Making it Count

Public Consultation Becomes Almost Universal in Planning Practice

Public participation has not always been part of urban planning and development. In the more distant past, Imperial Rome or Dynastic China, for example, land-use disposition was either a highly centralized government function or a series of decisions concentrated in the hands of powerful land owning elites. When medieval barons created castle gate market towns, they did not consult the people (Lilley 1998). Neither did Hausmann in 1880s Paris nor Cerda in Barcelona in the 1890s (Ward 2001). As we know only too well, this centrally directed approach to planning continued well into the twentieth century, buttressed by the apparent successes of the great Keynesian public works projects in the 1930s and perhaps habituated by both civil and military planning that accompanied the two world wars in the last century.

All that changed with the well-documented revolt against the so-called urban renewal in the 1960s (Filion, Shipley, and Te 2007). Sparked by the polemical writing of Jane Jacobs but also developed theoretically in the works of Davidoff, Forester, Freidmann and eventually Healey and Innes, planning practice was transformed (Brooks 2002). Genuine and concerted efforts were made to include more of what is called civic engagement, public participation, or consultation (we will use all three terms interchangeably). Derived from the most basic precepts of democracy but perhaps, in North America, drawing more directly from the tradition of the New England town hall meeting and in Europe from Swiss direct democracy, public consultation entered the main stream of planning practice by the 1980s (Bryan 2005; Patten 2001; Roberts 2004). Legislation mandating public consultation is now part of the planning regime in most developed countries and is a requirement for World Bank and other aid in developing countries (Baker, Coaffee, and Sherriff 2007). At the same time, the importance of citizen involvement is also acknowledged in the codes of ethical practice of professional planning associations such as the American Institute of Certified Planners, the Canadian Institute of Planners, and in the practice directives of the Royal Town Planning Institute (AICP 2005, CIP 2004, RTPI 2011).

However, the underlying question remains as to whether we are doing it right. Good intentions alone are not enough. In the generation since it became part of the mainstream, there have been as many critics as there have been champions of consultation, inspiring a relentless pursuit of improvement within the profession. At times, this has involved a critical self-reflection, resulting occasionally in such strongly worded opinions as that of Innes and Booher (2004, 1), who wrote:

The traditional methods of public participation in government decision-making simply do not work. They do not achieve genuine participation in planning or decisions; they do not provide significant information to public officials that makes a difference to their actions; they do not satisfy members of the public that they are being heard; they do not improve the decisions that agencies and public officials make; and they don’t represent a broad spectrum of the public (p. 1).

When Innes and Booher said “traditional methods” they meant approaches that had been developed in the forty years since the 1960s, and while their assessment is perhaps the most critical and unrestrained, there is a general echoing of agreement among researchers with the sentiment of their remarks. King, Feltey, and Susel (1998, 323) boldly assert that “(p)ublic hearings do not work,” while Adams (2004) felt that public meetings do have a role but that they do not give citizens a sense that they are affecting decisions. Walters, Aydelotte, and Miller (2000) and Halvorsen (2003) argued that current participation mechanisms are fundamentally flawed because of a general lack of trust between officials and citizens, an assertion that is further explored by Yang (2005) who also finds that public administrators do not necessarily trust citizens. Some authors, such as Creighton as far back as 1981 argued that officials actually oppose citizen participation because they find it to be more time-consuming, expensive, complicated, and emotionally draining than it is worth. Correspondingly, citizens can become cynical toward government agencies because they fail to perceive an ongoing helpful attitude from city hall (Berman 1997). The discord between these two entities is perhaps highlighted best by the different goals and objectives that each holds (Shipley, Feick, Hall, and Earley 2004). Municipal planners tend to expect broad vision statements and general directions to arise from consultation while citizens expect more specific action-orientated results. Burby’s (2003) study of participation programs in sixty US communities went somewhat against the trend, but such positive findings are few and far between.

Indeed, agreement between the planner and the public is tenuous at best as to what truly constitutes fairness in consultation practice. Suffice to say that in the time since consultation was demanded and subsequently institutionalized in the profession, the waters have been muddied as to the value, the processes, and the products stemming from civic engagement activities. Yet, it is into these murky waters that this research wades, attempting to shed some light on the competing viewpoints of these critics and champions and to highlight the areas where new research is required to resolve the myriad questions around this complex topic.

Participatory Democracy

At its most basic, the concept of public participation is a foundational tenant of the modern idea of democracy. As Patten (2001) says:

A central priority of institutional reform in twenty-first century should be the democratization of state policy-making. In addressing this challenge, I begin from the premise that democratic legitimacy really depends, above all else, on the character and quality of public decision-making. Working through the crux of the democratic challenge requires that we focus on the opening up and democratizing policy formation within the executive branch of government. Moreover we must recognize that this can best be accomplished via a renewed (and transformed) commitment to democratic public consultation and, very importantly, the democratization of those aspects of public administration that facilitate societal input into policy-making. (p. 222)

In her in-depth discussion of the background of public consultation, Roberts (2004) says that “Citizenship participation is the cornerstone of democracy” (p. 315) although the ambivalence toward direct involvement in government may be more of a factor in the United States than elsewhere. Roberts work is perhaps closest to a comprehensive statement of the theory that underlies public participation. In 2006, Hester added to the discussion by linking the basic theory of democracy to the notion of ecology and the need to integrate all aspects of the natural as well as built environment in decision making.

