Public Participation

In the United States the political process in terms of urban planning policy can vary greatly between places and types of policies. Between the federal, state, and local governments, different actions are taken to push policies, sometime this includes public participation and sometimes it does not. It is also important to recognize that planning policies are also intertwined, meaning an environmental planning policy will likely shape the formation of a transportation or housing planning policy. In the majority of situations, public participation will result in better planning policies, however this is a vast generalization and we must recognize that there are always exceptions to the rule.
In arguing that public participation can result in …show more content…
To elaborate on the first point, when you open up planning policies to public debate in places with existing political controversy, it can result in a political power struggle or stalemate in which policies (good or bad) infrequently get enacted. In terms of how a governing body plays a role, if it is a large city, such as Chicago, the policy may impact a smaller portion of the population and so it should not be put up for a large public debate, further eating up time, resources, and money that could be spent elsewhere. The scope of a policy also determines the need for public participation, in that policies are either applied at the federal, state, and local level; a policy applied at the state level may not be as beneficial if it was applied at the federal level. Some of California’s environmental policies exemplify this; if their policies were enacted at the federal level, our environment would be in better off, however, public participation and state powers in the US could prevent these policies from being