| dc.description.abstract | Citizen participation in neighborhood planning has become commonplace, but the process and resulting use of the input varies widely across projects. Literature on participatory planning suggests theoretical approaches to inform the structure of the process, as well as highlighting many of the issues and challenges that have become a part of participatory planning projects. This study examines a participatory neighborhood planning process in a mid-sized Southeastern U.S. city. The neighborhood is located near the city’s central business district, and includes within its boundaries several service providers to the homeless in addition to a number of local businesses. The process involved a series of community meetings organized by a partnership between the local housing authority and a local non-profit planning agency. Business and property owners, homeless service providers, and homeless individuals attended meetings and provided input to inform the future development of the area. The process and results of these meetings, as well as interviews with participants, were analyzed to determine 1) the differences between groups in terms of goals for the neighborhood, 2) how those differences were resolved in the final plan, 3) how these final decisions were made, and 4) group differences in perception of the process. The results indicate that key differences existed between groups in their perception of the process and outcomes, but overall some consensus was reached. | |
