Typology of Public Participation Techniques in Urban Planning based on Different Levels of Participation

Public participation is a process through which public concerns, values and needs are considered for
collective decision making. In this process, interrelations and interactions between people and decision
makers should be made to make better decisions. In last years, Public participation has been more
considered theoretically and practically, and significant role of people in solving urban problems has made
it to an obvious necessity in urban planning and management. So, many societies try to encourage sense of
participation, discourse and consultation to realise sustainability, efficiency of policies and development.
Public Participation, which is known as a basic element in planning, is possible in different levels. In the
lowest level, citizen involvement can result to stable and accurate decisions based on public needs, and
cause plan acceptance by its users significantly. In the highest level and long term, citizen participation
can expand and strengthen democracy through advisory, direct and explicit techniques. In this condition,
citizens find themselves as a part of society and thus spread public trust. Now, one of the most concerns of
urban planners is that by which methods and techniques, participatory plans can be carried out
successfully. There are different classification of citizen participation in urban planning and management.
Present paper aims to introduce different levels of participation and different categories of participation
techniques through other countries experiences to formulate and present a new synthetic classification.
The conclusion of this paper is important, because cognition of different levels of participation and
useable techniques for every level give a chance to planners to use the most efficient techniques in order to
increase the success and implementation of participatory plans. This research present a five-level category
of participation based on combining different categories. In this category, participation defines in five
levels including getting information to the public, getting information from the public, using public views,
public consensus and public empowerment. In the lowest level, getting information to the public is done
merely. In higher levels, public influence increases in planning process and in the highest level, planners
enforce merely public decisions. According to what mentioned above the diagram you have seen beneath
shows the proposed category of participation levels and techniques.