2.3 The means of participation

Representative involvement tends to occur at macro level —the presence of a relatively small number of local residents on advisory boards, monitoring boards, project boards. Their role is largely to respond to initiatives emanating from the regeneration agency, to advocate the position of the local residents and to advise on the adaptation and implementation of strategies. Such representative structures are in place in Berlin , Copenhagen , Dublin , Glasgow , Hamburg , and Vilnius . These representatives are not elected but are generally “social entrepreneurs” that represent specific interest groups or associations within the neighbourhood or are long standing activists in the community. They may not necessarily be representative of the neighbourhood and its various constituencies, (Hamburg Case study, p. 17)

Participatory involvement tends to occur at the meso level- in most cities there are examples of “one off” participatory democracy exercises, that is, specific projects that are directed at actively empowering the local residents by encouraging participation from a wider pool of people, and by entrusting participants with a right to disseminate funding, or plan the precise contours of a redevelopment project, (e.g. Neighbourhood Fund, Berlin; Planning for Real, Dublin; Social Inclusion Partnerships, Glasgow). In these cases, residents are given a very real sense of their input as members of a community into decision-making processes. Residents are constructed as pro-active rather than re-active.

Clientelist involvement tends to occur at the micro level- in Lisbon , Valletta and Vilnius we found examples of consultation processes that are targeted at individuals as opposed to collectivities. The role of the regeneration agency is largely to convince the individual householder of the potential benefits for the householder accruing from the regeneration process ( Lisbon ) and to provide incentives for the householder to enter into a partnership with the regeneration agency in order to carry out necessary rehabilitative work ( Vilnius ). Vilnius offered a unique example of “partnership” as a relationship brokered between a municipal regeneration agency and the individual, whereby financial aid is offered to the homeowner to upgrade their home and environs. Since individuals generally share their living space with others this requires co-operation with family and neighbours. Paradoxically the programme requires people to become instrumental about their property in order to improve its value (consumerist ethic) but they can generally do so only through co-operative relations with others (communitarian ethos).

How deep is the stake afforded to the community in the planning and implementation of urban regeneration projects? There is a broad spectrum of approaches to community participation across the cities ranging from active agency on the part of the community, through collaborative relations with other stake holders, to a more restricted consultative role for community stakeholders.

Here we have plotted each city along the continuum on the basis of the level and degree of community participation that seems to be the norm in that city, at least in terms of the case studies that we analysed. This is not to say that all projects in all of the cities approach community participation in more or less the same way. Rather, this model is intended to show the range of possible methodologies that are utilised across all the case studies. The reality of community participation is highly complex, and frequently, projects will deploy a range of different techniques of engagement.

There is a tendency for cities to bunch in the centre under the collaborative tendency, with more activist and less activist tendencies on each end of the spectrum. Activist tendencies are present when we can see a bottom-up approach to regeneration, where the institutional actors react to the claims of the community rather than vice versa. Here collectivist (as opposed to) individualist solutions are promoted. Consultative relations render the community much less passive, or indeed, irrelevant. Here individuals are targeted as rational actors to enter into “partnership” that will result in a tangible outcome for the participating individual only.

We use the term collaborative relations to describe instances where all stakeholders work together toward a common end. While collaboration infers a relationship between the various stakeholders it does not have as positive a connotation as partnership does. When people collaborate it is a response to differences in terms of access to power and the limitations on their capacity to act unilaterally. The language of partnership tends to gloss over the reality of differential distribution of power.