HABI i A i iN ii_. Vol. 6. No. IQ. pp. 165 178. 1981, Printed tn Gem Britain

0l97..3975/52/020l65~l4$03.~/0 C 198.I Pergamon Press Ltd.

Citizen Participation in City Planning

BENYAMIN CHETKOW-YANOOV

Bar-llan University, fsraet

in recent years, physical and social planners have begun to get together around stubborn human problems in cities. Even though they have much with which to enrich each other’s work, they seem increasingly to be in conflict with one another. This paper presents a case example of one neighbourhood project in which the two types of planners made a real effort to work together to make a process of citizen participation in city planning possible.

No attempt is made to play down the conflict of interests involved. In fact, even though some passages sound critical of city planners, !he paper is meant as an exercise in bridge building between social planners, physical planners, and urban citizens. Theoretic analysis of the events in this case is also included, in order to build the above-mentioned bridge on a firm foundation. The paper concludes with some practical guidelines for professionals intending to involve local citizens in planning for their own urban future.

SOME DEFINITIONS

When planners insist on citizen participation, they usually mean that the ultimate beneficiaries (e.g. residents) of the City’s services should have a part in setting the policies, and perhaps implementing them. In broad terms, consumers or clients of a public service ought to be involved in the planning, policy-determination, or operation of programmes vital to their daily living.’ There is, for example, increasing lip-service paid to the idea that adults ought to take part (through class, school, and city-wide Parent’s Committees) in the municipality’s efforts to prepare their children for adult roles - especially since education and socialisation were once entirely the family’s responsibility. In this modern era, many family and neighbourly functions have been monopolised by specialised professions and bureau~ratised

r H. F. Brown and S. L. Seifert, Client participation in service delivery, Social We&e bogus, 1972 (New York Columbia University Press), pp. 176185; Neil Gilbert and Others, Demographiccorrelates ofcitizen participation, Social Seraice Review, 48 (December 1974), 517-530; Y. Katan, Client participation in Israeli social services, Social Security, 7 (July 1974), 50-63 (Hebrew): G. A. Lloyd and J. M. Daley, Community control of health and welfare programs, Social We/j&r Fonrm, 1971 (New York: Columbia University Press), pp. 168 181; J. M. Metsch and J. E. Veney, Measuring outcome of consumer participation, J. of Health and Social Behavior, 14 (December 1973), 368 374; F. P. Perlmutter, Citizen participation in Yugoslavia, Sociuf Work, 19 (March 1974). 226 -232; 8. M. Shiffman, New trends in client participation in urban development. the United States, Urbatz ~e~e~u~rne~r (13th International Conference of Social Work Proceedings, New York: Columbia University Press, 1967), pp. 208-216: B. Warach, Decentralization, community control, and citizen participation in Services for the Jewish Aged, .I. Jewish Communal Seruice, 51 (Summer 19751, 3666372; or R. L. Warren, Model cities first round: politics, planning, and participation, Journal of the American Instifute of Planners, 35 (July 1969). 245.-252.

165

public services. During the abortive American war against poverty, some argued that active participation in community decision-making is the legal right of all citizens of a democracy. Today, urban self-help groups are again popular.’

The above devefopments constitute, at least in theory, a fundamental departure from age- old trends in local politics. Now, ti Government officials and programme staff are expected to work with residents and neigllbourll~?od groups on a anon-squeaking wheef’, or non- grievance, basis something for which none of the participants has been prepared. Still, there is growing desire to fessen the enormous gap which has developed between government and citizens, between service-providers and receivers. Today, planners express increasing confidence that participating citizens have insights and experiential knowledge about the kinds of city services they urgently need. Underlying this assumption seems to be a cautious optimism that well-informed citizens can be trusted to suggest good plans or policies. Projects evolved ‘with’ not design4 ‘for’ city residents are said to ln~nimise the disturbance of family and community life processes.

SOME MORAL ASPECTS OF PARTICIPATION

The topic of citizen or resident participation has received attention, under a number of different guises, for a long time. Discourses on the relationship between public authorities and voluntary agencies have often tried to discover the optinlum mix between the two kinds of auspices for social services.” The literature is afso full of discussions of the reluctance of professionals and staff persons to invofve volunteers (i.e. laymen) in the operation of agencies.’ Twenty-five years ago, Philip Seltznick warned of the dangers faced by the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) when it co-opted local leaders into its decision-making bodies.” Little is avaifabfe, from all this literature and experience, to guide us today when the question is how to involve citizens in planning activities.

Other modern writers have identified the existence of varying degrees of citizen involvement: from minimally to significantly.’ Usually the ladder of involvement is from receiving information to giving advice. or even serving on policy-making committees. What is necessary, of course. is the Establishment’s sharing some of its power with citizens or clients. Consumers seldom have a share in the authority of elected officials or appointed administrators, and the fatter are seldom willing to give up any of their control to people they are used to domin~~ting. In the 1970s. the’have nots’ (of poverty neighbourhoods or minority- group communities) became impatient with participation rituals which were meant to distract them from the actualities of injustice and exclusion. In other words, if powerful politicians or technocrats continue to ignore the actual priorities of their power-inferiors (e.g. the poor, tenants, students, women, r~c’.) they will invite protest and possibly violence. The two alternatives to violence are an apathetic citizenry which distrusts all official promises, or a citizenry which must be massively suppressed by military-style policing.

L S. N. Dubey, Community actron programs and citizen partlclpation ,, Sociul ~~‘urk. IS (January 1970). 76 84; Ralph Kramer. “Who spcakr for the poor’!” F’utvicir~trrior~ of r/w Poor (Englcwood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1969), pp. 18X 200: Alice Overton. Takmg help fl-om our clients. Sor?trl CYork, 5 (April 1960). 42 50. K. W. Posner, C’omparativc community organization. 77w L’,hn,l C’onrliriorl (Ed. L. J. Duhl, New York: Basic Books. 1963). pp. 31 I 31X: also Jnme\ Q. Wilson. Planning and poltt~s: citizen pal-ticipatton in urban renewal. Pw.~p~cri~~~~ OS ikr .4mrritrrr~ ~~~)~~1~~7i/~, (Ed. K. L. Warren. Chicago: Rand McNally. 1966). pp. 476 48X.

