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Paper short abstract:

This paper discusses efforts to scale-up participatory planning from the community to the city-level. We argue that, for more equitable urban development to occur, it is vital to rethink the planning process with more careful acknowledgement towards present city-specific challenges and obstacles.

Paper long abstract:

This paper considers the potential of scaling-up participatory planning from the community to the city-level. We recognise the shortcomings of many participatory processes to date, including the concentration on local-level 'invited spaces' (Cornwall 2002) which prevent citizen involvement in citywide decision making processes. Also lacking are accountabilities back to constituents to enable more mobilized political positions to emerge. We show how, faced by lack of progress towards informal settlement upgrading, community networks affiliated with Slum/Shack Dwellers International in Bulawayo, Johannesburg, and Nairobi engaged with local authorities to deepen and scale their community-led development practices. Our comparative analysis reveals that efforts to scale participatory planning and related implementation face city-specific challenges. Structural challenges relate to the distribution of income and assets, and social differentiation based on distinctions such as ethnicity and gender, are manifest through intra-community tensions and relations with authorities. The three contexts also illustrate what is required. In Nairobi, local government recognises the need to redesign planning practices and allows for planning regulations to be suspended in areas of particular need. However, experimentation in such areas has not resulted in scalable models. In Bulawayo, the local government funding crisis has enabled community renegotiation of planning rules but scalable models are slow to emerge. In Johannesburg, state finance is available for upgrading but opportunities for community-led development are restricted. We argue that, for more equitable urban development to occur, it is necessary to rethink the planning process with a more careful acknowledgement of present city-specific challenges and obstacles.