Definition of Citizen Participation

The participation process itself has long been thought of, if not defined as, a series of meetings held at agreed times in which the nature of a problem, the development of solutions, and the plan for implementation can be debated and assented to by stakeholders (Bureau of Municipal Investigation 1974). Some of the earliest formalizing of civic engagement standards in Western democracies began in Canada and the United Kingdom and attempts have been made ever since to define what makes effective participation. Achieving a common definition is crucial, as Tuler and Webler (1999) argue, because the advantages of civic engagement cannot be realized in the absence of specific standards. They offer the list found in Figure 1 as the crucial common elements for effective consultation. We believe that most of the authors of works cited here would be reasonably happy with that list.

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Figure 1.

Normative objectives of consultation participants (Tuler and Webler 1999).

Motivation to Participate

Understanding the normative theories pertaining to the process of public consultation in planning is not a straightforward affair. Any serious discussion of process must begin by looking at both the participants’ motivations for taking part in planning decisions as well as the motivation of civic officials in engaging the public. Such a discussion will undoubtedly recognize that the motivations and understanding of what the consultation process involves is not necessarily the same for these two parties (Arnstein 1969; Tritter and McCallum 2006).

According to Clary and Snyder (2002), a majority of citizens have favorable opinions toward attending civic engagement opportunities but do not always follow their intentions with like behavior. Further complicating matters, those that do show up often represent multiple interests, rather than a single public interest, even when living in the same geographic area (Lee Uyesugi and Shipley, 2005). The choice to attend meetings is also often made under burden from the significant time constraints that are inherent to modern society (King, Feltey, and Susel, 1998). Furthermore, there can be a surprising difference in consultation attendance rates in different countries as Silverman (2006) describes in a study comparing adjacent communities in Canada and United States. He found “that Canadian municipalities adopt a broader range of public participation techniques related to: voluntarism and public engagement, neighborhood and strategic planning, and e-government. In contrast, US municipalities are more likely to promote public participation through mechanisms such as annual community meetings and referendums on public issues” (p. 139). Attendance patterns for other voluntary activities such as religious observance confirm that the choice to participate is made at the margin. It is a decision people make after they have taken care of the essentials in their lives (Iannaccone and Everton 2004).

The question of motivation is further complicated by the fact that organizers may have very different ideas than participants. While civic leaders and their planners often view the participation process as primarily intended to inform the public of what was going to happen or at best ask them to choose among a predetermined set of options, the public often assumes that they will have a more definitive say in the outcome (Shipley et al. 2004).

Participation into Policy

Each stage in the policy development process brings about different levels of expectation and involvement which needs to be communicated. While citizens hold dear the fact that decision makers serve and represent the people, they will infer their own purposes if these are not chosen and adequately expressed. Important policy change most frequently occurs during periods when the attention of the public has been drawn to an issue by a critical event and their input been more actively solicited (Burby 2003). In essence, the current political model holds decisive action in such high regard as to potentially inflate the value of citizen participation as an influence on policy. Some researchers such as Brownill and Carpenter (2007) have explored the challenges and barriers to putting stated policy into practice and the need for innovative approaches to accomplish those goals of civic engagement. In the end, however, most of the writers cited seem to agree with King et al. (1998) that true public participation puts citizens in the middle and not at the periphery, as indicated in Figure 2.

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Figure 2.

Model of conventional versus authentic participation (King et al. 1998).

Fairness

Fairness is a relatively vague concept for which evidence about what citizens perceive to be fair is not always immediately apparent (Lauber and Knuth 1999). While fairness has consistently been found to influence how citizens evaluate consultation procedures, it means different things to different people (Smith and McDonough 2001). “Fairness judgments are made either about the appropriateness of allocation decisions or those of decision processes” (Lauber and Knuth 1999, 20). Those made about the fairness of decisions are described as distributive fairness, while procedural fairness is the term used to describe the fairness of the methods used to make those decisions. Citizens relate fairness for consultation to both meanings of the term. While Thibaut and Walker (1978 as cited in Lauber and Knuth 1999) suggest that perceptions of fairness were related to the degree of influence that a participant had on the arrived outcome, Lind and Tyler (1988 as cited in Lauber and Knuth, 1999) found procedural fairness to be of importance to people as a means for signaling their acceptance within society.

Fair procedures have an additional benefit in that they can ameliorate the negative reactions that would normally result from an unfair outcome (Lauber and Knuth 1999; Smith and McDonough 2001). Though citizens hold correspondingly broad definitions for what is fair and successful, perceptions of fairness uniformly impact their trust for authorities (Smith and McDonough 2001) and their outlook for success (McCool and Guthrie 2001).

In the end, the data suggest that the public holds a unique viewpoint with respect to what they perceive is fair. If citizens “perceive decision-making procedures to be fair, then they are more likely to perceive decisions as fair” (Lauber and Knuth 1999, 20). However, the public just as often reaches the conclusion that “the process must have been fair because it produced a decision that they believed to be fair” (p. 34). In other words, as critical players in consultation activities, the public seems to hold the value of the process and the outcome in equal esteem. This, as Lauber and Knuth (1999, 35) ultimately suggest, leaves room for “[a] more concrete conception of fairness that can contribute to the way that decisions are designed and communicated such that citizens will perceive them more fairly.” The onus should therefore be on the planner/administrator to provide a mechanism to assess the fairness of both the consultation processes and the outcomes.

