Public Knowledge of and Involvement with Metropolitan and Local Strategic Planning in Australia

ABSTRACT

Despite academic and practitioner debate surrounding public involvement in planning, little is actually known about the extent to which the public is aware of the planning process. The focus of this paper is the examination of the underlying, latent public knowledge of the planning system in Australia. This latent knowledge (or more accurately, the absence of this knowledge) emerges as a barrier to public involvement. This paper examines public perceptions of the importance of metropolitan and local strategic plans, knowledge of these plans, the main sources of this knowledge, and the extent to which the public is likely to become involved with strategic planning process. The paper concludes that despite large segments of the population viewing strategic planning as important, only a small proportion is actually aware of the plans themselves, while an even smaller proportion is likely to become involved in the planning process.

KEYWORDS:

• Metropolitan planning
• local planning
• public knowledge
• participation
• Australia

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. https://www.greater.sydney/what-youve-said (accessed July 2017).

2. Research Now (www.researchnow.com).

3. Based on 2016 Australian population (23,401,892) the sample provides 95% confidence level, with a confidence interval of 1.54% at the 50 percentile.