3 See. for example. R. I,. Warren. “The nnpact of new designs of colni~~un~ty ~~r~~nI~~l[ion’~. Ckiltf M;i*!fuw, 44 (November 1965). 494 500.

’ Benyamin ChetkowYanoov, Voluntarism and social services, Phifippiw Social W'r~rk. 21 (May August 1976). 21 29: D. H. Fenn. Executives ac communit\* volunteers. ffcmnrd B~r.\ines.s Ker~iew, 49 (March April 19711, 4 16, 156 157: John W. Gardner, It1 C’ommor~ C‘ulr\c: Clrizen ,lcrion urld Ho\t, it kV’ork.\ (New York: W. W. Norton, 1972); Ben Lappin, The mtssing volunteer m Israel’s struggle with poverty, .I. Jewi.sI~ Convnu~~ul .Scwii.p, 49 (September 1976). 66 76.

5 Dilemmas of leadership and doctrine in democratic planning, in .S~~rrfi~~\ it? f,atitlrr.~hip (Ed. ,4. W. Gauldner. New York: Harper. 1950). pp. 560 591.

It is important to remember that traditional channels for involvement are disappearing in our increasingly industrial-urban society. We must have bureaucracies to handle the complexity ofcitylife, but this poses possibilities ofalienation and passivity.7 Both ethnic and machine politics seem to be decaying in the face of non-partisanship requiring competence of officials and merit-system employment. Organised labour and the Settlement House movement, once champions of the underdogs of our early industrial sIums, no longer seem active in large-scale efforts at the local level. Moreover, our welfare system has been set up in such a punitive way that it allows the poor only one role, that of supplicant for help from the Establishment.

In most situations, at least in past years, land use plans have been made by technically expert professionals, and implemented by the staff of departments of city government. Local involvement was usually ex past&zrro, in order to achieve acquiescence from the citizens, In the light of the above, an example of real efforts by physical planners to involve residents in neighbourhood plan-making deserves widespread analytic attention.

Some of the issues and difficulties of involving citizens in physical planning are presented in the following case history.

SOBER REALITIES: AN AMERICAN CASE HISTORY

The neighhourhood This neighbourhood, encompassing 13,000 residents within an area of some 100 blocks (or

two square miles), had once been a stable white, peripheral inner-city, middle-class, and prestigious place to live. It had many cultural, educational, and recreational facilities within its boundaries or within easy access. It was only ten minutes driving-time from the downtown business-civic area of the metropolis.

Since the 1970 Census, seemingly drastic changes had taken place throughout the City - caused by inner-city urban renewal projects, and attempts to meet some of the massive city and state requirements for more highways. Displacement of ghetto dwellers by this new land use forced many irmer-city residents to seek new homes in this neighbourhood. Thus, the area had recently undergone changes characteristic of many older, inner-city, urban areas, It was experiencing rapid racial and socio-economic change from middle-class white to middle and lower-class white and Negro residents. Long-time residents were upset by what seemed to them an increasing deterioration of housing, children playing everywhere, schools bulging, trash more in evidence, abandoned cars disfiguring the streets, lawns withering, flowers and shrubs disappearing, and crime increasing. A sense of unrest was felt generally. The influx of young Negro families was foIlowed by a marked exodus of middle-aged and elderly white people.

A number of the residents became concerned that the area be kept multi-racial. Many residents were also concerned with the decline in city services and housing conditions that seemed to have accompanied the racial change. Several civic organisat~ons had been formed to promote neighbourhood improvement and integrated housing, notably the Mapleton Neighborhood Association. Recently, the City began a Neighborhood Improvement

7G. C. Gates and R. Jones, Preparing and organizing a neighborhood for rehabilitation, Residential Rek~k~~j&u~~o~ (Eds. M. C. McFarland and W. K. Yiviett, University of Mjnneapolis Press, 1966), pp, 91-105; A. R Holmberg, Chang~ngcommunity attitudes and values in Peru .f Social CAnage in Latin Americu Today mew York: Random HouseVintage Books, 1960) pp. 63107: R. A. Lamanna, Valueconsensus among urban residents, Journaf ojthe Arnrricnn Irrsrirure of’Plannrr,s, 30 (November t964), 317-323; T. M. Newcomb, Attitudmal uniformity and Cohesiveness, Social P~syckolay~ (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1965), 373-388; Janice F. Perlman, Grassrooting the system, Social Policy, 7 (September-October 1976), 4--20; A. Rosen, The planning process: formulation of objectives and the building of consent, Journal @Jewish Cnmmunal Sert!ice, 39 (Autumn 1962), 250-257; Murray G. Ross, Community participation, lnternarional Ret;iew ~~C~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~rne~~, 5 (1960), 107-124; J. Kothman, Citizen participation.. voluntary associations and primary groups, P~~ff~~~ffg and ~~~u~jz~~g

jbr Social Chartye (New York: Columbia University Press, 1974). pp* 279-325 and 399413; T. J. Schneff, Toward a sociological model of consenus, American Snciologicd Review, 32 (February 1967) 3246; Melvin Seeman, On the meaning of alienation, American Socological Review, 24 (December 1959), 7833791.

Program (NIP), a federal project for a comprehensive code enforcement effort in the area. NIP had the cooperation of the Metropolitan Planning Department which had planning responsibility for the total county area.