Advocacy

In 1965, Davidoff coined the term “advocacy planning” and described it as similar to the legal concept, whereby at least two contending viewpoints can be argued. The planner takes on a disposition akin to that of a lawyer and in Davidoff’s version supports the cause for the marginalized or underrepresented group. Often the concept of advocacy planning is referred to as “pluralistic planning” and includes an agenda for policy making. While not many researchers working specifically in the realm of public participation refer directly to the tenets of classic advocacy planning, one often finds Davidoff in the reference list and his influence is strong.

Summary of Theory and Rationale

All told, the theories of participation and the factors that directly influence participation in the consultation processes are numerous and complex. Elected civic officials and municipal staffs both, have a different range of motivations for organizing consultation. There are a myriad of statements about why public participation is sought, but the statement of benefits set out by Involve, a British nongovernmental organization that promotes consultation, is typical:

understanding people’s needs, preferences, and values by talking with them is a way to enhance the effectiveness of decision making and service provision;

Participation of Special Groups

Many organizations attempt public consultation as part of their efforts to resolve conflicts (Smith and McDonough 2001) but fail to take stock of the relative power of each of the groups in the community to make sure that no one party in the process is being exploited or ignored (Piliavin et al. 2002 as cited in Stukas and Dunlap 2002; Gregory, McDaniels, and Fields 2001). Conflict resolution under the collaborative model, for example, relies on equal stature and representation of those stakeholders who are involved in defining and implementing the solution (Gray 1989). However, according to Sager (1994), planners gain authority through their mastery of the subject and their appearance of neutrality over the potential political conflicts. This can place them as the strong actors with a weaker public in an open information exchange system. In such a case, information from the public can be more easily synthesized by the planner to extend his or her influence (Sager 1994).

It is especially troubling to think that citizen engagement, which is often motivated by the goal of community betterment, may in fact represent a subtle method to exert further dominance over the lay position of the public (Stukas and Dunlap 2002). Worse, as Smith and McDonough (2001) and also Yang (2005), conclude it is entirely possible for all rules and regulations of public consultation to be followed in a mechanical fashion and still leave citizens feeling as though they were treated unfairly.

This is especially true when there are particular groups of citizens who need to express their interests and yet are disenfranchised, marginalized, or disadvantaged in some way. Various methods of citizen participation are designed for specific subgroups of the population such as youth (Sirianni 2009; Santo1, Ferguson, and Trippel 2010), seniors, or minorities (Uyesugi and Shipley 2005; Frank 2006) or for particular issues such as an approach to consulting on waste management sites or tenant’s rights (Anderson 2008; Goodlad 1988). There are also people working in places where citizen involvement is so actively suppressed that it calls for special approaches for even marginal engagement (Connelly 2010, Bonafede and Piccolo 2010).

Participant Profiling

The objective of profiling which types of citizens will attend a civic engagement process represents an inexact science at best. It is neither reasonable to assume that people who do not come to meetings do not care about the decision nor is it enough to suggest that those who come must have a vested interest in the outcome (McMillan and Murgatroyd 1994). Participation may be related to socioeconomic factors as Silverman (2006) found with the residents of central cities in the areas of Canada and the United States he studied. It is also conceivable that some citizens will participate who do not have a level of education for the issue at stake commensurate with their passion for a particular outcome. In these cases, the education gap must be made up by the administrators as part of the process (Chipeniuk 1999).

Multiple Consultation Techniques

There is a common observation in consultation literature that the manner of public involvement affects the degree of public satisfaction apart from the outcome of the decision (Burroughs, 1999). Walters, Aydelotte, and Miller (2000) state that “to be fully effective, decision-makers must appropriately tie the selected strategy to both the purpose for participation and the nature of the issue considered” (p. 351).

Accordingly, Thomas (1995) recommends more participation when the acceptance of a decision is important and less public participation when the quality of a decision is the determining factor. Though no mention is made of the effort required, Berman (1997, 108) finds that “using a range of strategies is significantly associated with lower rates of cynicism.”

The notion that there are many different ways in which one can design a public participation program is also inherent in Arnstien’s analysis and is the very basis for the IAP2’s Participation Spectrum, both of which will be discussed in the following section on Analysis and Evaluation of civic engagement. In fact, it was largely in response to Arnstein’s insights that many practitioners developed varying methods for community involvement in planning, as witnessed by the fact that it is rare to find articles written after Arnstein that do not make reference to her. In some cases, these approaches were touted as one size fits all techniques that were supposed to revolutionize planning practice. Of visioning, one of the techniques offered, a writer said that it was “a new—and proven—tool for broadening citizen participation and thus winning new constituents for planning” (Klein, Benson, Andersen, and Herr 1993, 10). Other approaches were not intended for use in every situation but were specifically tailored for the needs of one or other of the levels on Arnstein’s “ladder.” For example, the citizen jury approach is a way of managing situations where genuine decision-making power is delegated to citizens (Kenyon 2005). Yet other methods are designed for specific subgroups of the population such as youth and children (Knowles-Yánez 2005; Frank 2006) or particular issues such as Anderson’s (1986) approach to consulting on waste management sites (see above).

