Collaborative Planning

Community involvement is the foundation for post modernist theories in planning. But the idealism and pragmatic approaches have produced little in practical examples leaving theories as just, well, theories. It appears to be that the last decade or so has produced a lot of thought provoking articles on how planning can be improved, and much of it is focused on the involvement of community or grass roots planning. However, is this really attainable in modern society? Does community involvement hinder the planning process or rather progress it? Is it too hard to involve everyone in the process for logistical reasons? Are such theories merely pipe-dreams?

An important fact that needs to be considered is the time that these articles were released, primarily the 80s and 90s. Taking the timeframe in to context, it is easy to observe such opportunity with an increasing sense of pessimism. But I think we are reading in to such theories with the same mindset that existed when these articles were written, much has changed since then and I believe we have new tools available to realise such ideas.

The internet has been one of the most revolutionary tools of the 21^st century and has connected the community in ways never before possible. Such technology can be utilised to bring a community together to discuss planning issues and involve a wide range of people in a debate. A publically accessible website, with a list of planning propositions which can be commented on, or an open forum to exchange personal planning ideas could be an enabler of the much discussed grass roots planning. It would cut the logistical costs and time of community discussion and would ensure a continual flow and updating of information, as opposed to the Canberra 2030 survey.

It appears that there are many people who would like to force a transgression of planning in to new and revolutionary areas. I believe anything is possible, but in order to do so there needs to be more creativity and ingenuity within the planning scholar community to manifest ideas in to the realms of practicality