CHAPTER THREE LITERATURE REVIEW
3.3. The rise of urban strategic planning and the role of city visioning
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development challenges facing them. This aspect of city-to-city learning is the focus of the second thematic area in the review.
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highlighted in the policy paper is the notion of developing all aspects of the city, and “integrating technical, environmental, political, social and economic interests in the same territory” (UCLG, 2010a: 11). What sets apart urban strategic planning from the broader urban planning field is the systematic process involved in crafting a vision of a community’s future, and then prescribing a set of actions to achieve this long-term vision (Gordon, 2013).
Numerous writers have acknowledged the utility of the CDS as a complex proposal that is able to align the practices of municipal governments on the one hand with longer term aspirations, including economic growth, urban sustainability and ultimately quality of life on the other hand (Healey, 2007; Pieterse, 2008; Robinson, 2011). This alignment of aspirations points to the intrinsic need for citizen engagement in urban strategic planning processes. In a refreshing look at the city not seen from the traditional hierarchical configurations, but as “ordinary cities”, Robinson (2007) uses the examples of the CDS processes in Durban and Johannesburg to illustrate how city leaders and policy-makers in envisioning the holistic future of their cities are compelled to think about different and competing local demands within a particular locale.
In this critical piece, Robinson (2007: 4) accepts that the CDS in these two African cities is a powerful tool that aims to incorporate the diverse concerns and needs of citizens, business and local government, which it is argued, could mean responding to the “globalizing sectors of the economy alongside the needs of the poorest citizens, as well as appreciating the wide range of activities which contribute to the dynamism of cities”. This, it is argued, is a useful conceptualization of the CDS process emphasizing the opportunity for a critical engagement of what makes a city unique and distinctive and how these can be exploited to achieve particular developmental outcomes.
More than contributing to the dynamism of the city as Robinson (2007) suggests, the importance of active citizen engagement in urban strategic planning has been well documented in the literature.
Whilst the focus of this research is not to explore the terrain of citizen engagement, it is worth noting some of key benefits of engaging city stakeholders in planning processes, as the case study does include a census survey of all stakeholders engaged in the visioning process in both cities.
Wates (2014: 6-7) in a useful publication that describes exactly how people can shape towns and
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cities anywhere in the world, identifies 13 benefits of citizen engagement, which are summarized below:
i. Citizens bring additional resources to the process;
ii. As local people are the best source of local knowledge they improve decision- making;
iii. Working together on a common purpose often builds a sense of community;
iv. Citizen engagement is largely a legislative requirement and therefore ensures compliance;
v. Democratic credibility is built as citizen engagement accords with people’s right to participate in decision-making;
vi. Access to funding can improve as grant-making organizations often require citizen engagement;
vii. Empowerment of citizens is a key outcome as involvement builds local people’s confidence, capabilities, skills and ability to co-operate;
viii. Appropriate design solutions or planning outcomes are most likely to be attained and plans can be tested and refined before adoption, resulting in optimizing resource use;
ix. The education of planning professionals occur during the process as they gain greater insights into the communities they are meant to serve;
x. A more responsive environment can result as citizen’s changing requirements can be met;
xi. Often quite simply there is a public demand for engagement and people want to be involved and appreciate being engaged;
xii. Speedier development is reached as time-wasting conflicts are avoided; and xiii. Engagement embeds sustainability as people will own the process themselves.
From Wates’ (2014) well-considered, almost exhaustive list, the case is certainly made for active citizen engagement in urban strategic planning processes. In a highly contested and politicized local government context where there is competition for scarce resources, however, the issue of citizen engagement in the actual decision-making process does come to the fore. Recent literature
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indicates that citizen participation in urban planning is now being understood not as an alternative to the conventional decision-making process but as a “decision-forming partnership” and should be regarded as a collaborative planning exercise (Fagence, 2014: 4). Collaborative planning involves actively integrating inputs from residents into the planning and decision-making process (Faehnle et al., 2014). Whilst not explored here, it must be noted that how these often competing priorities and inputs are integrated and exactly whose benefits really count in this process is still the subject of much lively debate (Holden, 2012; Innes & Booher, 2013).
The UCLG in promoting the preparation of CDSs through its mentoring partnerships amongst its member cities has recognized the robustness of the CDS process and its ability to address a range of such competing priorities, as expressed in its “wheel of urban development” (UCLG, 2009: 3), depicted in Figure 3.1 below. Essentially, the CDS process is seen as cyclical; involving governance, social, environmental and economic priorities that the mentoring program can address based on the need at that time. Whilst this understanding is accepted in general terms, the researcher finds that this conceptualization by the UCLG may be misleading as it suggests that one priority follows another, when in reality this is not the case.
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Figure 3.1: The CDS wheel of development (adapted from UCLG, 2009: 3)
Notwithstanding this arguably limited conceptualization referred to above, the emphasis on the decision-making around the setting of priorities in the crafting of a long-term developmental city vision is an important and useful one. This is a fundamentally important step and it is now recognized that stakeholder’s visions of the future city have actually played a critical role in
“shaping urban development trajectories in industrialized cities throughout modern history” (Mah, 2012: 151). A city vision is best understood as a process that portrays an idealized situation and is represented through a set of goals for the future (Baud et al., 2014). Visions are essentially about