Public Meetings

The simplest and perhaps oldest form of public consultation is the public meeting. In some regulations, such as Ontario’s Planning Act, a single meeting is all that is required before the adoption of an Official Plan, although a much more involved procedure is typically followed (Ontario Planning Act, 2004). Not surprisingly, the European Union (EU) is at the other end of the scale with quite explicit directives concerning public consultation. An EU implementation document pertaining to Planning Policy Guidance 12 in the United Kingdom sets out the following principles:

Consult widely throughout the process, allowing a minimum of twelve weeks for written consultation at least once during the development of the policy.

Citizen Juries

Concern over the failures of consultation methods, and the subsequent international responses by researchers, practitioners, and scholars to address those failures, is exemplified in the so-called citizen jury approach. Already in the 1970s, people working independently in the United States and in Germany developed a similar system. They were responding to observations that

lack of representativeness of the participants is a real shortcoming of those programs which appear to be more successful,

By the 1990s, the use of this system had spread to the United Kingdom and other countries as far apart as Brazil and Australia (Kenyon 2005). There remains an emphasis on soliciting jurors’ involvement through recruitment rather than selecting from among volunteers. Research into the effectiveness of citizen juries showed some notable successes, some limitations, and in the end, some who looked closely at the approach recommended caution in its use (Kenyon 2005).

Focus Groups

Focus groups are a consultation method designed to illuminate citizen perceptions that may have eluded other survey techniques (Vogt, King, and King 2004; Waterton and Wynne 1999). At their most effective, focus groups generate qualitative data that complements the current knowledge base on most subjects (Vogt, King, and King 2004). Typically, a focus group engages four to twelve participants (Greenbaum 1993; Morgan 1997; Simon 1999; Stewart and Shamdasani 1990) in a discussion of relevant planning topics at a neutral location. The participants are sometimes recruited on the basis of social and geographic homogeneity to avoid the creation of an informal hierarchy within the group that would exclude participation from certain members (Morgan 1997; Simon 1999; Stewart and Shamdasani 1990). Topics and questions in a focus group are generally sequenced from the general to the more specific and with a certain degree of flexibility provided to the facilitator (Greenbaum 1993; Simon 1999; Stewart and Shamdasani 1990). Sessions normally run over a two-hour period and the format is designed to encourage the flow and debate of ideas (Simon 1999).

Researchers provide contrasting evaluations of focus groups as a consultative device. Innes and Booher (2004) are encouraged by the manner in which these sessions engage partakers directly in conversation with each other and with decision makers. While Vogt, King, and King (2004) concede that focus groups may not always be appropriate for personal topics; they do suggest that the group pressures inherent to this format generally inhibit members from providing misleading information. By contrast, Hollander (2004) suggests that the pressures of conformity, groupthink, and social desirability can combine to alter the viewpoints and statements of many participants.

Scenario Workshops

According to Street (1997), “scenario workshops are basically meetings that involve discussions among a range of local actors, with the aim of developing visions and proposals for technological needs and possibilities in the future” (p. 145). Scenario workshops do seem to have some features that differ from visioning, which will be discussed below, even though the word “vision” appears in this definition. For one thing, a set of scenarios is developed and although social and organizational matters are admitted, the emphasis seems to be on addressing technical problems. The technique seems to be popular in Europe but has little or no currency in North America.

Another distinctive aspect concerns the selection of participants, which in the scenario workshop model involves a screening process by which appropriate government and nongovernment agencies suggest and then cross verify a group of stakeholders (Hartzilacou et al. 2007). Practical considerations pertaining to time and funding tend to limit the exercises to a few groups of eight to ten participants who deliberate on the current conditions and the potential solutions. The implications of this concept at a practical level are substantial. Methods that combine public participation with decision-making capacities are increasingly in demand, especially as related to regional and other planning scenarios that involve multiple and conflicting users (Kallis et al. 2006). This may explain the use of scenario workshops to deal with such issues as water resource management.

Visioning

While there was virtually no mention of visioning prior to 1990, several manuals explaining how to conduct vision exercises appeared after that time (Oregon 1993; Okubo 1997). Over the last twenty years, community visions became a common method to engage citizens in the creation of collective plans and policies for the future of a particular geographic area. Shipley and Newkirk (1999) found numerous definitions for the term. The most commonly accepted characteristic of visioning is that it employs directed imagery to create pictures of the desired future and then develops a set of values for use as decision criteria in subsequent planning decisions intended to bring about those desired outcomes (Shipley 2002).

Visioning often attempts to involve the entire population (Uyesugi and Shipley 2005; Oregon 1993; Okubo 1997), but it is not necessarily limited to the community level and has been used in a national and international context in Europe since the late 1990s (Nadin 2002). Parallels can be found between visioning and collaborative planning and consensus-building formats in the fact that “the vision usually becomes a treaty negotiated among rival coalitions” (Bryson 1995, 155 as cited in Helling 1998). Planners and politicians throughout the 1990s perceived visioning as an opportunity to create a stronger civic will and viewed it as a break from a tradition of decision making by the elite (Helling 1998), even though its novelty may in fact be questionable and its theoretical basis dubious (Shipley 2002).

In the end, there is some evidence that this technique involves a greater cross section and quantity of participants (Shipley 2002; Uyesugi and Shipley 2005).

