{"id":3297,"date":"2021-10-25T16:39:00","date_gmt":"2021-10-25T15:39:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theurbanmycelium.com\/?p=3297"},"modified":"2022-03-23T13:50:32","modified_gmt":"2022-03-23T12:50:32","slug":"making-the-city-together-who-should-participate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theurbanmycelium.com\/fr\/making-the-city-together-who-should-participate\/","title":{"rendered":"Making the city together: who should participate?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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<\/p>\n

As we saw in this article<\/a>, public participation is not for everyone, as it often attracts the same profiles again and again, and fails at involving people whose voice is heard the least. Is it possible to escape this recurring pattern? Should everyone really participate? Who is everyone, at the end of the day?<\/strong><\/p>\n

In reality, there is little discussion about who<\/em> exactly should participate in participatory processes, and why<\/em>. This is an essential question, though. Just like it is important to clarify the objectives of public participation<\/a>, it is also important to talk with the power holders about who should participate in the process and why, before<\/em> the launch of a participatory project.<\/p>\n

To do so, there is nothing better than to break down some mental beliefs we might have about the participants of public participation. Let\u2019s go!<\/p>\n

There is no such thing as \u201cthe residents\u201d <\/strong><\/h3>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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New programmes that require public participation often advocate for the involvement of \u201cthe residents\u201d. It may be for example the residents of an existing building which undergoes renovations, the neighbours of a soon-to-be built building, or the future inhabitants of a neighbourhood under construction. The residents are very important to consider, as the people who live, or will live in these places.<\/p>\n

However, it is usually vague which kind of residents we are talking about. In fact, \u201cthe residents\u201d is not a homogeneous group consisting of identical individuals.<\/strong> They actually have different stories, needs, problems, and dreams\u2026<\/p>\n

Within \u201cthe residents\u201d, you can find young people, older people, people with jobs, others who are unemployed, people working at night, students, people with kids, people without kids, recomposed families and single mums, people freshly arrived in the neighbourhood, some who have lived there for ages, etc. And of course, each of these categories can also be divided into subcategories, the group \u201cthe elderly\u201d for example consisting of very different profiles of elderly people.<\/p>\n

It is important to go beyond these generic categories and to understand more precisely who are the people who live and use the space<\/strong>, in order to design a place with a real singularity. Observing on site, analysing demographic data, or conducting interviews<\/strong> are examples of things that can be done to better understand the residents.<\/p>\n

Following that, it may be useful to design \u201cpersonae\u201d or archetypes that represent a group of people with similar behaviours, motivations and goals<\/strong>. For a specific urban project, one persona could be \u201cseniors above 80 who have lived in this building for more than 20 years\u201d, or \u201cfamilies of young children under 10 who are using the local school\u201d. Creating personae is not about labelling people \u2013 one person can actually match different personae, depending on the context. Instead, it is about understanding the sociology of the place in order to design appropriate solutions that match people\u2019s real needs.<\/p>\n

You can find plenty of templates online for personae design, but here is one example:<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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The residents are not the only ones to consider<\/strong><\/h3>\n

With that being said, there are many more stakeholders to consider than just the residents. Different models exist for stakeholder analysis, but an easy and very mnemotechnic one is the following PPP model, that accounts for Population, Public, and Private actors.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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