Iiris Tukiainen, MSc Department of Geography University of Turku Research plan for PhD

15.1.2002

URBAN ENVIRONMENT, THE COMMUNITY AND IMAGES OF URBAN PUBLIC PARTICIPATION Evaluation of the dynamics of the public participative land use planning Keywords: communicative planning theory, participative planning, land use planning, human geography, citizen, social sustainability, urban studies, area, planning information, social city, local community, urban environment, space, “osallisuus”

Introduction: Changing urban environment Most of the well known cities are famous because of the certain physical environment. Better urban environment and attractive image of the city has been set as a goal for many cities. The differentiation of urban space has increased in a purpose to have better environment. At the same time stronger spatial and social identity is wanted and fostered like urban redevelopment processes. Redevelopment of city centers, planning new housing areas or the preservation of the cultural historical environments proves this too(Virtanen, 1999). Planning processes take always time -no matter how simple they are. The impacts of planning in the communities last decades or even longer and therefore the solutions need to be widely accepted. Development of complex urban areas need more careful planning in the 20th century. My research proposal will discuss how public planning can offer more open discussion and how planning should be carried out in urban areas. Urban environment, the community and images of urban public participation will be studied from the human geographers perspective. Structure of the study

In the first part of my doctoral thesis there will be discussion about the urban environment in the context of land use planning. Theoretical frame setting will be done by deep understanding and combination of urban theories and communication theories. Assumptions to urban participative landuse planning from the evaluation point of view will be also given at the end of the first part. These four views link my earlier understanding about the topic- like conclusion in my masters thesis- to the doctoral thesis problematics. Aims of the research will be discussed related to urban studies. The second part of my doctoral thesis will be empirical based on case studies. Three finnish land use planning case studies will be studied as examples on communicative land use planning after new land use and planning law 2000. The focus is on evaluating the participative land use processes in small communities. The third part consists of critical discussion on different aspects about the topic – urban environment, the community and the participative land use planning. Participation critics is given by the perspective of human geography. Themes discussed for example are: What are the relations between the participation and the urban environment? Can area be understood in a new way because of the participation ? How has ability to participate changed the way to be a citizen ? What is social sustainability in the context of land use planning? What impacts has the public media to increasing ability to participate ? Background: Is communication theory enough? The concept of public participation in the land use planning means the concensus building in order to have better environment. The new theoretical direction in order to develop planning communicative planning. The turn of the communication in planning (e.g. Habermas, Healey, Forester and Lapintie) means that a communication is understood as a method to solve the planning problems in an interaction with participants and the quality of the planning will arise by the means of communication (Healey, 1995, Sotarauta, 1996). According to Habermas the communication action theory opens an insight to new society, where all the conflicts are solved by communication between the subjects. Habermas agrees that pluralism is basic factor of the society and therefore there have to be communication between the interests and actors. In the context of land use planning citizens are taken into planning processes and they are

given possibilities to participate(Koskiaho,1990 and 1997). Forester(1989) highlights that the communicative planning is seen as a matter of power relations where speech and argumentation in the context of practical communication has to be estimated critically. Forester agrees that citizens need to be taken better into the consideration and therefore planners should play a role as a facilitator between competing interests. Focus in communication theory lies in arenas and forums available for wider discussion between participants. The information received from arenas and forums widens the knowledgebase of planning and gives new perspectives and possibilities if the information is taken into the consideration. Communication theory is criticised because it is only able to start dialogue between the participants.(Pakarinen, 1992) Participative processes can also have lack of quality if there is too much trust on the communication but there is no leader of the process or there is too much social interaction (Sotarauta, 1997, 296). Assumptions about the theme In my Masters thesis(1998) I was studying the concept of participation to land use planning and my research task was to explain how communicative planning fosters citizens’ involvement to the planning of the Council of Metropolitan Area, Helsinki case Future plan 2020. I found it necessary to look the theme two sided, first what role do the area play in the participative planning and second how do citizens speak about their future and how relevant this “future speech” is as regional information. Citizen view was needed to enrich the information for Metropolitan area future plan end therefore two forums –the internet-discussion-forum and eight future workshops were used. Participants were individuals in internet-discussions, but in workshops most of the participants were members of organisations like resident or environment organisations. However future aspect was weak and was found hard for participants. Anyhow the common understanding about the future was quite similar, and that can be understood as consensus among participants. The Future Plan 2020-project year 1997 was a pilot-project in many ways because in Finland there has been no earlier experience in regional level participative planning before and a little experience in local level participative planning. Citizen involvement was more qualitative than quantitative and describing the whole process, all problems and opportunities discussed could be connected to

the whole Metropolitan area. Experiences from this case are that a spatial area can foster citizen involvement if there is something common to deal with. (Tukiainen, 1998) Here are some assumptions in the form of four views I have made when thinking the problem setting around urban participative land use planning from the evaluation point of view. Views 1 and 2 deal with images of participation and views 3 and deal with urban environment and identity. 1. View of planning organisations and governance Better understanding on the legitimisation of the participation as a planning tool. Planning organisations need to be aware about their participation strategies and follow them. 2. View of civil society Better understanding of civil society and new ways how to participate. Participants(planners, organizations, citizen and politicians) can organise themselves in local communities in order to have better communication processes. This is because of the new building and land use planning law 2000 and especially the participation and evaluation plan. 3. View of urban environment Better understanding of urban environment in the context of land use planning. Increasing critical and pluralistic views about urban environment in the planning debate. What are the new ways to describe our urban environment? Question of missing definions how to discuss about the values related to urban areas. 4. View of urban identity Better understanding of city as social community. Increasing demand for studying the relations between citizens and urban environment. How is it possible to get citizen involved in land use planning and activate them? The context of the study In Finland public participation has to be organised as part of the land use planning regulated in the New Building and Land Use Act 2000. Public participation means better chances to decision making and to be able to take part in the discussion and evaluation of the impacts assessment. However, participation as part of land use planning is found the most demanding way of