Collaboration

“Collaboration is a process through which parties who see different aspects of a problem can constructively explore their differences and search for solutions that go beyond their own limited vision of what is possible” (Gray 1989, 5). Collaboration is designed to resolve multiparty conflicts by transforming adversarial behavior into a mutual search for information and solutions. Increasing awareness of these interdependent positions paradoxically renews the willingness to search for mutual benefits (Gray 1989) and sharing information positively affects the motivation to participate (Austin 2000; Burroughs 1999; Healey 1998). This trait is crucial, argues Burroughs (1999, 801), because “each stakeholder enters the fray with different assumptions held with varying degrees of importance and uncertainty.”

There is an implicit assumption in collaboration that only those parties, or representatives of those parties, who have a vested interest in the problem will attend and thereby be termed as stakeholders. This runs contrary to the conclusion reached by McMillan and Murgatroyd (1994), and yet collaboration is rooted in the same town hall meeting concept that is the cornerstone of participatory democracy (Gray 1989).

Some research has pointed to the successes of particular collaboration exercises including Gunton, Peter, and Day (2007), Elbanna (2008), and Mitchell (2005). However, as successful as collaboration may prove, London (1995) warns that there are a number of limitations to its potential, including the fact that:

collaboration is a notoriously time-consuming process and is not suitable for problems that require quick and decisive action,

Consensus Building

Consensus building is a consultation method designed to resemble the model of communicative rationality explored by Innes ([1996] 2006). As with focus groups, it is a means of group deliberation that brings people together for interactive discussion. But unlike focus groups, a significant range of individuals are chosen to participate because they represent differing stakes in a problem. Diverse viewpoints are essential to this technique as they represent conduits that approximate the overall public interest. Messy situations require consensus building (McCool and Guthrie 2001) as this method represents the most direct means of understanding the cause and effect relationships from the outcome. Theoretically, this also enables the best alternative to be reached. Participants tend to be partial to this format as well because of the opportunity that it provides to learn from others with both similar and dissimilar viewpoints (Halvorsen 2003; McCool and Guthrie 2001).

Wed-Based Techniques, Computer Approaches, and Social Media

With the ever increasing availability and user friendliness of Web-based and computer systems, many practitioners have drawn on these techniques to facilitate civic interaction. In the early 1990s, Padgett (1993) began to explore using the outputs of geographic information system as an inexpensive way of soliciting “a balanced, objective input from citizen laypersons, municipal officials and technical experts,” in the fast growing cities of the American South (p. 513). Interest in the use of the Internet and computers increased through the 1990s, with growing sophistication (Macpherson 1999). Two distinct paths evolved. One used computer technology for simulation (Ben-Joseph et al. 2001; Hollander and Thomas 2009) or visualization of spaces being planned (Al-Kodmany 2000; Noveck 2006; Gordon 2008). The latter author explained the immersive, interactive technology, where participants could visualize and change elements, in this way:

Civic engagement, as we understand it, is more than just voting in elections and offering input on whether or not a new park should be located in a community. Instead of being asked a yes-or-no question about the location of a park, communities should be able to discuss the benefits of open space and the variable functions of fields, playgrounds, art spaces, and so on. Public deliberation should happen at all levels of decision making, from conception to approval. (Gordon 2008, 217–8)

Summary of Approaches to Conducting Consultation and Facilitating Participation

The emphasis of academics on scenario workshops, consensus building, focus groups, visioning, citizen juries, and collaboration as consultation methods of choice is interesting, not only for its inherent postulation that changes to process can improve overall effectiveness but also for the common characteristics they present. Each of these methods anticipates that participants will come from different positions and with different expectations and work together toward a common solution or goal. Each represents a much more interactive exercise than the traditional model presented in Figure 2 and espouses objectives further along the continuum shown in Figure 3 than many of the other available methods.

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Figure 3.

The ladder of citizen participation (Arnstein 1969).

While there is ample recognition in the academic literature that there are multiple potential methods for conducting public participation, two facts remain. The first is that a good deal of the theoretical writing does not make a distinction among methods, inferring in some ways that consultation is a single entity rather than a broad range of techniques. The second point is that much of what is written about consultation methods is descriptive, even promotional and not analytical or evaluative.

Origins of the Practice

The chronology of ideas marking the evolving definition of standards for effective consultation is interesting to follow. In response to a sense that neighborhoods were entering into the political arena with noisy consequences, a conference on public participation was organized in Toronto in the early 1970s (Frisken and Homenuck 1972). The meeting was open to planners, politicians, and the public and, if not the first of its kind, it was certainly one of the earliest. There Frisken and Homenuck (1972, 1) presented the notion that “much of the current citizen participation thrust revolves around community planning—the process by which the residents develop a sense of community and a measure of control over their local environment.” Several conference speakers noted concern over the impact that direct civic input would have on the expression of majority will. In spite of the great reform victory in Toronto’s municipal elections of 1972 (Sewell 1993), the Bureau of Municipal Research (1974) took the same position that citizen participation was “a component of the democratic system which permits non-elected members of the community to exercise some control over decision-making which goes beyond elections” (p. 10).

