Managing group processes in transdisciplinary future studies: How to facilitate social learning and capacity building for self-organised action towards sustainable urban development?

Between Participation and Collective Action—From Occasional Liaisons towards Long-Term Co-Management for Urban Resilience

“…This implies that authorities define the nature of the problem [15], the way to handle it, and thus a priori set the scope for citizen involvement. This "failure to consider the essential role of users in framing problems and not simply in designing solutions" [22] contrasts with findings from various participatory experiences but also resilience literature, which highlight the importance of involving citizens as soon as possible, when there is maximum scope and openness for co-creation of a diversity of response options through social learning [14,37,[39][40][41][42].…”

“…It is also known from findings of group dynamics that especially this first phase of common problem framing, defining, and structuring the process and creating trust is of special importance for the success of a process and leads to greater identification with the issue itself, and thus to greater motivation for collaboration [42]. Yet, in Arnstein's model, the need to devote time and common expertise to problem definition and to build consensus around the agenda and goals are not considered.…”

“…Not achieving citizen control thus might be conceptualized as failure or delegitimization of a process [21]. Instead of shifts in power relations, several scholars highlight the quality, dynamics, and flexibility of the process as measures for participation success [21,22,29,36,42,46]. For successful process design it seems to be less important to what extent citizens get involved, but rather to co-define the adequate method, the relevant actors and the extent of their involvement for each phase of a process to ensure social learning among governmental and non-governmental actors.…”

“…It grappled with an unbalanced municipal budget, considerable population increase due to its vicinity to Vienna, as well as having heterogeneous interests and perceptions of its identity and image between the poles of urbanity and village quality of living [42]. Moreover, the city had to find sustainable solutions for various demanding tasks such as recurrent flooding of the Danube, groundwater pollution, and the controversial plans for building an additional motorway exit.…”

“…Moreover, the city had to find sustainable solutions for various demanding tasks such as recurrent flooding of the Danube, groundwater pollution, and the controversial plans for building an additional motorway exit. Starting in 2011, a group of self-organized citizens convinced the municipal government to develop a mission statement for urban planning in close collaboration with citizens and external experts (phase 1: "Leitbild" as shown in Figure 2; for details see [42,48]). The city committed itself to the mission statement as a binding guideline for decision-making in future urban planning (e.g., for land use zoning, traffic, and social infrastructure planning).…”