Local government citizen academies : is knowledge power?

Abstract

Government decision-makers and especially urban planners increasingly face difficulties engaging citizens given trends of public apathy, cynicism towards government, language and cultural barriers, and the growing complexity of government bureaucracy. As municipal governments increasingly focus on the long-term engagement of citizens, particularly special interest, advocacy, and community organizations, a key dilemma is how to create an on-going process for training stakeholders to participate in consultation and conflict resolution efforts. Many individuals and interest groups are ill prepared for participation in public planning processes and do not understand how municipal government functions, the key dilemmas it faces, or the urban planning concepts and procedures that shape economic, social and physical life. Likewise, many planners are not trained to understand and integrate "local knowledge" --the specific expertise and on-the-ground information brought by local citizens--with technical information and bureaucratic processes. As a result, communication with the public is often constrained as citizens perceive government as a "black box" that is unapproachable.

(cont.) To address these challenges there is a growing trend among municipal governments to conduct citizen academies. These efforts to educate the public on the basic functions of municipal government, urban planning, and the land development process are distinct from other forms of citizen training because they occur on a regular basis, are geared towards a broader public, and are coordinated by municipal government staff. This thesis evaluates the effectiveness of three citizen academy programs in the United States in terms of their ability to improve citizen engagement capacity. This research measures such improvements through changes in citizens' and planners' perceptions about citizen-government relations, learning and knowledge exchange, and citizen action. The findings indicate that these academies do broaden citizen understanding of planning and government, foster improved personal relations between citizens and planners, improve citizen's (perceived) ability to influence decision-makers, and invigorate public interest in government boards and commissions.

(cont.) However, academies rarely integrate local and professional knowledge into what they teach and they face an inherent conflict between "capacity building" and "allegiance building." To improve citizen academies local governments might want to foster collaboration between planning and neighborhood services departments, to partner with a local community-based organization, and employ case-based learning approaches in the way they teach.