiplicity of political projects that seek to expand or narrow the relations between people, environments and institutions through the AFC program. This understanding is based on the meanings 82 different policy actors from local government, the non-profit sector, academia, and other levels of government make of their everyday work in creating age-friendly environments. The broad question I ask is: How do local policy actors understand the rhetoric and practice of AFCs in Toronto and how do these understandings illustrate particular expansive and narrow political projects that affect the development of a right to the city for senior citizens through this policy program? I begin with an initial Case Chapter that scopes age friendly policy work in Toronto from a ‘seeing like a city’ perspective that identifies the complex multi-scalar and multi-actor nature of this policy domain. The Recognizing Seniors and Role of Place Chapters then examine AFCs rhetorically with respect to how local policy actors understand the ‘person’ and the ‘environment’. The Rescaling Redistribution and Restructuring Governance Chapters explore the practice of AFCs, including how local policy actors understand their capacities to design and deliver age-friendly services and amenities and the institutional mechanisms at their disposal to action AFCs. My findings challenge the claim that the AFC policy approach is effective, let alone revolutionary. I learn from policy actors that narrow projects of restructuring work to assemble seemingly progressive rhetoric and practice around active aging and localism to reduce universal public provision, expand the role of private citizens and their families to provide care, and use local policy actors as residual providers of last resort. My research documents how more expansive understandings of senior citizens as rights bearers and the role of the public and non-profit sector to recognize and redistribute on this basis are also in operation. Understanding these political projects more deeply through the AFC policy program helps me to offer policy insight as to what is needed both rhetorically and practically to craft a more effective and revolutionary alternative AFC model based on a right to the city for senior citizens.

scholarly journals How do green areas influence the temperature of cities? Web map to help local decision making about cities and the climate emergency

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 1-6
Author(s):  
Carla Garcia-Lozano ◽  
Anna Peliova ◽  
Josep Sitjar
Keyword(s):  
Urban Areas ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Efficient Manner ◽  
Web Map ◽  
Urban Greenery ◽  
Local Decision ◽  
Local Decision Making ◽  
The City ◽  
Positive Effect

Abstract. The positive effect of urban greenery on the city’s microclimate is well known, as is its ability to reduce the ambient temperature in urban areas. Our results show how the areas with the lowest surface temperature clearly coincide with the vegetated areas in the city of Barcelona. This phenomenon demonstrates the importance of increasing the urban greenery in large compact cities, such as the city of Barcelona, in order to regulate the local temperature and mitigate the effects of global warming on a large scale. The web map presented here can be used as a tool for decision makers to identify the warmest areas in the city of Barcelona and to increase greenery in an efficient manner.

Democratic Preferences of the Indirectly-Elected Mayor, Open or Locked-In

2016 ◽  
pp. 110-139
Author(s):  
Werner Pleschberger
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Longitudinal Study ◽  
Local Democracy ◽  
The Core ◽  
Majority Principle ◽  
Local Decision ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Local Decision Making ◽  
The City ◽  
Dem Model

The Directly Elected Mayor (DEM) model is a prominent manifestation of global efforts to innovate and strengthen local democracy. According to the established reformist claim, a DEM generates an array of advantages for local democracy (e.g., personalization, visibility of power, an increase in accountability, more inclusion, even direct involvement of citizens in local decision making). The DEM model seems to overcome the democratic deficits of the Indirectly Elected Mayor (IEM) model; this is the core assumption of the “difference hypothesis”. The aim of the empirical part of the study is to allow the analysis of the democratic orientation and styles of actions of the IEMs in the city of Vienna from 1973 until 2013. They all asked to the citizenry to express their opinion in consultative referenda. The longitudinal study shows the clear preference of the mayors for representative democracy and the majority principle to decide local issues. The analysis provides evidence that indirectly supports the reformist claim promoting the DEM model in local democracy.

scholarly journals Water governance in decentralising urban Indonesia

Urban Studies ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 56 (14) ◽  
pp. 2917-2934 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paramita Rahayu ◽  
Johan Woltjer ◽  
Tommy Firman
Keyword(s):  
Water Governance ◽  
Regional Level ◽  
Institutional Capacity ◽  
Urban Region ◽  
Democratic Regimes ◽  
Local Decision ◽  
Local Actors ◽  
History Of ◽  
Local Decision Making ◽  
The City

Under new democratic regimes in the countries of the Global South, governance innovation is often found at the regional level. This article, using the concept of institutional capacity, shows that powerful efforts affecting regional water resource coordination emerge locally. The article analyses fresh water cooperation in the urban region of Cirebon, Indonesia. It is shown that the city and its surrounding regions in decentralising Indonesia show signs of increasing institutional capacity between local actors. An informal approach and discretionary local decision-making, influenced by the logic of appropriateness and tolerance, are influential. At the same time, these capacities are compromised by significant inequality and a unilateral control of water resources, and they are being challenged by a strong authoritarian political culture inherited from a history of centralised government. The article points to the need to establish greater opportunities for water governance at the regional level to transcend inter-local rivalry, and thus improve decentralised institutional capacity further.