However, it was not until after the formalization of consultation in planning legislation in 1983 in Ontario, the province where Toronto is located, that a discernable change can be seen in the approach to define consultation. Planners “took to the streets,” engaging the public through a number of techniques, slowly shifting their reliance on standard public meetings and open houses to more interactive methods such as focus groups and workshops during the period from 1991 to 2006 (Utz 2007). Yet, it was not until a 1997 Supreme Court of Canada decision in British Columbia, another Canadian province, that it was established in law that any applicable definition of consultation must indicate a minimum threshold for engagement that is universally consistent, flexible, and workable (Lindsay and Smith 2001). What is different about that decision was the effect of law on provincial policy. In essence, it gave consultation teeth by making it a factor for the courts to determine whether the government has accorded sufficient priority to the interests at hand. At a minimum, it requires governments to conduct consultation in good faith and to substantially address relevant concerns (Sharvit et al. 1999 as cited in Lindsay and Smith 2001). The transition from informal to legislated public consultation was experienced in other jurisdiction as well and there is a growing discussion of what participation means in law (Ellis 2004).

This was the experience in Canada but similar progressions of events, conferences, court decisions, and legislation unfolded in other countries, and these are described by researchers in those places: Booth (1996) in the United Kingdom and Roberts (2004) in the United States.

Power Distribution

Arnstein’s (1969) seminal contribution to the study of participation recognized the potential mismatch that was almost bound to occur between the needs of the professional planners in initiating consultation processes and the aspirations of those members of the public who participate. Implicit in the range of possibilities from merely informing the public to legitimate partnership or even control of decision making are the escalating degrees of power sharing found in ladder of citizen participation found in Figure 4. It is Arnstein’s ladder that inspired the IAP2’s Public Participation spectrum (Figure 3), and a version adapted by Guaraldo Choguill (1996) to better describe the situation in developing countries as shown in Figure 5.

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Figure 4.

The participation ladder redrawn to apply to developing countries (from Guaraldo Choguill 1996).

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Figure 5.

Relationship between consultation techniques and levels of impact (Adapted from the International Association for Public Participation 2005).

Arnstein’s model not only recognized the progression from token or manipulated participation to partnership or even delegation of power but advocated the redistribution of decision making to underprivileged citizens. It is this latter element that appears central to the public’s motivation to participate (Halvorsen 2003; Helling 1998; Kathlene and Martin 1991). Virtually all research reviewed has suggested that citizens are more likely to contribute if they perceive that their input will have an influence on the outcome.

Yet even here there are opposing viewpoints. Tritter and McCallum (2006) in their work offered a critique of the classic Arnstein model suggesting that because it focused solely on power relationships in the civic engagement process, it left out other equally important aspects. They point to the intrinsic value of participation; the simple fact that there is value just in the act of contributing. They also point out that many citizens recognize that they possess different levels of knowledge and expertise and are more satisfied with the process than the impression left by the vocal minority.

Connecting Theory to Practice

A number of writers have grappled with the connection between the reasonably well-developed theories about public participation and the actual practice. Yang (2005), for example, suggests that trust is the missing link in the process. Roberts (2004) feels that practitioners do not possess the complex knowledge of the theory of participation necessary to properly conduct such work. This connecting of theory to practice is perhaps one of the areas which require much more research although others have attempted to deal with the challenge through work on process evaluation. In the practical world, political bodies are often content to learn that consultation has taken place and both the planner and the politician lack a tool to assess the value of the consultation processes employed; something identified by the research presented in this section.

Opportunity Costs

As discussed under the earlier section “Motivation to Participate,” consultation can be viewed, in one dimension at least, as a basic commodity whose trends have been shaped by market economics and for which time is the principal cost. As alternatives become more numerous and more attractive, the opportunity cost of attending a public participation session increases, thus decreasing attendance itself (Iannaccone and Everton 2004). On the other hand, as product enhancements and the associated benefits of attendance are augmented, an increase can similarly be seen in attendance rates. This is why focus group participants and citizen jury members are often paid or offered some material rewards such as gift certificates (Vogt, King, and King 2004; Waterton and Wynne 1999; Crosby, Kelly, and Schaefer 1986; Renn, Webler, and Wiedemann 1995; Sexton 1999).

But participation in decision making is more than just a simple commodity. In many ways, it is seen by both participants and practitioners as a rational investment of time aimed at producing positive and visible outcomes (King et al. 1998; McMillan and Murgatroyd 1994). In spite of such consultation benefits, the inclination against increasing participation opportunities or providing further enhancements has been a factor since the early appearance of the practice (Irvin and Stansbury 2004).

In part, this is because consultation can be a relatively expensive proposition. Analyses of civic engagement expenditures from the late 1990s identify a cost of $175 per hour of tangible consultation (Helling 1998; Kathlene and Martin 1991). Approximately one-third of that figure came from the opportunity costs of participating (Helling 1998); implying that cost and value are inexorably linked to both the decision to participate and the process by which the public input is solicited. The effects of these escalating costs for both parties have not escaped the notice of researchers (Irvin and Stansbury 2004). As early as 1994, McMillan and Murgatroyd noted that though desirable, consultation is not always convenient, as it can be difficult and expensive to contact all people affected by a decision and obtain their committed participation. Clary and Snyder (2002) confirm that a commitment to participate is unlikely to be realized if the experience seems trivial, insignificant, and/or fails to impact the community.

