Identifying Misalignments between Public Participation Process and Context in Urban Development

Public participation is a common element in state-of-the-art urban development projects. Tailoring the public participation process to the local context is a popular strategy for ensuring sufficient turnout and meaningful engagement, but this strategy faces several challenges. Through a review of case studies of public participation in urban development projects, we identify ten typical misalignments between the public participation process and the local context, including the lack of policy maker support, adverse personal circumstances of participants, low collaborative capacity, and mistrust, among others. When a public participation process is not aligned to the local context, the process may generate outcomes that compromise public interests, inequitably distribute benefits among stakeholders, or favor powerful private interests. This study offers caution and guidance to planning practitioners and researchers on how to contextualize public participation in urban development projects through the categorization of common misalignments that ought to be avoided

Identifying Misalignments between Public Participation Process and Context in Urban Development

Public participation is a common element in state-of-the-art urban development projects. Tailoring the public participation process to the local context is a popular strategy for ensuring sufficient turnout and meaningful engagement, but this strategy faces several challenges. Through a review of case studies of public participation in urban development projects, we identify ten typical misalignments between the public participation process and the local context, including the lack of policy maker support, adverse personal circumstances of participants, low collaborative capacity, and mistrust, among others. When a public participation process is not aligned to the local context, the process may generate outcomes that compromise public interests, inequitably distribute benefits among stakeholders, or favor powerful private interests. This study offers caution and guidance to planning practitioners and researchers on how to contextualize public participation in urban development projects through the categorization of common misalignments that ought to be avoided

Aligning Public Participation to Stakeholders’ Sustainability Literacy—A Case Study on Sustainable Urban Development in Phoenix, Arizona

In public planning processes for sustainable urban development, planners and experts often face the challenge of engaging a public that is not familiar with sustainability principles or does not subscribe to sustainability values. Although there are calls to build the public’s sustainability literacy through social learning, such efforts require sufficient time and other resources that are not always available. Alternatively, public participation processes may be realigned with the sustainability literacy the participants possess, and their capacity can modestly be built during the engagement. Asking what tools might successfully align public participation with participants’ sustainability literacy, this article describes and evaluates a public participation process in Phoenix, Arizona, in which researchers, in collaboration with city planners, facilitated sustainability conversations as part of an urban development process. The tool employed for Visually Enhanced Sustainability Conversation (VESC) was specifically designed to better align public participation with stakeholders’ sustainability literacy. We tested and evaluated VESC through interviews with participants, city planners, and members of the research team, as well as an analysis of project reports. We found that the use of VESC successfully facilitated discussions on pertinent sustainability issues and embedded sustainability objectives into the project reports. We close with recommendations for strengthening tools like VESC for future public engagements

EDS integrated approach for sustainability (EDS-IA) : campus as a living laboratory experience

Since 2016, InstitutEDSisdevelopinga new integrated approachto facilitatecollaborationsbetween different disciplines and to reinforce the developmentofpractical skills and key competencies needed tosolve concrete sustainable development problems: the EDS-IA. It aims to contribute to theacceleration ofthetransition to a closed and cyclic development system, building on the most recent knowledge mobilization frameworks in the field: the concept of Planetary Boundaries,the concept of Social Floor,the Sustainable Development Goals, Key Competencies in Sustainability and Multilevel Governance. Despite the broad consensus and the robustness of the scientific knowledge underlying all these frameworks, they are not sufficiently known beyond their own field of knowledge. In order to facilitate their diffusion and their appropriation by all the disciplines and actors concerned with the transition to sustainability, EDS-IA integrates themin a diagram as a tool that can be adapted todifferent development challenge in different contexts. During itsfirst year of implementation (2016-2017), researchers and student members of the Instituteparticipated in a series of major co-creation activitiesalong withstaff university members, governmental organizations as well as representatives of civil society. They made a diagnosisof the sustainable status of the campus and imaginedinnovating solutions for a “Campus as a living laboratory” through operations, teaching, research, and community services. In the second year (2017-2018), the transfer of the EDS-IA started through similar workshops with a university partner in Senegal(UADB). This paper presents the theoretical and methodological frameworksof the EDS-IAand the results of the first two years during which universities have been imagined as living laboratories for SDG promotion and implementation.

Utilizing international networks for accelerating research and learning in transformational sustainability science

A promising approach for addressing sustainability problems is to recognize the unique conditions of a particular place, such as problem features and solution capabilities, and adopt and adapt solutions developed at other places around the world. Therefore, research and teaching in international networks becomes critical, as it allows for accelerating learning by sharing problem understandings, successful solutions, and important contextual considerations. This article identifies eight distinct types of research and teaching collaborations in international networks that can support such accelerated learning. The four research types are, with increasing intensity of collaboration: (1) solution adoption; (2) solution consultation; (3) joint research on different problems; and (4) joint research on similar problems. The four teaching types are, with increasing intensity of collaboration: (1) adopted course; (2) course with visiting faculty; (3) joint course with traveling faculty; and (4) joint course with traveling students. The typology is illustrated by extending existing research and teaching projects on urban sustainability in the International Network of Programs in Sustainability, with partner universities from Europe, North America, Asia, and Africa. The article concludes with challenges and strategies for extending individual projects into collaborations in international networks.Postprint (author's final draft