scholarly journals An Urban Revolution Through Age Friendly Cities? The Case Of Toronto

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Meghan Joy
Keyword(s):  
Senior Citizens ◽  
Right To The City ◽  
Local Policy ◽  
Public Provision ◽  
Non Profit ◽  
The Public ◽  
Policy Actors ◽  
Policy Program ◽  
The City

This dissertation examines the claim that Age Friendly Cities (AFCs) represents an effective and revolutionary policy approach to population aging. The AFC approach is a placebased policy program intended to enhance the ‘fit’ between senior citizens and their environment. Mainstream accounts of AFCs claim that the program represents a paradigmatic shift in the way we think about aging, to move away from an individual health deficit approach to one that seeks to improve local environments by empowering seniors and local policy actors. However, initial critical literature notes that while AFCs may offer the potential to expand social and physical infrastructure investments to accommodate diverse population needs, they are being popularized in a conjuncture where the public sector is being restructured through narrow projects of neoliberalism that call for limiting public redistribution. This literature calls for further empirical studies to better understand the gap between AFC claims and practice. I heed this call through a qualitative case study of AFCs in the City of Toronto; a particularly relevant case because the recent Toronto Seniors Strategy has been critiqued for being more symbolic than substantive. My research represents a critical policy study as I understand AFCs not as a technical policy tool but as a political object attractive to conflicting progressive and neoliberal projects that use rhetorical and practical strategies to ensure their actualization. My approach is normative as I seek to provide insight for a transformative ‘right to the city’ for senior citizens through the AFC approach. I use literature on citizenship to understand the multiplicity of political projects that seek to expand or narrow the relations between people, environments and institutions through the AFC program. This understanding is based on the meanings 82 different policy actors from local government, the non-profit sector, academia, and other levels of government make of their everyday work in creating age-friendly environments. The broad question I ask is: How do local policy actors understand the rhetoric and practice of AFCs in Toronto and how do these understandings illustrate particular expansive and narrow political projects that affect the development of a right to the city for senior citizens through this policy program? I begin with an initial Case Chapter that scopes age friendly policy work in Toronto from a ‘seeing like a city’ perspective that identifies the complex multi-scalar and multi-actor nature of this policy domain. The Recognizing Seniors and Role of Place Chapters then examine AFCs rhetorically with respect to how local policy actors understand the ‘person’ and the ‘environment’. The Rescaling Redistribution and Restructuring Governance Chapters explore the practice of AFCs, including how local policy actors understand their capacities to design and deliver age-friendly services and amenities and the institutional mechanisms at their disposal to action AFCs. My findings challenge the claim that the AFC policy approach is effective, let alone revolutionary. I learn from policy actors that narrow projects of restructuring work to assemble seemingly progressive rhetoric and practice around active aging and localism to reduce universal public provision, expand the role of private citizens and their families to provide care, and use local policy actors as residual providers of last resort. My research documents how more expansive understandings of senior citizens as rights bearers and the role of the public and non-profit sector to recognize and redistribute on this basis are also in operation. Understanding these political projects more deeply through the AFC policy program helps me to offer policy insight as to what is needed both rhetorically and practically to craft a more effective and revolutionary alternative AFC model based on a right to the city for senior citizens.

scholarly journals How normative interpretations of climate risk assessment affect local decision-making: an exploratory study at the city scale in Cork, Ireland

2018 ◽  
Vol 376 (2121) ◽  
pp. 20170300 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. K. J. McDermott ◽  
S. Surminski
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Risk Assessment ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Risk Management ◽  
Flood Risk ◽  
Flood Risk Management ◽  
Climate Risk ◽  
Local Decision ◽  
Local Decision Making ◽  
The City

Urban areas already suffer substantial losses in both economic and human terms from climate-related disasters. These losses are anticipated to grow substantially, in part as a result of the impacts of climate change. In this paper, we investigate the process of translating climate risk data into action for the city level. We apply a commonly used decision-framework as our backdrop and explore where in this process climate risk assessment and normative political judgements intersect. We use the case of flood risk management in Cork city in Ireland to investigate what is needed for translating risk assessment into action at the local city level. Evidence presented is based on focus group discussions at two stakeholder workshops, and a series of individual meetings and phone-discussions with stakeholders involved in local decision-making related to flood risk management and adaptation to climate change, in Ireland. Respondents were chosen on the basis of their expertise or involvement in the decision-making processes locally and nationally. Representatives of groups affected by flood risk and flood risk management and climate adaptation efforts were also included. The Cork example highlights that, despite ever more accurate data and an increasing range of theoretical approaches available to local decision-makers, it is the normative interpretation of this information that determines what action is taken. The use of risk assessments for decision-making is a process that requires normative decisions, such as setting ‘acceptable risk levels' and identifying ‘adequate’ protection levels, which will not succeed without broader buy-in and stakeholder participation. Identifying and embracing those normative views up-front could strengthen the urban adaptation process—this may, in fact, turn out to be the biggest advantage of climate risk assessment: it offers an opportunity to create a shared understanding of the problem and enables an informed evaluation and discussion of remedial action. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Advances in risk assessment for climate change adaptation policy’.

