ABSTRACT
Participation and community-driven planning were topics of debate after World War II, in light of increasing problems with housing and other issues in cities all over the world. Planning, and the participation of stakeholders in preparing plans, is linked in various ways to the history, culture, and politics of cities, regions, and countries and their regulatory regimes. This chapter focuses on developments in democratic, pluralistic societies. In many of these countries, formal (and therefore guaranteed) opportunities for participation are enshrined in different ways in planning law (Selle 1996). Democratic rule is based on political equality and participation rights—although these are not about participation at the housing and building level, but at district and city level, and about having a say in the planning and design of the built environment. As a rule, it is mostly homeowners, landowners, and businesses that are informed of their rights in the course of planning procedures; the rights of tenants are less sharply delineated (Arnstein 1969). Given the variety of parameters by which participation opportunities may be extended or obstructed, the examples that can be referred to here are cursory. Historically, regional scenarios, governance, problematic structures and neighborhoods, funding programmes, the constellations of stakeholders, and the self-understanding of planners as a professional group have been subject to many changes and diverse ways of participation (Healy 2006).
