Citizen Participation in Between: Innovative Citizen Participation in Planning in Norway and Denmark

Torill Nyseth, Uit, The Norwegian University of the Arctic: torill.nyseth@uit.no Toril Ringholm, Lillehammer University College: toril.ringholm@hil.no Annika Agger, Roskilde University: aagger@ruc.dk It is a conundrum that new, experimental and innovative forms of citizen participation in local planning contexts, often seem to take place without being a part of the ordinary planning process. At the same time the legislation emphasise the responsibility of the planning authorities to secure the participation in general, and that of groups with less participative resources in particular. What we experience in Norway, is that citizen participation in formal planning processes are most often limited to the minimum requirements set by the law: information in the early phase and consultation practices in the late phase of the planning process, sometimes supplemented by public meetings (Ringholm, Nyseth and Hanssen, forthcoming). On the other hand, there exist a number of examples of new, innovative forms of citizen participation that to a varying degree are connected to planning processes. In particular, we find such innovative involvement of citizens in urban development and urban governance processes, and often linked to larger urban transformation programs where citizens’ input is valued for different reasons. Sometimes these inputs are channelled into formal planning processes, sometimes not (Kristiansen 2011, Nyseth et al 2010). The research on these processes is scarce. These traditions seem to merge with new ideas about urban governance and in programs for innovating public services. Urban Laboratories and other placed-based urban policy programs that are testing new modes of collaboration between private and public actors in deprived urban areas. In these initiatives, citizens are expected to play an important role in co-producing joint solutions for both social and physical improvements and activities in the neighbourhood. (Agger 2015; Agger & Jensen 2015). Our theoretical approach is inspired by the concept of fluid planning (Dovey 2005, Buitelaar et al. 2007, Nyseth …), insurgent planning (….), of the co-creation concept (Clarke et al. 2014), and of the approach to participation offered by Clarke et al. (2014), where the traditional approaches are questioned and a contextualised approach is offered. In this paper we intend to explore these innovative forms of citizen participation in planning, by drawing on Norwegian and Danish examples of such practices. As the research material is limited, we will include a broad range of sources, like reports and student assignments. This is because the scientific publications offer a very limited glimpse into these novel forms of participation. 1) What characterises the new and innovative forms of citizen participation in urban planning in terms of innovation? 2) In what ways and to what degree is input from these processes fed into the formal planning processes? 3) What could be the implications of treating the citizens as co-producers or co-creators instead of citizens in planning processes?