The author was part of this City’s thrusr to engage the residents of an old urban neighbourhood in comprehensive code enforcement and in the making of a land use plan. When early feelers were put out to the Neighborhood Association. the city had already received notification that a governmental grant of USS570,OOO was coming. (Six months had already elapsed from the date of the City’s formal application to be part of this code enforcement programme until the grant was received.) The City. in its initial contact with the Neighborhood Association in January. asked for a small committee of residents to help write a brochure promoting the new code enforcement programme-- for later distribution throughout the entire neighbourhood.

The Neighborhood Association appointed a group ofresidents to do this. Three months of intensive work did produce an attractive printed brochure, but not without a number of prophetic strains. Residents had not been involved in writing the proposal (which had been submitted six months earlier), nor did they see the funded proposal (until they demanded it from the City’s planning staff) before they agreed to edit the final draft of the brochure. Planners seemed unaware of the actual immense diversity of socio-economic life-styles in the area. Little cognisance had been given to the priorities of those who lived in the area: desire for improved street lighting; low interest loans for painting exteriors of homes: choice of where parks should be located; inexpensive tree trimming: and using a local person to run the City’s new sub-office in the neighbourhood. In fact, the original grant had not contained a request for setting up a local office. Money for this purpose had to be ‘borrowed’ from the City Redevelopment Commission in a hurry. and the neighbourhood citizens lost no opportunity to tease the planners about this oversight.

One session, in the office of the City Planning Commission, was stormy indeed. Sophisticated Association representatives were angry at being (in their words) “treated like ignorant children”. One young lawyer-resident actually interrupted the Planning Department’s assistant director in mid-lecture. and told him to sit down and “stop wcsting our time with things we already know”. The official was genuinely shocked. He, another staff member, and most of the citizens from the Association left the meeting feeling personally insulted. Fortunately, an immediate reconciliation took place -- initiated by sincere people on both sides who really did want the project to succeed.

A month later, a senior planner who had formerly worked in the city’s Redevelopment Commission was appointed to serve as the Project Director. He, the Mayor’s assistant, various City department heads, and a number of planners presented the project to an open meeting of over 300 neighbourhood residents. The meeting almost broke up over angry resident expression of different priorities, specifically their desire for improved street lighting. Many protested about previous bureaucratic “run-around” experiences at city hall. The Project Director handled all these explosive matters with diplomacy and skill. People calmed down enough to listen to the actual project intentions. Although with much scepticism, residents finally endorsed the project by a majority vote.

Next day, the ultra-conservative editorial writer of one of the daily newspapers ‘misinterpreted’ the events of the evening’s meeting to write that this was another example of citizen rejection of national government intervention. His claim was a direct contradiction of what actually happened, as planners and residents both knew. The Association therefore contacted a senior editor of a rival daily newspaper, asking for an objective report of the whole matter. A sensitive in-depth report did get published in early June, one year after the project’s inception.

First four months qf the second year Two months later, at the beginning of August, the Neighborhood Association was asked to

structure a Long-Range Planning Committee, in order to create a new land use plan for the area in partnership with staff from the Planning Department and the Redevelopment Commission. By the end of the month, weekly meetings of more than 30 persons were taking place. Clergymen, janitors, college professors, housewives, social workers, lawyers, book- keepers, apartment house managers, domestics, etc. who lived in the neighbourhood gave unstintingly of their time.’ So much interest was generated that the meeting rooms often were too small for the numbers who attended. Planning staff worked wonders, stencilling minutes of five sub-committees’ meetings and mailing them to all participants every week. An atmosphere ofexcitement prevailed. Absenteeism, on the part of these citizen volunteers, was non-existent.

The group’s tenth meeting took place by mid-October. These two months of intense activity produced a 21-page report embodying 95 policy recommendations (which had been made by the sub-committees on Residential Areas, Health and Safety, Recreation and Education, Business and Commerce, and Transportation). All in all, the residents had volunteered 800 man-hours of their personal time (during the hottest months of the summer) to help plan their neighbourhood’s future. Particularly because of the outstanding work of City personnel, minutes and report reproductions were done on time, mailings were sent out, and desired consultants were secured. Meetings were fruitful. Citizen morale was at a high peak.

But all was not peaches and cream! The citizen group agonised over the recommendation that two streets at one side of the area be designated for highway development. They could see the planner’s logic, but were not at all certain they wanted this to happen to their own neighbourhood. Conflicts about where much-needed new parks were to be located broke out, and the opposing views of the planners and the citizens could not be reconciled.9

Four months of delay Once the 21-page initial report was completed, citizens had to wait four months while their

suggestions were reviewed by the staff of the Planning Department. During this wait, many things happened in the city, and within the Code Enforcement programme. The Association employed a lawyer to fight two flagrant violations of zoning successfully. The Parent-Teacher Association (PTA) of one neighbourhood public school persuaded the Board of Education to reverse its unilateral decision to move grades 7 and 8 elsewhere. A new mayor, from the opposite political party to his predecessor, was elected. The Code Enforcement programme experienced such staff turnover that it was in danger of faltering.

Neighbouring committee members experienced months of no contact with the Planning Department staff persons whom they had come to trust during ten weeks of intensive work. Cynical remarks began to be heard.

When the planners’ revised plan became available at a meeting of the Neighborhood Association’s Long-Range Planning Committee early in February, many participants in the planning process were not happy with the technical suggestions it contained. Four months after completion of their own report, they could not see connections between what they had recommended and the revised text. On a few matters, as was obvious in the footnotes of the final published report, the citizens continued to disagree categorically with the policies recommended by the planners. Many sub-committee chairmen had forgotten the recom- mendations they had made “so many months ago”, and had not had the motivation to read the new text carefully before the meeting. After a long and stormy meeting, the new text (with a number of reservations and some short-range modifications) was approved. There were many abstentions.

