Quality of Governance and Quality of Life

In recent decades, opportunities for public participation have been limited in urban-planning experiences for reasons of economic savings as well. One unintended effect is that local knowledge is underrepresented in final decisions. This tendency is amplified by the fact that planners tend to view the participation of interested parties as a question of procedure and process management, often as a passkey to be agreed upon, rather than a necessary conversation (or better yet, controversy) about local problems and solutions. It would instead be interesting to investigate how urban planning can benefit from organized forms of participation in which strength is given to the representation of diversity and conflict rather than looking for similarities and affinities.