Evaluating Participation

Since 1968, when some of the earliest formalizing of civic engagement standards in Western democracies began in the United Kingdom (Booth 1996; Pilliard 1986), attempts have been made to evaluate the effectiveness of public consultation. There is fairly wide agreement among researchers that effective participation is that which is real or authentic. In the words of King et al. (1998, 320) “participation that is deep and offers continuous involvement with the potential for all involved to have an effect on the situation and have a degree of comfort with the arrived decision.” In their model presented in Figure 2, citizens are placed next to the issue, while the administrators remain as the bridge between them and the political processes, “authentic participation [thus] requires that administrators focus on both process and outcome” (King et al. 1998, 320).

The previous sentence is a neat summary of the thirty-year trend in consultation. In particular, it demonstrates that knowledge building and legislative frameworks can produce sufficient familiarity with consultation among the applicable players so as to actually change the scope of the debate from the merits of consultation in general to the aim of reaching milestones for both process and outcome. Many other researchers have joined in the effort to assist in the improvement of consultation practice by carefully examining effectiveness of various approaches and this trend has strengthened in recent years.

Outcomes

Some people might look at the various approaches to public participation that have been proposed and suggest that they are not in fact separate and distinct methods but simply variations on the same theme. Indeed it appears as if some theorists regard public consultation as in some ways a single entity. Some might even see some of the variations as “old wine in new bottles” as Kaufman and Jacobs (1987) called it, or just the marketing ploys of facilitators for hire. Here, the position of IAP2 becomes germane to the discussion.

Though clearly not an entirely unbiased opinion, the fact that they should advocate different methods for various purposes and circumstances carries great weight for the conclusion that there are relevant distinctions between the entries on their list of consultation techniques. Furthermore, the fact that these techniques can be placed against Arnstein’s power-sharing ladder jives with the common understanding that different outcomes come about from different methods.

Administrative Skills

Researchers agree that certain skills are required of planners and public administrators to produce effective consultation (Michaels, Mason, and Solecki 2001). Interpersonal skills, including communication, listening, team building, meeting facilitation, and self-knowledge are among the requirements, according to King et al. (1998). Innes ([1996] 2006) finds that planners who exhibit the skills to conduct various kinds of civic engagement processes have substantial legitimacy among consultation participants and are respected for their contributions, even when the participants have criticisms.

The IAP2, among others, has picked up on the concept that there are many ways to conduct public participation and recommend a series of devices based on the desired objective as shown in Figure 3. The levels of public involvement identified by the IAP2 are based on Arnstein’s ladder of participation which was discussed above.

Eventually, a decision must be made as to which consultation technique or combination will be used. As we have seen there is no shortage of techniques from which to choose. Of these, much has been written on meetings, focus groups, scenario workshops, consensus building, visioning, collaboration, citizen juries, and collaborative problem solving. Each of these particular approaches has been outlined above and the research relating to their functioning and effectiveness briefly reviewed. It should be pointed out here that we have limited ourselves to the techniques that involve actual face-to-face interaction between planners and citizens as distinct from information gathering methods such as surveys, polls, and other less personal approaches that are legitimate aspects of consultation but are not, strictly speaking, participative.

Interrelationship of Government Agencies

Some public officials have long opposed citizen participation because it was thought to be time-consuming, expensive, complicated, and emotionally draining. Similarly, citizens become cynical toward government agencies because they fail to perceive an ongoing helpful attitude from city hall. The discord between these two bodies is highlighted by the different goals and objectives that each hold.

Research shows that public participation is of greater use to administrators and participants who actively seek more interactive forums, and that such action eventually increases the legitimacy of the plans in the minds of stakeholders (Duram and Brown 1999). Unfortunately, policy decisions imply a distribution of limited resources, creating winners and losers (OECD 1997). Thus, any true evaluation of a consultation method or exercise must be conducted based on its ability to position governments to arrive at fair and appropriate decisions while effectively communicating the rationale for their judgments.

Planning Education

For consultation regarding land-use planning issues such as the development of official or structural plans, transportation policy issues, or the locating of facilities, it is usually a public sector planner who ends up with the important role in assembling and facilitating information flow as part of education and outreach programs and for exchanging ideas between organizations. This conventional model for participation places the planner as the administrative and technical expert charged also with selecting the appropriate consultative process (Kathlene and Martin 1991; King et al. 1998). In other models, the selection onus is switched and/or more equitably distributed (Arnstein 1969; King et al. 1998; Walters, Aydelotte, and Miller 2000), but most often it falls to planners to decide on what kind of a public consultation will happen. However, in terms of their education most planners tend to be dramatically underprepared for this task (Michaels, Mason, and Solecki 2001).

A quick survey of five of the top-rated planning programs in the United States revealed that only two, University of California (Berkeley) and Rutgers, offered courses in how to conduct public consultation (Planetizen 2010). Only one such course is known to be offered in Canada at the University of Waterloo. It is no doubt in the case that many good university programs introduce students to participation techniques through studio and other courses but the lack of dedicated course on public engagement indicates that it is considered peripheral in nature. In the absence of formal training in consultation, a professional association, the International Association for Participation in Planning (IAP2) was formed a number of years ago and provides a wide variety of courses and training sessions to assist practitioners to improve their consultation practice. This training, however, tends to be delivered by other practitioners while, with few exceptions, there have not been efforts made in the academic community to develop teaching approaches or strategies or to study the effectiveness of academic training.