‘Participants, who came from different blocks, were representative of various natural sub-areas, active Association members, and willing to devote some persona1 time.

9 A~thoug~l there had been initial acceptance by all parties that such basic disagreements would be subject to binding third-party arbitration, the latter never took place. This issue of park sites was still haunting the Planning Department two years later. Such is the price of professional staff overconfidence.

The Chief Planner who had worked on this citizen participation process during the previous months went home angry and disappointed. Two weeks before the revised report was to be presented to a neighbourhood-wide citizens’ meeting, he sent a hand-written note to the Committee Chairman stating: “I would like to discuss conduct of this meeting with you beforehand. Also, I have a number of items to review and discuss about last Thursday’s meeting (of the Long-Range Planning ComInittee).”

Subsequent direct conversations grew heated! The Planner felt that the chairmen of the sub-committees of the Long-Range Planning Committee had contradicted their own recommendations of only a few months ago. He felt that the questions which had been thrown at him were hostile, and the Committee Chairman had opened the session too negatively. The Planning Department staff had worked many overtime hours to get this job done. With some self-righteousness, the Chairman pointed out that there had been no agenda for this long-delayed meeting, the room had been too small for the crowd which did attend, and that because the report had been mailed from the Planning Department office with postage due, many copies were not delivered. He stressed that busy (expert) planners have no sensitivity to the importance of keeping interpersonal relationships going, referring to the four months ofcommunication vacuum. He ended with the sarcastic suggestion that perhaps the planner should ask the Neighborhood Association President to appoint a new Chairman for the Long-Range Planning Committee.

Both men soon cooled down, however, and focused on the business of preparing in detail for the conduct of the forthcoming public meeting. They went home subdued, and perhaps a bit wiser.

The 21.~1 month Some 200 persons attended the public meeting on 29 February. The oral review of the

Committee Chairman and the planner, the visual aids presented by the PlamGng Department, the text reproduction done by the Association, and the pleasant and spacious room in a local church basement all contributed to a productive meeting. The report was passed with one exception. The Transportation Sub-committee’s recommendations (done with much reluctance from the onset) that a depressed divided highway be constructed at one side of the neighbourhood, met with vehement opposition. Residents. who recently moved into this area because they had been displaced by highway construction two years ago, made impassioned speeches against this item. The Chairman ruled that it be completely deleted. Otherwise, the issue would have occupied all available meeting time, creating such dissension that the passing of the entire report would have been endangered.

Another ten-month dcluy.’ During the next ten months, Planning Department staff were inundated with work on the

city’s application for another special prqject grant. However. this was perceived as a second comm~inication vacuum by the citizen group. The finalised report was p~lblished in December. In the interim, the code enforcement programme continued, the Neighborhood Association changed officers, and the Planning Department began a similar programme in an adjacent part of the city.

In April of the following year. the completed Land USC Plan was formally accepted by the Citv’s Planning Commission. Two Neighborhood Association officers (one a professor of social work who lived in the neighbourhood) gave supportive testimony. but admitted being acutelv embarrassed to do so. By now the whole thing seemed remote and useless to them. In the neighbourhood itself, the event wenl entirely unnoticed.

Regardless of the official outcome, it should be noted that the total process took 35 months, or almost three years. The human relations investment was enormous, even though neighbourhood residents were not actively involved until the 14th month. A successful though short period of intensive planner resident partnership did take place.

Cirizrfi P~~~i~i~~iiffil in f3fy F~~~it~j~l~ 171

CITIZEN PARTICIPATION AND COMMUNITY PLANNING THEORY

Since citizen participation is receiving increased attention both in the literature of planning and of community work, some theoretic aspects of the topic must be examined at this point. Such an undertaking will, of course, also throw helpful light on any analysis ofthe abovecase history. Thus, in any community, the activity called planning usually implies:

(1)

(2)

(31

An input of rational and deliberate action as a means of attaining desired outcome goals.

Both plan-making and plan-implementing relevant to social (from the Latin socius companion) problems, or societal policies for meeting, remedying, or preventing the human suffering caused by these social problems.

Outcome goals or purposes which include the idea of long-range progress rather than mere chance or alteration. The idea of social progress might include the reduction of poverty, enhancement of health, greater literacy-education, wider enjoyment of civil rights, furthering of ethnic culture, increasing voice in policy-making for the consumers of social services, and the like.

Although these elements of social planning underly all conlmunity work, they are an insufficient basis for defining the overall field.

In simplistic terms, then, community work is the effort to help people to improve their relationships with each other as well as with the environment in which they live, by means of disciplined manipulation of the environment and its component sub-systems. Community workers usually advocate adequate consumer incomes as one way of solving poverty, or deal with misbehaving grade-school children in a poverty-stricken neighbourhood by organising an early-morning free breakfast programme. Wiilingness to manipulate the environment is crucial to community work. It follows that Civil Liberties Union staff, public health nurses, ethnic group volunteers, city planners, labourmanagement arbitrators, chamber of commerce (board) members, neighbourhood workers of an anti-poverty programme, public utility ‘trouble-shooters’, as well as social workers, can be engaged in community work.

In the USA, the Commission on Practice of the National Association of Social Workers produced a working definition of what it called “community organisation practice” in 1962. Under the goal-oriented discussion of “Purpose”, this working definition states that:

“The community organisation practitioner works with representatives of the community or segments of the community for the purpose of intervening in the community process with a problem-solving approach taking into consideration values, sanctions, knowledge, method and techniques.‘O

To achieve a viable interaction pattern of relationships and of selected social goals, the community organisation practitioner seeks to:

(1)

(2)

(3)

(4)

(5)

Strengthen the community’s capacity to recognise its welfare needs, identify its social welfare problems, and mobilise itself to solve those problems.

Facilitate cooperative relationships between individuals, groups, institutions, and organisations significant for social welfare.

