How Can I Help You? Questioning the Role of Evaluation Techniques in Democratic Decision-Making Processes

Abstract

In the past, evaluation techniques were considered to be “decisional techniques”, “decisional tools”. There was a rough idea that, after the important data had been collected, the technique in question would, by itself, indicate the best decision. Evaluations of this kind clearly depended on the more or less implicit adoption of a “rational-comprehensive model”, which tended to downplay the ethical and political dimension of decisions, while stressing the role of both technique and technicians. This approach has been widely criticized. Partly as a result of such criticism, many evaluation techniques are now considered to be not “decisional tools” but forms of “decision aid”. The problem is that the expression “decision aid” lacks clarity and is by no means unequivocal in urban decisional situations. We believe in this regard that there is a gap in research and in the academic literature. Starting from this conviction, the article presents an investigation of what being a “decision aid” might mean for a technical evaluation today. The aim is to provide a conceptual framework within which to critically revisit and rediscuss the question, with particular regard to urban sustainability issues.

Moving the 2030 Agenda Ahead: Exploring the Role of Multiple Mediators toward Perceived Environment and Social Sustainability in Residential Neighbourhoods

“…Sustainability is no longer known as a mere environmental concern, but as a broad concept, which covers environmental and social aspects [41]. In a general perspective, social sustainability strategies attempt to improve the residents' quality of life and most relevant human needs including cultural and psychological ones, adaptability and consequently, sustainable development [42].…”

Assessing Social Sustainability for Achieving Sustainable Architecture

“…Sustainability is no longer considered as a single environmental concern but as a broad concept that also includes economic and social dimensions [28,29]. As mentioned above, the social dimension of sustainability with regard to the environmental and economic pillars is the least studied, with more uncertainties in definition and measurement methods [15,30,31].…”

Measuring and evaluating urban sustainability

“…Thus, evaluation supports the development of urban and architectural projects before they are generated, so that their sustainability impacts can be assessed. The need for sustainability assessment methods is linked to the fact that decisions, especially sustainable ones, are complex, ill-defined and must simultaneously fulfill economic, social, and environmental objectives, therefore evaluation approaches guide the process by supporting the prioritization of the decision (Frini et al, 2020;Lami and Moroni, 2020). In this context, the indicator could be a tool that is able to enable a judgment concerning sustainability and allows the monitoring and evaluation of the performances of plans and projects to compare their behaviors from a sustainable point of view.…”