participation. Confusion about needs to participate have increased at the same time when participation has been taken into discussion as "empowerment ". Since the New Building and Land Use Act 2000 public or academic discussion about the concept "public participation" has increased in the finnish society. Deeper understanding of the dynamics about the public participation processes are needed and also what kind of images do the processes have. This research is carried out in the context of urban studies, planning discourse and urban land use planning. My PhD is based on the three case studies in the project called Mukahan(1999-2000) financed by the Ministry of Environment. The main task in the cases was to test new legistlation of the participation in land use planning processes in order to define what decent participation and interactive planning means. Issues that effect the public participation processes were taken into discussion. To understand the dynamics of public participative land use planning in the different municipalities it is necessary to know how the local planning culture is organised. Results of the project called Mukahan suggest that quality of the public participation in land use planning processes can be cathegorised. These four cathegories are based on interpretation of factors having influence in the public participation and interaction processes. (Tukiainen, Unpublished final report of the project Mukahan) 1. Social interaction and participation holds the resources in order to carry out the participation planning processes. It demands the ability to co-operate among the participants and take the participation into use as part of the planning process. 2. Methodological interaction and participation holds

the definition of the relations of the

methodological participation to the political decision making. It demands the ability to organise the participation to the demands of the planning, to set aims of the planning task together with public participation and to react to the feedback about planning. 3. Substantial and contextual interaction and participation holds the agreement of existence of the multiple values and conflicts in the field of planning. It demands ability to take local knowledge and experience into better use and enlarge tolerance towards increasing criticism about planning.

4. Public interaction and participation holds the increasing amount of publicity as part of the planning discourse. It demands the ability to offer current planning issues and to increase the debate on planning. Aim of the research This PhD research is based on the approaches of humanistic geography and contructivistic geography and approaches of contructivistis evaluation reseach. Humanistic geography means understanding of everyday live views and subjective experiences are taken into concideration. Relph argues that humanistic geography can be seen as practical way to get people interested on their environment. Contructivistic geography is dealing with different representations about the phenomenon and it points out that there are many socially constructed realities, because people produce reality by thinking and by action. Instead of subjective experiences about it is more relevant to pay attention to collective ways to form and share inter subjective meanings of the world. As a methodologist choice constructivism means discussive and analysing way to do research. (Häkli, 1999, 80, 92-93, 159-160, 181). Constructionist evaluation research highlights the values and meanings of the phenomenon under research. (Rajavaara, 1999, 47-49). Public participation in land use planning as socio-spatial object deals with places and space (Häkli, 1999, 147). The aim of my PhD research is to evaluate the dynamics of the participative land use planning as a socio-spatial phenomenon in the field of planning discourse. This PhD research opens the academic discussion about the meaning of the identities and images of urban public participation. Relationships and connections between the concepts “urban environment” and “image of public participation” will be studied and discussed as keyfactors in the participative planning discourse.? Urban planning has concrete impacts on environments and public participation is seen as a mechanism to influence the planning solutions(Häkli,1997,44-48). Focus on communication theory seems to be too narrow to explain public participation dynamics. Communication planning gives some hints about information used in planning processes. But is there an idea of the pluralistic view of society behind the planning solutions or not? How can the criticism against planning be achieved in land use planning processes? What role do the local community play in communicative planning processes? What role do the area planned play in the communicative planning processes

Methodology used in this PhD reseach This PhD research will study public participation as a macro scale -question meaning that main focus is on to discuss the dynamics and images of the public participation processes. My research interest is to study how participation processes are created, carried out and utilized as a sociospatial question. Factors having influence on dynamics, and images of interpretive and participative processes are figured out using qualitative methods. The most important qualitative methods used in my research are interviews and participation into public participation processes as a researcher. Informants who have been interviewed in 1999 are land use planners, politicians and participants in my case studies. As second methodological approach I use the typification and cathegorisation of the evaluation results using data collected from case studies. My purpose is to outline how the image of public participation processes are promoted and which factors have influence on the quality in these processes? As a third methodological approach I will outline what local action space means in the discussion about public participation and what kind of spatial factors shape the public participation ? What abilities does local governments have to meet civil society and different groups of participants? What abilities does participants and public media have in defining the scale and topics of planning tasks. My PhD will be completed in the guidance of the professor Harri Andersson, Department of Geography, University of Turku. In the beginning of my PhD-work I have been in co-operation with senior advisers Katri Tulkki and Anne Jarva, Ministry of Environment, land use planners from Lapua, Seinäjoki and Ilmajoki. Professor Audrey Kobayashi and professor Jouni Häkli have given comments about the context, problem setting and methodology of my PhD work.

Literature: Forester, John (1985). Critical Theory and Planning Practice. 202-227. In: Forester, John (ed.) Critical Theory and the Public Life. The MIT Press.

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Pääkaupunkiseudun

Tukiainen Iiris. Julkaisematon Mukahan-projektin loppuraportti. Ympäristöministeriö. Virtanen Pekka V., 1998. Kaupungin imago. Rakennustieto Oy. 184. A::EPHD3.doc