Attain selected social goals such as: improving social conditions; providing a network of services for the prevention and treatment of social ills; and organisation of social welfare programmes.

Influence community public social policies and decisions as they are perceived to affect community well-being.

Modernise achieved goals by adjusting or modifying social welfare services and programmes as the community changes”.

‘*“lntervene”is hereused in thesense of”entetinto”. (footnote in the original document).

This connotes a conscious. relevant. and professional action

At this point, one giant step backward might be in order - so that we could look at some of the theoretic pre-conditions for citizen participation. Table 1 lays out the dimensions and characteristics of four decision-making environments. These environments are composed of two dimensions: (a) the degree of agreement among all parties involved regarding their preferred outcome-goals; and (b) the degree of certainty among all involved parties regarding the effectiveness of the means advocated for achieving these goals. If each dimension is expressed as a simple dichotomy, four kinds of decision-making environments are possible :

Regarding effectiveness

of the MEANS used

Regarding preferred outcome GOALS

. Much disagreement General agreement

Much (1) PARTICIPATORY unfertaintv or INSPIRATIONAL disagreemknt Tense or structureless situation (;tnomie).

Multiplicity of weak groups. ali very dependent on the general environment

No regular interaction between sub-units of the system.

Minimally structured division of labour. Man with intuition, hunch, creative

mind, chtwisma becomes the leader (danger of demagoguery).

General certainty (2A) CAMPAIGN-COMPETITIVE or agreement Many organisationz in open or polite

competition, but one often has a power advantage.

Each wants its goals accepted, uses minimum-risk strategies, is for the status quo most favourable to itself.

Disagreements which cdl1 for

compromise, multilateral negotintions, cooperation, appeal to experts or svmhols.

Poiitical process to allocate community resources.

Ad hoc coalitions, division of h&our, arrangements and understandmgs.

(2B) ~JTILI~ARIAN COLLABORATIVE

Strong individual groups coordinated by one central body or committee.

Much i~t~rd~p~ndence and exchange ;tmong all parties.

fssue-by-issue consensus through ma.iority ruie among the wise and experienced (tendency to oligarchy, as well as to competence).

Restrict participants, or scope of issues, to avoid confhct.

Rely on consistencies, probabilities. shared Judgn~~nts, persuasion.

Consensus on division of tahour each tme, within a loose federation.

(3) UNITARY-COERCIVE Decisions can he made by computer on

basis of data and feedback.

Small homogeneous group controts the action. little competition allowed. act uni~3ter~~i~y to beat the opposition or win.

Act like a relatively closed and independent system.

Weaker parties use legislative and law enforcement mechanisms to survive.

Rigid system-maintenance once goals have been achieved.

Adrn~njstratjve ~(~ph~sti~at~o~~ in a tight hierarchic or ccntralised structure of authority.

Action consumes great amounts of power.