The Journey and the Destination Matter: Child-Friendly Cities and Children's Right to the City

2010 ◽  
Vol 36 (4) ◽  
pp. 474-486 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carolyn Whitzman ◽  
Megan Worthington ◽  
Dana Mizrachi
Keyword(s):  
Right To The City ◽  
Child Friendly ◽  
The City

scholarly journals PROJETO URBANO E PLANEJAMENTO PARTICIPATIVO: conexões e desconexões na reconstrução e recuperação ambiental de Lajedinho/BA

2020 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 226
Author(s):  
Liana Viveiros Oliveira ◽  
Aparecida Netto Teixeira ◽  
Marília Moreira Cavalcante
Keyword(s):  
Urban Design ◽  
Urban Policy ◽  
Participatory Planning ◽  
Right To The City ◽  
Master Plan ◽  
Urban Project ◽  
The Right ◽  
High Level ◽  
The City ◽  
Partial Destruction

O artigo discute uma experiência associada de projeto urbano e planejamento participativo ocorrida em Lajedinho/BA, cidade com elevado nível de ruralização onde, em 2013, ocorreu uma grave enchente, com vítimas fatais e destruição parcial da cidade. Com aportes teóricos sobre o plano e o projeto e, considerando as bases jurídicas e programáticas da política urbana brasileira, analisa a relação entre projeto e plano na formulação de uma agenda pactuada e socialmente legitimada para as cidades, identificando tensões reveladoras de limites e também de potenciais de articulação e interação. Os resultados mostram o quanto a desconexão entre os instrumentos pode acentuar os problemas urbanos e socioambientais que pretendem solucionar e apontam para a possibilidade de ressignificar o plano diretor e o projeto urbano, atribuindo sentidos e significados na perspectiva do direito à cidade.Palavras-chave: Projeto urbano. Plano diretor. Direito à cidade. Lajedinho.URBAN DESIGN AND PARTICIPATORY PLANNING: Connections and Disconnections in Lajedinho´s Reconstruction and  Environmental RecoveryAbstractThis paper discusses an experience of urban design and participatory planning that took place at Lajedinho/BA, city with a high level of ruralization where, in 2013, a severe flood occurred, with fatalities and partial destruction of the city.With theoretical contributions concerning project and planning, and, considering the legal and programmatic basis of brazilian urban policy, the relation between them is analyzed in formulation of a pactual and socially legitimized agenda forthe cities, identifying tensions revealing boundaries and also of articulation and interaction potentials. The results show how much the disconnect between the instruments can accentuate the urban and socio-environmental problems both of them intend to solve and point to the possibility of reframing the master plan and the urban project, attributing meanings from the perspective of the right to the city.Keywords: Urban design. Master plan. Right to the city. Lajedinho.

A Prefigurative Politics of Play in Public Places: Children Claim Their Democratic Right to the City Through Play

2018 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 294-307 ◽  
Author(s):  
Penelope Carroll ◽  
Octavia Calder-Dawe ◽  
Karen Witten ◽  
Lanuola Asiasiga
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Motor Vehicles ◽  
Right To The City ◽  
Public Places ◽  
Spatial Justice ◽  
The Public ◽  
Aotearoa New Zealand ◽  
Child Friendly ◽  
Prefigurative Politics ◽  
The City

Children have as much “right” to the city as adult citizens, yet they lose out in the urban spatial justice stakes. Built environments prioritizing motor vehicles, a default urban planning position that sees children as belonging in child-designated areas, and safety discourses, combine to restrict children’s presence and opportunities for play, rendering them out of place in public space. In this context, children’s everyday appropriations of public spaces for their “playful imaginings” can be seen as a reclamation of their democratic right to the city: a prefigurative politics of play enacted by citizen kids. In this article, we draw on data collected with 265 children in Auckland, Aotearoa/New Zealand, to consider how children’s playful practices challenge adult hegemony of the public domain and prefigure the possibilities of a more equal, child-friendly, and playful city.

scholarly journals Wpływ rewitalizacji przestrzeni konsumpcji na społeczno-ekonomiczny rozwój polskich miast

2015 ◽  
pp. 186-203
Author(s):  
Joanna Zuzanna Popławska
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making Process ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Significant Deterioration ◽  
Social Commitment ◽  
Two Cities ◽  
Local Decision ◽  
Local Decision Making ◽  
Urban Consumption ◽  
The City ◽  
Construction Works

The aim of this paper is to describe and analyze the process of revitalization of markets and shopping streets of Polish cities after 1999 in order to answer the question on how revitalization affected the socio-economic development of Polish cities. Transformation of consumption space is analyzed on the example of two cities: Białystok and Kielce. As a result of revitalization, residents began to spend their free time in the modernized space. However, in the short term, the construction works lasting several years that reduced traffic in the city centers impacted negatively on businesses, often contributing to their collapse or significant deterioration of profitability. Transformation of urban consumption space have increased interest of city dwellers in local decision making process, and thus influenced the growth in social commitment and desire to participate in governing.

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