Sharing the City

Community Participation in Urban Management

John Abbott

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9781853833281
• eBook ISBN: 9781134173136
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Urban Planning & Landscaping
• Index: Politics & International Relations

While the rate of urbanisation in the developing world has increased dramatically over the past 20 years, governments' capacity to support urban growth has, in many cases, failed to keep up with this trend. Non-governmental organisations working in the field have long advocated community management of the urban environment as the best solution to this problem, and there is now a growing consensus that the answer does, indeed, lie with local communities. Yet there is still little understanding of what constitutes meaningful and effective community participation, or how it may be achieved in such a complex operating environment.

Sharing the City gives a comprehensive account of urban community participation, both in theory and practice. It first presents a wide-ranging analysis of the issues, and develops a participatory framework for urban management. Using case studies and existing examples from around the world, and drawing on lessons learned from previous experience, it then develops the theory into a practical working model.

Effective participatory urban management calls for a fundamental rethink on the part of all the actors involved - from local authorities and development agencies, through local and international NGOs, to the community-based organisations and the communities themselves. In redefining their roles and relationships, Sharing the City presents a new and radically different, yet viable and effective, approach to the concept of urban management.

PART

I

Historical Analysis of
Community Participation

1

Introduction

COMMUNITY PARTICIPATION AND URBAN MANAGEMENT

Although the rate of urbanization has increased dramatically in the South over the past 20 years, the capacity of governments to support this urban growth has decreased. Various attempts have been made to address this dichotomy, but without success. Nor is there a consensus on the best way to solve the problem. The World Bank supports increased involvement by the private sector, whereas non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and community-based organizations (CBOs) are beginning to see community management as a way forward. Whatever their policy preference however, all of those concerned with the process recognize that the solution must involve local communities. The growing acceptance of this view brings the management of the urban environment into line with other sectors of international development, in which the importance of community participation has long been perceived, but it also brings with it the same problems. There is still no clear understanding of what constitutes meaningful and effective community participation. Many workers have analysed the subject of community participation in a variety of different contexts, but in spite of this it is still true to say, as Midgely did in 1987, that there is ‘no rigorous academic foundation for the whole topic of community participation’.¹

The lack of a theoretical basis for community participation is particularly important in urban management for several reasons. Firstly, the whole debate exists within a clearly defined political structure, namely that of local, or municipal, government. This immediately raises the issue of the relationship between participation and democracy. Secondly, there is the mix between public and private services which constitutes modern local government. The participatory process which suits one of these may not be appropriate to the other. Thirdly, there is the geographical spread and the difficulty which this poses in defining communities and their boundaries. This has particular relevance to several of the physical infrastructure services. Finally, there is the level of technology involved. A modern city has a sophisticated support system in terms of the engineering equipment employed, the level of technical expertise and the computer-based systems of management. Widening the scope of the decision-making process therefore constitutes a complex task.

Under these conditions there has to be a clear and mutually agreed understanding, among all parties concerned, about the meaning and scope of community participation. Much has been written on this subject, but it still remains to be collated and structured in a cohesive way; this is the aim of this book. By taking existing material and integrating it with new research, a participatory framework for urban management has been developed.

Urban management in a changing world is an integral part of a wider development process. To create a structure for participation in urban management it is first necessary to create a structure which explains community participation as a process in its own right. Only when the complexities of the participation process have been unravelled can the role of community participation in urban management be fully understood.

NATURE OF COMMUNITY PARTICIPATION

Community participation is relevant in every sector of development, whether it is education, health, conservation, agriculture, or water and sanitation. When it is practised successfully it transforms programmes and provides the critical component which can promote sustainable development. In a world of rapid change, effective and meaningful community participation is a fundamental basis of security, either of the individual or of the state. A clear understanding of the nature of participation is central to the search for peace, social justice and democracy.

As with any concept which has strong social and political implications, it is often convenient for those who interact with the process to interpret it in a way which meets their own interests, as well as their own particular perceptions. Thus, for example, development professionals working in developing countries might see community participation simply as a way of mobilizing community support for projects; NGOs in the field, as well as CBOs, may see it as a vehicle through which local communities can take control of the development process and bring about sweeping political change; development agencies may see it as a method of improving project performance, whereas many governments and civil servants view it simply as threatening and subversive.

Self-interest alone cannot explain the degree of divergence of the different interpretations. The reality is that the whole basis of community participation lacks a cohesive, academically rigorous, conceptual structure within which implementation can be placed. Instead, the process of learning about community participation has been organic, based on extensive experience. This in turn has created an empirical base for the practice of participation. There is nothing inherently wrong with empirically derived systems, provided that they operate within a cohesive framework which can provide collation of data, the systematic collection of evidence and the production and dissemination of widely agreed practices. This has never been the case with community participation, although it is essential for an activity which is practised by such a wide and diverse variety of professionals (from anthropologists and political scientists through sociologists and social workers to architects, planners and engineers) in different cultures and political systems, and which extends through a multitude of different sectors and can operate at a variety of different points in the development cycle.

These are not the only complications. There are other reasons why community participation cannot operate in a conceptual vacuum. Two levels of participation - the conceptual theory and the practical implementation - are interdependent. Without a conceptual structure within which the case study material can be placed in context, there is no means of relating projects to each other, of understanding fully why projects succeed or fail or of knowing what practices should be followed to ensure success in different contexts. The purpose of this book is to address these questions, firstly in general terms and then specifically from the perspective of urban management. The objective is to place existing practice in context but, more importantly, to create a structure for the logical development of community participation programmes which will be applicable to urban environment.