-

* Robert Morris and Martin Rein, Goals, structures, and strategies for community change, Sociu/ Work Pr~lc~k~, 1962 (New York: Columbia University Press), pp. 127 145; James D. Thompson and A. Tuden. Strategies, structures, and process of organizational decisions, Cornpurarire Srutlies i?r Admini,stration (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1959). pp. t95 216; 8, Yanoov, Operational models in ~ornrnun~t~ work, The P&‘e of C(~~~~~l~~~~f~ ttiirli AInorry ~~~~~j~~~~~~~~~j~e.s (Ed. B. Yanoov, Jerusafem: Ministry of Interior, 1974), pp. 25 41 (Hebrew); !vI. II. Z:ild, Sociology and commumty organization practice, Orgmrrzing $?r ~ff~~#?~~j~~ Cveijrrrf (Ed. Iv?. N. Zald. Chicago: Quadrangie Books, i967), pp. 27-61.

~~~pi~~~~~~~ ~n~~~r~~~~~~ qf c~~~~~~~i~~ ~~~~gr~~~u~~ When there is disagreement or un~erta~Ilty about both goals and means, as in Box 1, one

has an environment such as that in which the sick person trusts a faith healer, Rev. Martin Luther King’s bus boycott movement emerged, or self-help groups like Alcoholics

Anonymous flourish. Many scientists recognise that this environment is the one in which unhurried community organisation or development process takes place.” It is typical of the integrative mode of community work.

Integrative community work brings the professional planner into inter-relationships with concerned individuals and informal citizen groups. At village, grass-roots, or neighbourhood block club level, he helps relatively powerless human beings organise themselves into a group of peers. He also helps such persons to improve their understanding of the environment and to develop attitudes of trust and collaboration. Developmental and organising activities begin at the group’s level of sophistication and go at a pace comfortable for the group. The purpose is to increase the capacity of a citizen group to recognise issues of urgency to the majority of its members, and to find confidence for beginning to take action about it.

This approach is a form of direct democracy, and should not allow action on an issue before total group agreement, consensus, cohesion, or homogenisation has been reached. tt should be as typical of the government-backed transportation planner looking for citizen involvement as it is of the block organiser in a racially-changing neighbourhood, Black pride advocates in Africa, consultants who advise an agency on improving its administrative practices, Quaker meetings, and was pictured sensitively in A Be~~fur Aduno, T~a~ol~.s~ qf rhe ~uyust Moon, or the activities of “The Ugly American” engineer and his wonderful wife. As in the case history at the beginning of this paper, healthy normal persons who usually find themselves in an indifferent or hostile environment are encouraged to become involved. They become attracted to the group, take increasing pride in being recognised as a member of it, gain familiarity with its evolving values and attitudes, communicate easily, and chose to join in an informal division of labour. This sort of inter-personal growth usually results in an increasing homogeneity of values and behaviour norms.

If there is time to gestate a cohesive group milieu, formerly powerless citizens will feel it is safe to take some risks regarding long-desired changes. They develop increasing capacity for cooperating with each other as well as with like-minded groups. The new confidence and learnings which accompany the process are likely to be cumulative.

Transportation planners who desire citizen participation must also be involved with activities for which there are no pressing deadlines, the activity purposes or goals are initially undefined, and the method of goal-attainment is determined by the participants rather than imposed upon them. When both the goals and the means are uncertain, members of a group require time to get to know and trust each other, to accept some responsibilities voluntarily, and to let a charismatic leader emerge.

Both Boxes 2A and 2B of Table I indicate decision-making environments underlying co- ordination. A coordinating body usually consists of a loose federation of sovereign individual units: e.g. the Republic of the United States of America, a council of social agencies, the chamber of commerce, the general assembly of the United Nations, federation of settlement houses, a city-county council, labour-nlanagement negotiations, inter- national trade or navigation treaties, as well as the merging of two or more agencies. The bringing together of representatives or delegates of each unit into large-meeting and small- committee groupings -that is, the bureaucratisation of the local community’s ‘horizontal’ interactional process -is typical. What was an inter-personal thrust in community integration has become inter-organisational for community coordination.

Since coordination is done among equals, each unit voluntariIy gives up a small amount ofits sovereignty (its power resources) on the understanding that the new cohectivity will be strong enough to attain joint benefits far beyond what any one unit could obtain for itself.

1 t B. Harold Chetkow, Ends and means in community planning, Social Work. 10 (October 1955), 115~ 116; M. G. Ross, Conceptual problems in community organization, Socinl Seruice Review, 30 (June 1956), 174-181; Jack Rothman, Three models of community organization practice, Social Work Practice, 1968 (New York: Columbia University Press), pp. 1647 also Srraregies of Communiry U~~~~i~ur~o~z; A Book ~~Re~~ings (Eds. F. M. Cox er a/. Itasca: Peacock Press, 197(J), pp. 20-36; Harry Specht, Disruptive tactics, Social Work, 14 (April 19693, S-15; Roland L. Warren, Types of purposive social change at the community level, in Readings in Community Organization Practice (Eds. R. M. Kramer and H. Specht, Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1969), pp. 205-225.

Organisations join comnlunity-wide coalitions in order to concert their meagre power, or because they are convinced that there is something of worth in it for them. The basis of such interaction is mutual exchtrnge. ” Social agencies, for example, exchange cases or client- referrals, board-member skills, specific clerical or professional services, funds, equipment, information, etc. with each other regularly. They also set up central functions for the benefit of all agencies within the cooperative agreement. One of the important side-benefits of exchange is an agreement to respect each other’s organisational domains, or an informal division of labour which makes specialisation of function possible.

Box 2A describes the first phase of cooperation the decision-Irlaking environment in which there is agreement about the effectiveness of various available means, but no agreement about goals, among the participating-unit delegates. This is the environment of local politics, business competition, or pressure-group democracy. It is the basis on which the forces of welfare first organised to out-man~~uvre the American Medical Association in getting the United States Congress to give serious consideration to Medicare. When fluoridation is put up for referendum approval by the populace, this environment becomes rife with interfactional conflict. Many social agency executives contend that any City Council, or the United Fund, makes its annual allocation decisions in this type of ‘political’ environment.

Since each beneficiary agency hopes to preserve a .stcrtus qro most favourable to itself, competition is usually on a minimum-risk basis. Thus, a comm~lnit~-wide first meeting of all parties with an interest in solving the problems of poverty will be characterised by complex (though very polite) jockeying for favourable positions, a need for each party to have his unhurried say about his past performance in this arena. If such a process is not made possible, later meetings devoted to ~~roducing a plan of action are likely to be full of rancour and dissenting minority reports.

