Interactive Planning

"Interactive planning is a strong trend in modern, democratic societies. Interactive planning means that citizens are given a chance to participate in planning, get acquainted with the planning situation, state opinions, comment preliminary plans, and give feedback. According to current planning philosophy encouraging citizen participation increases both satisfaction of the citizens and quality of the planned and built environment. In many countries this is also recognized in the legislation... So far interaction has been implemented by arranging information meetings with an open invitation for people to attend. The planners have presented the situation and the preliminary plans, the audience has had a chance to ask questions and they have been handed a paper form where they can write their feedback The meetings are a good chance to meet the planners face-to-face. However, there are several problems in getting useful feedback: it is not possible for all interested citizens to attend the meeting at a certain time. The citizens often need to take their time to form an opinion and think over what kind of feedback they would like to give."

Thanks to GIS Vision Newsletter