US National Climate Assessment (NCA) Scenarios for Assessing Our Climate Future: Issues and Methodological Perspectives Background Whitepaper for Participants

This whitepaper is intended to provide a starting point for discussion at a workshop for the National Climate Assessment (NCA) that focuses on the use and development of scenarios. The paper will provide background needed by participants in the workshop in order to review options for developing and using scenarios in NCA. The paper briefly defines key terms and establishes a conceptual framework for developing consistent scenarios across different end uses and spatial scales. It reviews uses of scenarios in past U.S. national assessments and identifies potential users of and needs for scenarios for both the report scheduled for release in June 2013 and to support an ongoing distributed assessment process in sectors and regions around the country. Because scenarios prepared for the NCA will need to leverage existing research, the paper takes account of recent scientific advances and activities that could provide needed inputs. Finally, it considers potential approaches for providing methods, data, and other tools for assessment participants. We note that the term 'scenarios' has many meanings. An important goal of the whitepaper (and portions of the workshop agenda) is pedagogical (i.e., to compare different meanings and uses of the term and make assessment participants aware of the need to be explicit about types and uses of scenarios). In climate change research, scenarios have been used to establish bounds for future climate conditions and resulting effects on human and natural systems, given a defined level of greenhouse gas emissions. This quasi-predictive use contrasts with the way decision analysts typically use scenarios (i.e., to consider how robust alternative decisions or strategies may be to variation in key aspects of the future that are uncertain). As will be discussed, in climate change research and assessment, scenarios describe a range of aspects of the future, including major driving forces (both human activities and natural processes), changes in climate and related environmental conditions (e.g., sea level), and evolution of societal capability to respond to climate change. This wide range of scenarios is needed because the implications of climate change for the environment and society depend not only on changes in climate themselves, but also on human responses. This degree of breadth introduces and number of challenges for communication and research

Beyond Interpersonal Competence: Teaching and Learning Professional Skills in Sustainability

Successful careers in sustainability are determined by positive real-world change towards sustainability. This success depends heavily on professional skills in effective and compassionate communication, collaborative teamwork, or impactful stakeholder engagement, among others. These professional skills extend beyond content knowledge and methodical expertise. Current sustainability programs do not sufficiently facilitate students’ acquisition of such skills. This article presents a brief summary of professional skills, synthesized from the literature, and why they are relevant for sustainability professionals. Second, it presents how these skills have been taught in an undergraduate course in sustainability at Arizona State University, USA. Third, it critically discusses the effectiveness and challenges of that exemplary course. Finally, the article concludes with outlining the lessons learned that should be incorporated into future course offerings

Do We Teach What We Preach? An International Comparison of Problem- and Project-Based Learning Courses in Sustainability

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Governance scenarios for addressing water conflicts and climate change impacts

Scenarios that portray alternative governance regimes may help support positive change in regions that face persistent water problems. Here, we explore this proposition using the case of Guanacaste, Costa Rica ? a region that faces water conflicts and climate change impacts. We developed five alternative scenarios using a formative and participatory approach with system, consistency, and diversity analyses, and visualization. In one scenario, water conflicts surfaced due to opaque governance not accounting for communities that opposed suspect alliances of agencies and developers. In another, challenging contexts overwhelmed fragmented governance causing dissent; which contrasted with another scenario where engaged and vertically accountable governance schemes fit the unique dry tropical regional context and collectively mitigate problems. Governance though, in a return to historical precedent, could alternatively function through top-down schemes to safeguard rural lifestyles; or, operate minimalist schemes that fill only technical roles. The scenario building process facilitated diverse stakeholders to collaboratively explore and articulate alternative water governance schemes. The practical value of the scenarios, however, we found to depend on efforts before and after the study and the successful integration of the scenarios with those efforts. Previous water governance research in the region facilitated partnerships, trust, and active participation in the scenario building process. Timely followup demonstrated the real-time application of the scenarios as reference points to help craft strategies that aim to transition current governance toward sustainable alternatives. Governance scenarios, if integrated with a broader transformational planning process, can be a constructive step toward articulating and implementing sustainable water governance schemes. In Guanacaste they helped revitalize coordination and encouraged experimentation through new water governance efforts in the region

Valuation in morally charged situations: The role of deontological stances and intuition for trade-off making

The contingent valuation method is a widely used, yet controversial approach for valuating unpriced public goods in environmental and ecological economics. There is ongoing debate about the validity of the willingness-to-pay statements this method elicits particularly then when ethically or morally 'charged' public goods are assessed. It has been assumed that a considerable portion of the public holds deontological stances toward and applies analytical moral reasoning to such goods, which distort willingness-to-pay statements and subsequent cost-benefit analyses based on stated economic values. Results from studies in developmental and moral psychology, however, indicate that the majority of people base moral choice, and subsequently trade-offs, on social norms, affective reactions, and moral intuition rather than on analytical moral reasoning. This article presents a small focus-group study of people in the UK (n = 18), exploring whether their responses supports the idea that a considerable percentage of the public holds deontological stances towards the environment that influence their willingness to pay for environmental goods. The article contributes to the discourse on the validity of willingness-to-pay statements. From a broader perspective, it scrutinizes the importance of analytical moral reasoning and suggests that affective judgments and intuition are relevant to environmental valuation.Trade-off making Economic valuation Lexicographic preferences Trade-off refusal Moral judgment Intuition Affective judgments