ANALYSING THE PARTICIPATORY PROCESS

The lack of cohesion between the theoretical and practical components of community participation can be traced back to the fundamental problem of trying to make community participation into a component of the development process. In 1955, the United Nations (UN) defined community development, which was then the widely accepted expression of community participation, as ‘a process designed to create conditions of economic and social progress for the whole community with its active participation’.² The problem with trying to do this is that ‘the extent to which participation can be inserted into development strategies depends on what is meant by the term, and . . . it is apparent that no clear consensus exists’.³ In spite of this, researchers have continued to seek the relationship and to define community participation accordingly. The result has been that most theoretical work on community participation has attempted to fit it into a pre-defined role which is more a reflection of the researchers’ own philosophies than a genuine attempt to define its theoretical basis. The result has been that ‘unlike most other ideas in development studies, popular participation has not been subject to careful academic scrutiny’⁴

The irony is that the seeds of a cohesive participatory structure do exist in published work. To assemble these ideas, however, requires a different approach. Community participation is an extremely complex puzzle to unravel. What is needed is an analysis of the individual pieces and the inter-relationships between them. This book integrates previously published work with the author’s own work in the field across several different disciplines and attempts to build a complete picture of the community participation process. To check the validity of the results, four criteria have been defined against which the ideas being developed were measured. These are rationality, context, practical implementation and applicability.

Rationality

The work should be theoretically sound, academically rigorous and have a logical and coherent structure. There are several reasons why this work has not been adequately carried out before. The term community participation has a multiplicity of interpretations and, as a result, is heavily value-laden. The primary cause of confusion lies, not with the concept of community participation itself, but rather with the inability of the western system of categorization by generic specialization to deal with concepts which span currently defined disciplines. Furthermore, in spite of the rhetoric in support of participation, it has never been considered sufficiently important to warrant the establishment of a specialist programme.

This point can be illustrated by looking briefly at possible academic bases. Should it be in the school of social work, on the basis that one of its roots - community development – is based there? This is unlikely to be successful. On one level community development has been discredited as a form of community participation in developing countries because of its failures in the 1950s. On another level much of the practical work on participation takes place in the development arena, where few practitioners are social workers. Perhaps development studies then? Again, only a few practitioners pass through this school, and the fact that the subject is not ‘mainstream’ could be disadvantageous.

The reality is that community participation exists wherever there is a practical discipline working with people on the ground. Thus it is to be found in projects in fields as diverse as health, urban management, agriculture and forestry, water and sanitation provision and education. Each area of application has taken the subject and provided its own interpretation and its own definition. Unfortunately, this ad hoc approach has led to frustration and a general lack of progress in the field. The result is that ‘participation [has become] an indispensable part of any programme or project, coming from sources as varied as national governments, UN agencies and non-government organizations’,⁴ yet no single body can provide a description of the process which is acceptable to all the others and which enables the large body of material on the topic to be integrated.

This study attempts to take community participation out of the system of academic categorization which underpins the conventional educational structure and to show that the subject spans many disciplines. As a result it deals with the subject itself and does not accept that community participation can be defined sectorally. There may be facets which link specific aspects with particular sectors, but these should then be explained in terms of a general theory. This approach is particularly important for the application of community participation in urban management because there it will be required to overcome the strongly entrenched interests of local governments.

Context

The analysis of community participation should be able to place the process within a wider context in a coherent and logical manner. This is implicit in earlier work, but has rarely been successful. The first description of this wider surround was the economic development paradigm. This proved inadequate and was overtaken by events, as described in Chapter 2. The second was the project environment. This proved even less satisfactory, as it opened the way to a multiplicity of interpretations. Unfortunately, those who controlled the international funding system supported this surround, primarily because it could be linked with a quantifiable product, eg a water supply or health clinic, and could be controlled by the project cycle. The result was that community participation was increasingly seen as a means of ensuring a satisfactory end-product.

What happened then was in effect a digression from the main debate about the nature of the surround (Chapter 3). The role of community participation described here was opposed, mainly by those people linked to UN organizations, who argued for the supremacy of social goals in development. This led to a polarization between the two groups which was expressed through the means and end analysis. Researchers moved away from the issue of the surround, to explore the individual conceptual aspects of community participation, which resulted in diverse explanations, definitions and models and served to obscure the search for a coherent structure. With hindsight it can be seen that this drift was inevitable, as meaningful objective debate was impossible. This was partly due to the misunderstanding of the nature of development itself, but the major constraint which prevented this debate from happening was the over-riding influence of the Cold War. The debate about the role of community participation raised fundamental questions about the causes of poverty, the role of development and the basis of democracy. Instead of seeing this as an important international debate, these issues were seen as challenging the political and ideological base of the superpowers. It became impossible to develop economic and social policies related to development without these being either consigned to a political pole or adopted by one of them. The result was a capitalist–communist conflict which pre-defined the wider arena and translated itself directly into a series of dualities on the ground. These might be state and community, oppressor and oppressed, landed and homeless. Each sector tended to create its own duality.

Without the constraints which were imposed on independent analysis as a result of the Cold War, it becomes possible to view participation outside the notion of a duality and to recognize the wide variety of participatory processes. These processes exist and have validity in their own right, yet they are also an integral part of something outside themselves. The term environment is the most precise expression to describe those collective factors which influence different approaches to community participation and within which the different approaches are situated. It is also confusing, however, because of its physical interpretation. As the development process becomes increasingly integrated with the physical environment, so will the state of the physical environment become an increasingly important factor influencing the community participation process. For this reason the term ‘environment’ will be limited h...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of illustrations
• List of Acronyms
• Acknowledgements
• Part 1 Historical Analysis of Community Participation
• Part 2 Theory of Community Participation
• Part 3 Implementation of Community Participation
• References
• Index