The environmeI~t of Box 2B constitutes the second phase of coordinative commul~ity work. In it, there is some reluctant general agreement about the end goals everyone can subscribe to, but there is little initial agreement about a specific plan of action (or the effectiveness of various available means). The utilitarian environment accounts for the ,iudgmenrnl (consensus among best available experts) way in which most plan-making is done. Very often the recon~r~endations made by a social planning council or a church federation board of directors have been gestated within such a collaborative environ- ment after months of quiet diplomacy and good-faith negotiating.

Alvin Bertrand has classified three types of cooperation processesi He starts with formal contracts which spell out reciprocal rights and obligations of all parties, and are typical of Grsrllsc*h& societal arrangements. Informal cooperation, as was common to the Cmzt~inschnji days of the early American pioneers, emerges spontaneously, does not carry contractual obligations, and often involves a degree ofenjoyable social life. Symbiotic (where two parties live interdependently for each other’s benefit) or commensural relationships (where one benefits and the other is not harmed) are rather unplanned forms of cooperative activity. Each type depends upon the degree of exchange done among the cooperating parties.

In the case history, both these facets of coordination were conspicuously absent. No mention is made of working together with other City agencies beyond the Urban Renewal Commission; nor did the planners make “cooperative” efforts regarding the Neighborhood

I2 P. R. Ciiuk. An exchange theory of incentives of urban political party organrzation, J. of Voluntar)! Acfiorz Krsearc/z,4 (January April 1975), 104 II S;Sol Levine and P. E. White, Exchangeas aconceptual framework for the study of interorganizatlonal relationships, Atlministraticv Science Q~arlerlv, 5 (March 19611, 583.-601; N. Long. 1nfo;mation and referral services, So&~ Serr%-u Rerirw, 47 (March 19731,.49.G?; Roland L. Warren, Concert& ~~~cisio~-making in the ~onl~~u~~t~, Sociui tV&zre Forurrt, 1965 (New York: Columbia University Press], 117-l 34: Sidney E. Zimb&t, Communrtyequilibrium: a case study in the curtailment of service, Suciai &rt&e R&e&v, 35 {March 19hI ), 5945.

‘3 Alvin Bertrand, Basic SQ~~O~~~~~ (New York: Appfeton-Century-Crofts. 1967). pp. 209- 21 I.

Association or the various sub-committees of its Long-Range Planning Committee. Once the integrative aspects of citizen involvement were completed, all ““exchange” transactions stopped and the planning process turned elitist.14

The coercive envjron~e~i of direct nction When there is near total agreement and/or clarity about both the purposes and the means

(Box 3 of Table I), effective community action is possible. This is the environment in which unified disaster relief takes pIace (for short periods of time) and most plan-implementation is done. This is the way a state highway department runs major thoroughfares into inner-city slums, successful legislative lobbying tries to achieve reforms within the system (e.g. public school desegregation), fluoridation is accomplished through an executive order, or standards are enforced by a licensing body. The strategy of confrontation and strikes - often used by labour unions - is rooted in this decision-making environment.

Goal-setting, no matter who does it for community action, has to be specific, and is the first step in a deliberate attempt to accomplish a task or achieve a desired outcome. community education, the increase in relationships of trust and confidence, the rise of indigenous leaders - if they occur at all - are welcome by-products of a thrust to change outcomes. The good intentions or pedigree of those making the effort may help a project achieve legitimacy, but if clear-cut outcomes are not reached before the deadline agreed upon, the project will be judged a failure.

The structures most, conducive to successful community action are simple and ad hoe. It takes a small group of devotees to get things moving and keep things swinging, but this is possible only as long as they can accept a high degree of centralisation. Without a sustainable sense of crisis or continuing recognition of “the enemy’, such centralisation of authority is likely to be short-lived. The sticking together of strange bedfellows, while the urgency of winning is upon them, tends to create an adhesive situation or a union of unlikes! It is costly to sustain for more than short time-spans.

One of the obvious reasons for participating in synthetic coalitions is the lack of sufficient power to win alone. Most groups which wish to engage in community action are not likely to have amassed a vast supply of expendable power. They must be content with short bursts of expensive activity, learn how to multiply small amounts of power through sophisticated use of leverage principles, or join coalitions (so that everybody’s small amount of power can be added together). According to historical and current observers of the American political scene, such coalitions tend to be sustainable only for short periods of time.

Theoretically, it ought to be possible to have citizen participation within all three kinds of community work. However, citizen participation is grudgingly tolerated only in community integration, It is an elitist activity in coordination-funding, and is usually a sham in community action (if it exists at all). Moreover, even if some willingness exists for citizen participation in the developmental or integrative aspects of community life, we must be alert to the qualitative differences between rural and urban eommunit~~ integration. Unlike the rural process, in the city there is a much greater reliance on professional or expert help. Bureaucratised social services, public committees, and officials who want to be re-elected continue to oppose residents of an urban neighbourhood who want to participate in a process of local development and planning -. even in matters which affect their lives and welfare. I ’

“Susan S. and Norman f. Fdinstein, City planning and political vafues, Urban &&fairs Qt~~rter~.v, 6 (March f971), 341-362; M. Gruber, Policy planning models ., Jourd ~/Educatianfar Social Work, 8 (Autumn 1972), 30-39; Arnold Gurin, Prospects for social planning in Israel, Social Problems in Urban Renewal (Ed. Dan Soren, Ramat Gan: Bar-Ilan University School of Social Work, 1969), pp. l-12; P. Hain, Neighborhood councils: the attitudes of the central authorities, Community Deaelopmmt Jotmai, 11 (January 1976), 2-9; William Peterson, On some meanings of ‘planning’, Journal gfrhe Ammican insrirure qf Plunnrrs, 32 (May 19661, 130--142.

i J M B Clinard, Sttrms and ~~~~~~~~nir~ ~e~le~~p~~~f (New York: Free Press, 1966), pp. 139-165; B. M. Shiffman, New trends in client participation in urban development ., Urh Detwelopment (13th International Conference of Social Work Proceedings, New York: Columbia University Press, 1967). pp. 208-216; also Sower. op. cir., pp. 6 7.

176 ~~~fi~ff~J7j~l C’hriko\r- ~mlim~

SOME GUIDELINES FOR CITY PLANNERS

As a result of this experience, the following guidelines may prove useful in future planning projects involving citizens:

(1) Be certain @the reasousfbr which resident participation is to he encouraged (if, in fact, it is wanted at all). Regardless of their socio-economic background, and with appropriate non-directive staff help, residents can serve such functions as:

-Identify local needs or problem-conditions from their personal experience, or as trained survey interviewers;

-Develop new programmes;

--Serve as advisors or provide feedback for administrative staff;

_. -Represent groups of local citizens in coordinating councils or area-wide co- operative activities;

-Serve on policy boards or committees for plan-making (usually within strictly defined legal limits);

----Help to broaden donor support and bring in the contributions;

----Help to operate a programme as volunteers or paraprofessionals (who know the target population);