Process Cynicism

Paradoxically, simple encouragement to participate more or assume a greater share of power distribution may increase involvement in the short term but seems to reduce the longer-term motivation to be involved (Clary and Snyder 2002). Citizens often become fatigued by repeated public input opportunities or demands (McMillan and Murgatroyd 1994; Beebeejaun and Vanderhoven 2010), and frustrated when, under the guise of having already been consulted, they find themselves denied the privilege of more extreme forms of outcry, such as protests and boycotts, methods made more socially acceptable by the presence of a greater power imbalance (Sager 1994; Bickerstaff and Walker 2005).

Methods are required by which participation formats can be evaluated for their ability to achieve effective consultation. Despite the importance of evaluating outcomes, most studies have only sought to appraise the processes. Failing to monitor the longer term appears to be part of the reason why Bickerstaff and Walker (2005) found that participation is not having a substantive affect on policy process and decision outcomes throughout Europe. Shipley et al. (2004) came to a similar conclusion in a Canadian study where almost 40 percent of those questioned after participating believe that their contribution would have little or very little impact on the final decision. Further, they warn that the point may have already been reached where the negative aspects of consultation so augment the opportunity costs of attending as to dissuade community members from engaging in the process.

Increase in Trust

Some argue that current participation mechanisms are fundamentally flawed because of a general lack of trust between officials and citizens, an assertion that is further explored in the readings also finds that public administrators do not necessarily trust citizens (Berman 1997; Bloomfield et al. 2001). Though citizens hold correspondingly broad definitions for what is fair and successful, perceptions of fairness uniformly impact their trust for authorities and their outlook for success.

Summary of Analysis and Evaluation of Participation

Our review of the subcategories of research that attempt to analyze civic engagement shows that consultation outcomes can be evaluated by a selection of criteria that relate back to the theories and in the search for efficiency improvements (Bickerstaff and Walker 2005; Connick and Innes 2003; Helling 1998; Kathlene and Martin 1991). The questions that appear to be most often asked are:

Are people better informed about projects and their impacts as a result of the public participation activity?

Mapping the Literature on Public Participation or Consultation

A number of key points can be observed from the breakdown of the literature provided in Figure 6A and B. The map highlights the split between those authors who primarily consider civic engagement in theoretical terms, those who have looked at specific participation techniques, and those who have attempted some form of evaluation of the effectiveness of consultation. There are, however, works with research findings that are applicable across these divides as well as some key points where they overlap.

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Figure 6.

A, The research on civic engagement has been categorized into its three main themes with the subcategories arranged to suggest how they relate to one another. B, Grouping of references relating to the various consultation literature subcategories.

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Figure 6a.

Grouping of References Relating to the Various Consultation Literature Sub-Categories (see Figure 6)

While we have configured our literature map to divide the research into three main themes and have placed the subcategories vertically, there may be quite different ways to view the literature, even if we maintain the categorization. Figure 7 suggests a configuration of the literature map that reflects more of the flow of ideas as they developed than an analytical organization of the categories. Others may usefully organize the work in still different ways. We would contend, however, that the themes and subcategories presented here will accommodate the vast majority of the scholarship on the subject of civic engagement.

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Figure 7.

Literature map that reflects more of the flow of ideas as they developed than an analytical organization of the categories.

Gaps and Future Research Directions

The investigation of writing in the field of planning consultation has uncovered much in terms of the breadth of knowledge, as well as specific, subtopic emphases. However, though not specifically stated, collectively, the cited authors have made certain assumptions that are worth noting here.

For instance, the authors have assumed that, all other things being equal, all citizens are willing to participate in consultation and that implies that the decision-making format should be made more conducive to participation. Second, an assumption is made that a high degree of participation, or at least representation, is possible. Shipley (2002) suggests that such an assumption might be seriously questioned. Alarmingly, some models such as collaboration and consensus building depend on this trait. Finally, most of the literature investigated fails to delineate a geographic boundary for the concepts that they describe. It is generally left undefined as to whether these approaches will work best at the neighborhood, city, or regional scale, let along at a national level. Such assumptions, as made by many authors, are crucially important because, as Brownill and Parker (2010, 281) point out, “participation is not always desirable in practice unless certain key considerations have been recognized.”

Beyond these key assumptions, not all literature is based on research gathered and analyzed in the same fashion. Significant emphasis has been placed on qualitative research methods and means of analysis, especially in the past fifteen years. Very few studies have tried to quantify factors influencing consultation, the relationship between outcomes and consultation formats or even evaluative scores from current efforts. This lack of quantitative analysis represents one of several key knowledge gaps.

Stemming from the assumptions implicit to the literary works investigated, five items remain unknown and warrant researching:

Final Analysis

From the beginning, this article has set out to uncover, through systematic research of relevant planning materials from the last twenty years, the theory and rationale for public consultation, the approaches to conducting public consultation, and the means for analyzing and evaluating consultation techniques.

Overall, the analysis of the literature leads these authors to believe that while there may be some divergent viewpoints on some subjects, it can be generally held that:

The institutionalization of public participation in planning over the last forty years is a logical extension of the principles of participatory democracy and therefore worthy of the relentless pursuit of perfection that has been sought by academics and practitioners alike.