Browsing by Author "Reimi, Petra"

Discussion about public participation, interaction and citizen power has been on-going since the end of the 1960s. Resident's options for participation started to increase in the following decades after the communicative turn in urban theory. In Finland, the Land Use and Building Act of 2000, enhanced resident's possibilities for participation in urban planning. Finnish municipalities started to develop new participation methods, and the interaction between different parties and actors became more influential. According to previous research, the usability of empirical knowledge and integrating local knowledge into the public sector planning process are still significant challenges of urban planning. The aim of this study is to examine the usability of residents' empirical knowledge in urban planning and the effects of citizen participation on the process and the results of planning. This case study examines the role of citizen participation in the continuous master plan process in the city of Lahti. The research material mainly consists of two parts: the qualitative workshop material generated in the My Lahti citizen workshops and interviews with planning and service design professionals. The research material also includes relevant literature and previous studies concerning citizen participation in urban planning, GIS data, and planning documents of the city of Lahti. The methods used for the study are qualitative content analysis based on textual data and GIS research methods. The current challenges of citizen participation have been tackled in Lahti by using the continuous master plan process, which enables residents to participate more continuously and regularly in the process. In addition, My Lahti workshops arranged in spring 2014 have been used in order to enhance possibilities for participation and to improve the usability of local knowledge. My Lahti workshops were put together in collaboration with city planning staff and the service design team of Lahti University of Applied Sciences. Workshops were mainly based on two map exercises with themes of mobility and services in Lahti. In terms of transport, the development objectives especially raised as being most important were related to cycling, walking and public transport. Participants' comments regarding the living environment and services highlighted the importance of nature and recreational functions and areas of the city. Retaining and developing public and private services were also seen as important goals in terms of future planning. Participants' feedback on the workshops was very positive, but some were sceptical about their actual possibilities to influence on city development. The workshops were also seen as successful from the viewpoint of planning professionals, and a similar concept is intended to be utilised to allow public participation in the next cycle of the continuous planning process. According to this study, the city of Lahti gained valuable information about participants' opinions and ideas for a better city. This information has also been used quite successfully as part of the city's master planning process. Two concrete examples of utilising participants' knowledge are the city master plan map and more importantly, the plan commentary highlighting the ideas raised in workshops. My Lahti data has also been used as background information in other participatory methods and it still has potential for further use. However, there have been challenges in the usability of empirical knowledge, and they are mostly related to technical issues and slowly changing public processes and organisational culture. Communication about the results of participation has also been problematic, and residents may still be dubious about the effectiveness of their contribution. The continuous master plan process in Lahti offers a chance for regular participation and therefore enhances the visibility and awareness of participation possibilities from the residents' perspective. The continuous process also makes empirical local knowledge more visible for planners and provides better conditions for the change of working culture.