-Become committed to a plan or programme sufficiently to be able to take responsibility for convincing their social peers of its soundness; i.e. to give the idea legitimacy. Sometimes this is merely for achieving the acquiescence or cooperation of target populations;

--Use their legal power to veto unrealistic or wasteful action-plans long before precious commurlity resources are wasted;

-Squabble so hard over an attractive symbolic prize, or a tangible amount of outside money, that nothing is decided or done for quite a while.16

In the above case history, planning staff seemed unclear as to why they wanted the neighbourhood’s residents to be partners. They never resolved the dilemma of ‘doing for’ or ‘doing with’. As a result, the residents never became committed to the final approved Plan. Although citizens and residents could have made many contributions, they were encouraged mereiy to identify needs and make suggestions for the development of a new programme. None of the other functions were realised for those neighbourhood persons who participated in the deliberations of the Long-Range Planning Committee. In the residents’ minds, they were exploited by the City’s planners to make it seem as if they had participated. The actual efforts of the planners were therefore not appreciated. Although the residents did make a significant planning input, they themselves never thought so.

(2) Ktzo~ whom to incite into purtic~~at~o~~, so that the project’s purposes are attained efficiently. Some important kinds of residents include:

-Consumers, beneficiaries, or clients of a service;

---Grass-roots, or block-club persons, as individuals;

-.--1nfluentials from the power structure of the establishment;

---Political (elected as well as appointed) officials;

-Management or staff of agencies serving the general public;

--Spokesmen-representatives for particular target groups or ethnic populations;

-------Outside experts or consultants;

-Owners, as well as tenants (who are not to be seen as “second-class” citizens).

“I Citizen groups must stay alert to the possibility that staff deliberately keep them ‘too busy’ to interfere by means of such Machiavelhan tactics.

Citizen Parii~ipat~on in City Planni~ 177

In this case history, most of these types were represented, with the exception of power- structure influentials and political officials (the planning staff had to get official approval from these types of ‘citizen’ once the plan was completed). The fact that highly competent (neighbourhood) residents, some of upper-middle class standing, were confined to the very lowest opportunities for participation - that is, no meaningful transfer of Dower took place

(3)

- led to anger and cynicism after the project was completed. 1

Be prepared to handle disagreements and expected outbreaks of conjlict. Participation means affirmative activity, and a relationship laced with conflict is often preferable to apathy or no relationship at all. Some conflict-management techniques include:

----Appealing to higher authorities (mediation, arbitration, courts);

-Power-play to beat the opposition (confront or overwhelm);

-Reconciliation through unhurried committee process;

-Foot-dragging, boycotting, motion to table;

-Subverting the opposition by co-opting its leaders;

-Offering massive rewards (often symbolic) for conformist behaviour;

-Defaming the character of opposition leaders.’ 7

To expect only consensus reactions, as did the City planners in the case history, is unrealistic. It also interferes with the trust relationships which are essential for any sound partnership with residents.

(4)

(9

Be clear about the decision-rnak~~lg environment within which you must operate, as well as understand its characteristics. Implementation is coercive, coordination is often elitist condescension, and integration-development is not possible when goals are predetermined and deadlines are near. ‘* Coercion that masquerades as a two-month orgy of citizen participation is the kind of sham with which citizen groups are growing increasingly impatient.

If lower-class citizens of the neighbourhood are not joiners or committee-attenders, or have little previous experience in making big decisions, governmental and voluntary agencies may have to invest in teaching them to become board members, and getting them to meetings painlessly. Giving policy-making power to former ‘have nots’, but not preparing them for the task, is to invite a self-fulfilling prophecy of failure. It is also unethical. On the other hand, adequate preparation enables all types of residents to make significant contributions to the planning process.”

SUMMARY

It is well to remember that participation, per se, is no guarantee that action or change will ever come about. On the contrary, participation can be used as a sort of catharsis which drains dissatisfaction out of potentially activist groups. Even if resident participation is done well and sincerely, organised groups of ‘mere’ residents are often no match for entrenched full-time bureaucrats. Most attempts at organising the powerless have failed to improve their

I’ Paul A. Kurzman, The native-settler concept: implications for community organization, Soeiat Work, 14 (July 19691, 58-64; Simon Siavin, Concepts of social conflict, Jour~xd of~d~cffrjonfor Social Work, 5 (Autumn 1969), 47-60; R. E. Walton, Two strategies of social change and their dilemmas, Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 1 (April--June 1967), 167-179; Roland L. Warren and H. H. Hyman, Purposive community change in consensus and dissensus situations, Community Mental Health Journal, 2 (Winter 1966), 2933300; B. Chetkow-Yanoov, Conflict as the dynamics of power in the local community, Social Work Today, 7 (July 1976), 238-240.

‘a See A. Etzioni, Toward an analytic typology, A Comparatioe Analysis of Complex Organizations (New York: Free Press, 19611, pp. 367.

ry M B Chnard, Slums and Co~~~n~ry ~e~e~p~enr (New York: Free Press, 1966), pp. 1666186; F. R. Cousens, * Indigenous leadership: . . participation in two lower-class neighborhood organizations, lnrernational Review of Community Development, pp. 13-14 (1965) pp. 145-154; also R. M. Kramer, Participationof the Poor, pp. 188-200 and 215-238.

lot significantly.” Citizen participation which is to go beyond political slogans is a difficult thing to accomplish, and reyuires much tender loving care.

If professional planners, agency staff. and residents are to work together to produce implementable and humane land-use plans, pianners may have to re-arrange workloads to prevent long lapses in their working relationships with citizen groups. Laymen who feel neglected become suspicious, forget the trust of past partnerships. and lapse into thinking that ail planners are really ‘the enemy’. Frustrated planners see all citizen laymen groups as ungrateful, and the vicious circle continues. Both planning staff and citizens may well benefit from the employment of a sncial planner by the City’s urban planning department2’

Finally, once a new plan becomes official, both citizens and planners have to win support from the many departments of city. regional, and national governments as well as from the community at large. Everybody will have to be vigilant about follow-up and enforceInent, as well as about publicising the improvements which really have come out of the partnership. Lacking such an actual partnership, plan-making deteriorates into another exercise in futility.

TO See Shimon Gottschaik. Citizen participation in the development of new towns. Social Srrricr Rwiw. 45 (June 1971j. 194 204.

‘I N. Gilbert and others, The dialectics of social planning, So&l W’ork. 18 (March 1973),7X-86: S. B. Kamerman. Participation, leadership and expertise: imbalance or in balance? Soriai Srrr~cr RWWN:, 48 (September 1974). 403 411; R. Perlman, Social welfare and physical planning, Journal of Ihe .4mrrican Instirutc qf Platmrrs, 32 (July 1966), 237-141.