In spite of the expanding role of public participation in environmental decisionmaking, there has been little systematic examination of whether it has, to date, contributed toward better environmental management. Neither have there been extensive empirical studies to examine how participation processes can be made more effective. Democracy in Practice brings together, for the first time, the collected experience of 30 years of public involvement in environmental decisionmaking. Using data from 239 cases, the authors evaluate the success of public participation and the contextual and procedural factors that lead to it. Thomas Beierle and Jerry Cayford demonstrate that public participation has not only improved environmental policy, but it has also played an important educational role and has helped resolve the conflict and mistrust that often plague environmental issues. Among the authors' findings are that intensive 'problem-solving' processes are most effective for achieving a broad set of social goals, and participant motivation and agency responsiveness are key factors for success. Democracy in Practice will be useful for a broad range of interests. For researchers, it assembles the most comprehensive data set on the practice of public participation, and presents a systematic typology and evaluation framework. For policymakers, political leaders, and citizens, it provides concrete advice about what to expect from public participation, and how it can be made more effective. Democracy in Practice concludes with a systematic guide for use by government agencies in their efforts to design successful public participation efforts.

Despite ongoing technical and professional advances, urban and regional planning is often far less effective than we might hope. Conflicting approaches and variable governmental settings have undermined planning’s legitimacy and allowed its goals to be eroded and co-opted in the face of mounting challenges. Deeper organising principles for self-understanding, action and productive critique are lacking. This book takes steps toward resolving these problems by providing a clear theoretical position to practically examine urban planning systems within democratic governance settings: the basis of planning’s legitimacy and action. Joining practical planning with political science perspectives and the work of critical theorists such as Jürgen Habermas, it directly examines urban planning as a process of governance. The dilemmas inherent to democracy are used as key organising principles and challenges for planning. Collective knowledge development and steering processes are examined as the core purposes of urban planning. Communicative planning’s grounding in the work of Habermas is revisited to develop practical ways of examining overall planning systems. This theoretical approach can be adapted to a range of planning systems and settings beyond those examined in the book, such as corporate or political realms. It is one of only a few analyses that bring together theoretical understandings and grounded and practical analyses of an Australian planning system. Conceptual and highly practical explanations of how and why the Victorian system does and doesn't ’work’ are revealed. The book demonstrates how specific placed-based understandings, and meaningful comparison between planning systems, can be made using critical theory to suggest positive change.

The struggle for the right to housing is a battle over property rights and land use. For housing to be provided as a human need, land must be recognised as a common right. Property, Planning and Protest is a compelling new investigation into public opposition to housing and real estate development. Its innovative materialist approach is grounded in the political economy of land value, and it recognises the conflict between communities and real estate capital as a struggle over land and property rights. Property, Planning and Protest is about a social movement struggling for democratic representation in land-use decisions. The amenity groups it describes champion a democratic plan-led system that allocates land for social and environmental goals. Situating this movement in a history of land reform and common rights, this book sets out a persuasive new vision of democratic planning and affordable housing for all.

Through a wide range of case studies, Mason reveals just how sensitive we all must be to styles of power, vulnerability and resilience in any democratic transition to sustainability. This is a fine book.' Timothy O'Riordan, Professor of Environmental Science, University of East Anglia, and Associate Director, Centre for Social and Economic Research on the Global Environment. Civic self-determination and ecological sustainability are widely accepted as two of the most important public goals. This book explains how they can be combined. Using vivid and telling case studies from around the world, it shows how liberal rights can include both ecological and social conditions for collective decision-making - environmentalist goals and social justice can be achieved together. Integrating theory and original case studies, the book makes a very significant contribution to the fundamentals of how environmental democracy can be advanced at all levels. Cogently argued and engaged, Environmental Democracy provides a superb teaching text and a source of ideas and persuasive arguments for the politically and environmentally engaged. It will be essential reading for students, teachers and researchers in politics, policy studies, environmental studies, geography and social science.

Published in collaboration with the Consensus Building Institute, this book calls for a mutual gains approach to land disputes. The authors detail techniques that allow stakeholders with conflicting interests to collaborate, voice concerns constructively, and reach successful agreements that benefit all parties involved in zoning, planning, and development.

An overview of the key issues of public accountability and water policy innovation that confront urban and agricultural water agencies throughout the country--notably in California where the prospects for future water development have become especially problematic. Focusing on six agencies in the Southern California region, they offer a series of case studies analyzing the issues of water quality, including groundwater contamination and disinfection by-products; reallocation and transfer of existing supplies; and management programs based on pricing changes, the conjunctive use of surface and groundwater supplies, and increased storage capacity aimed at greater efficiencies in stretching those existing supplies.