Thanks for this needed and frank post about "engagement". I'm guilty of this as a planner and then later as a town council member. Our engagement process was terrible and my biggest disappointment. Your remedy is reasonable, but also fear that some elected officials and staff are risk averse, not willing or think about trying something different. As ST states,incremental change builds momentum and success with perhaps minimal cost. There is also the opportunity to learn and try again. Thanks again for another insightful post.
I appreciate your acknowledgment of this challenge from your position as an official. I try to bring ideas of objectives & pathways to discussions with my council members with enough space for them to do their job & help us figure out a way forward. What I’ve often experienced though is that they dismiss me for the noisy wheel that is practically at a gossip level, but isn’t really asking for them to do anything other than listen to them bitch. I’m asking for us to work but they go to where they won’t have to. Frustrating!
2 thoughts: we discuss these issues and solutions in the vernacular while professionals learn other structures in school which never quite connect; we are typically asked about the finishes, the icing, the marginal issues, when we have very little about the objectives & criteria to account for how decisions are meeting them.
No one outside of academia references principles, methodology, frameworks or studies that can give authority & authenticity to our vernacular insights, as accurate & profound as they might be. I’m guilty of this too. But that gives the “professionals” the opportunity to ignore or brush them aside as not being useful in their work, even when they have the opportunity to go beyond checkbox engagement.
Most of the time we are presented with projects in the common space—AKA Right-of-Way—it’s focused on what they’re going to do TO us, rarely FOR us & never WITH us, authentically. We almost never get to be part of the understanding the challenges, & developing the objectives & rubric for evaluating them. Not everyone in the neighborhood is going to be interested in this phase, but those of us who are can be sherpas to our neighbors who will come along after the initial phases, where we can fill in the gaps, related in our shared experiences rather than technical and/or bureaucratic language.
I agree that doing these temporary interventions to allow people to experience them and get feedback is useful. It still doesn't solve the issue about fear of change and preference for the status quo, and the fact that different stakeholders have different interests. My experience is the results can still be polarized. A temporary bike lane that takes away parking gets support from people who cycle and from pedestrians who appreciate it slowing traffic down, but still gets loud opposition from drivers. Depending on the political dynamics of the town, the feedback may not actually matter for decision-making, anymore than comments made at a public meeting matter. That's my experience at least. But it certainly can be useful for design adjustments if there is a decision to make the intervention permanent.
The term “trial” or “demonstration” project is usually key, when paired with true engagement about objectives, criteria, rubric for evaluation & feedback during the process. This tends to disarm people without ignoring their concerns. Without these components, fear of change can still cause upheaval and dissension.
Thanks for this needed and frank post about "engagement". I'm guilty of this as a planner and then later as a town council member. Our engagement process was terrible and my biggest disappointment. Your remedy is reasonable, but also fear that some elected officials and staff are risk averse, not willing or think about trying something different. As ST states,incremental change builds momentum and success with perhaps minimal cost. There is also the opportunity to learn and try again. Thanks again for another insightful post.
I appreciate your acknowledgment of this challenge from your position as an official. I try to bring ideas of objectives & pathways to discussions with my council members with enough space for them to do their job & help us figure out a way forward. What I’ve often experienced though is that they dismiss me for the noisy wheel that is practically at a gossip level, but isn’t really asking for them to do anything other than listen to them bitch. I’m asking for us to work but they go to where they won’t have to. Frustrating!
In fact, public meetings are usually the worst method of engagement.
But it’s efficient—the polite term for bureaucracy!
2 thoughts: we discuss these issues and solutions in the vernacular while professionals learn other structures in school which never quite connect; we are typically asked about the finishes, the icing, the marginal issues, when we have very little about the objectives & criteria to account for how decisions are meeting them.
No one outside of academia references principles, methodology, frameworks or studies that can give authority & authenticity to our vernacular insights, as accurate & profound as they might be. I’m guilty of this too. But that gives the “professionals” the opportunity to ignore or brush them aside as not being useful in their work, even when they have the opportunity to go beyond checkbox engagement.
Most of the time we are presented with projects in the common space—AKA Right-of-Way—it’s focused on what they’re going to do TO us, rarely FOR us & never WITH us, authentically. We almost never get to be part of the understanding the challenges, & developing the objectives & rubric for evaluating them. Not everyone in the neighborhood is going to be interested in this phase, but those of us who are can be sherpas to our neighbors who will come along after the initial phases, where we can fill in the gaps, related in our shared experiences rather than technical and/or bureaucratic language.
I agree that doing these temporary interventions to allow people to experience them and get feedback is useful. It still doesn't solve the issue about fear of change and preference for the status quo, and the fact that different stakeholders have different interests. My experience is the results can still be polarized. A temporary bike lane that takes away parking gets support from people who cycle and from pedestrians who appreciate it slowing traffic down, but still gets loud opposition from drivers. Depending on the political dynamics of the town, the feedback may not actually matter for decision-making, anymore than comments made at a public meeting matter. That's my experience at least. But it certainly can be useful for design adjustments if there is a decision to make the intervention permanent.
The term “trial” or “demonstration” project is usually key, when paired with true engagement about objectives, criteria, rubric for evaluation & feedback during the process. This tends to disarm people without ignoring their concerns. Without these components, fear of change can still cause upheaval and dissension.