Participative Planning Processes in the Absence of the (Public) Space of Democracy

Abstract

This article aims to investigate the role, limits and opportunities of participation programmes in a local political context where consensus-building and inclusionary practices are not high priorities. A public housing neighbourhood in Palermo is used as a case study in order to critically highlight the ambiguous role that participative practices tend to play in fragile contexts. The case study also highlights the need for some preconditions for effective participatory practices in planning. These preconditions are focused on Arendt's notion of the ‘space of democracy’. Some concepts developed by Hannah Arendt will be used to explain the necessity of these preconditions, and their relevance to the political discourses of participatory planning processes will be discussed.

Notes

1. The word ZEN is an acronym for Zona Espansione Nord (North Development Area), which is the ‘name’ of the neighbourhood.

2. We refer to the activity of Danilo Dolci (1959, 1964) in the 1950s and to the so-called Palermo Spring, in the early 1990s, during Mayor Orlando's first term in office.

3. In the national planning law DM 1444/1968, a compulsory guideline for providing a city wide standard of 18 square metres per inhabitant is detailed in the following way: 2.5 square metres for parking; 9 square metres for gardens, sports and leisure facilities; 1.5 square metres for schools; 2 square metres for social, culturals, religious and administrative facilities.

4. For example, the association named ‘Zen Insieme’ (which is ‘Zen Together’) promotes musical activities, art performances and other events in the neighbourhood, involving young people as well as their families (which otherwise are usually reluctant to get involved), in order to develop social actions for all the residents through the active role of the younger generation. Another example is the activity of the associations' kindergartens, run by local women.

5. Ecosfera is a private company of planning professionals and consultants.

6. As reported in Fava (2007, p. 265), Nunzia—one of the residents accepted to be interviewed—believes that ‘coming from’ the ZEN not only means to cross the border of illegality and to be seen as a ‘bad citizen’, but also to cross the threshold of the externally visible economic precariousness, declaring one's own position on the lowest step of the social ladder.

7. After the description of a sequence of case studies in Indonesia, Beard (2003, p. 30) demonstrates how ‘after experiencing success (albeit modest), the tangible improvement of their organizational skills, and increased confidence, residents begin to get a sense of their own agency and become politically conscious’.

8. ‘Three kinds of arguments have been made against the existence of a substantive public interest: it does not exist as a fact, it cannot exist as a holistic interpersonal value, and it should not exist as a privileged substantive value’ (Alexander, 2002, p. 234; see also the literature review in this article).