Public Engagement (part one)

Is it valuable?

This is a first for Citified - a two part post. As much as I wanted to, I just couldn’t limit all of my thoughts on public engagement to one post. Here’s part one, and part two, which will include some of my ideas on a way forward with public engagement, will follow in two weeks.

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If you took time to review political candidate websites from this past election, you may have noticed one word that shows up frequently: engagement. And it’s not just this election - I know at least one candidate in 2018 whose top priorities included ‘engagement’. So, it seems that those running for election believe that our community wants to engage in the process. But what does that mean exactly, and should ‘engagement’ be a high priority?

Many would argue that public engagement is an essential part of city-building and the foundation of local democracy. This Strong Towns article claims that, “A strong town can and should be shaped from the bottom up by the opinions—and perhaps more importantly, actions—of a broad spectrum of individuals with a stake in the town's success.”

That sounds like something we should all want, doesn’t it? But does it actually happen? Are our elected officials actually hearing from a “broad spectrum of individuals”? Research suggests they aren’t. That same Strong Towns article notes “The ‘public’ that shows up doesn't look that much like the whole public, in terms of either their demographics or their attitudes.” In fact, “whole classes of people might be marginalized from the process, while elected officials end up catering to a perceived public that is actually much narrower and more homogenous in its views and interests.” Clearly, that’s problematic. 

We can likely agree that public engagement done poorly is a waste of everyone’s time. However, Ruben Anderson would go even further, stating, “Most public engagement, as it is currently conducted, makes our cities worse places.” He’s not arguing against public consultation completely, but rather that it needs to be done well and used appropriately.

Poorly executed public engagement is insulting to everyone involved: city staff, elected officials, and the residents providing feedback. Too often the questions asked are insulting to city staff, who bring a wealth of knowledge and expertise. They are insulting to residents who are asked questions they are not equipped to answer. And Anderson reminds us, residents had “to give something up in order to come to the consultation, and nothing good came of their time because they weren’t asked questions they could meaningfully contribute to answering.” This type of consultation often leaves residents throwing their hands in the air, feeling the process was a waste of time. 

Too often, such ‘consultations’ are motivated by the belief that all we need to create a better city are ‘ideas’. If we can just come up with a great idea, then that will allow us to create great city spaces. But great ideas abound. As Anderson states in this article,

“New ideas are very seldom needed, in fact we are still struggling to execute ideas that are millennia old and so the fetishization of ideas is very often misplaced. What is needed is implementation.”

Implementation requires many things including political will, social cohesion, and funding. All of which are likely much harder to obtain than new ideas. And whether it’s ideas, political will, or funding, we must always ask whose voices we are prioritizing in the process.

As Jerusalem Demsas points out, in regards to housing discussions, “the perception of who counts as part of an affected local community tends to include everyone who feels the negative costs of development but only a fragment of the beneficiaries” and far too often those with the ear of council do not look much like our cities as a whole.

We know that individuals who are older, male, longtime residents, voters in local elections, and homeowners are significantly more likely to participate in council meetings and public engagement opportunities. These individuals overwhelmingly (and to a much greater degree than the general public) oppose new housing construction. Demsas reminds us that, “Because participation in local politics, even at the ballot box, is extremely limited, elected officials are often swayed by just a handful of emails or phone calls in opposition to, for instance, a new apartment tower.” At a minimum, elected officials need to recognize that those showing up to council meetings likely aren’t largely representative of the community as a whole, either in demographics or attitudes.

While it’s problematic that some folks are overrepresented in consultations, others are obviously underrepresented. For example, “proponents of new housing development will be comparatively less likely to attend meetings on proposed projects.” Why is this? “The economic benefits of new housing supply are diffuse. Any change in housing affordability from a single project is likely to be barely perceptible, particularly when weighed against the visible costs experienced by a narrower subset of the neighborhood.”

Adam Zivo provides the following analogy for this problem.

“It’s troubling that the views of existing residents are considered while those of potential future residents are not. Imagine a guarded subway car where all of the seating is taken, but there’s ample standing room. The subway stops at a station crammed with commuters. The guard asks the existing passengers whether there’s space for more people. They want as much space as possible, so they tell him no — and so he refuses to allow more people on. The commuters waiting at the station groan, because this happens with every passing subway car. That’s what community consultations are.”

Add to that, the fact that we humans tend to be more willing to ‘fight’ against something (i.e. new housing in a neighbourhood) than to take the time to express either our general support or even lack of concerns on a particular issue, and it’s not surprising that public engagement plays out this way. Demsas found that “a measly 14.6 percent of people who showed up to (public consultations) were in favor of the relevant projects.”

It’s not that there is no support for things such as transit and denser housing options. “The political coalition broadly in favor of new housing, transit, and renewable energy exists, but not at the project-by-project level. This asymmetry means that the opponents of a new project will always have the upper hand.”

That may paint a rather grim picture for public consultation processes but stay tuned for the second part of this post where I discuss some potential actions we can take.