soziale stadt - bundestransferstelle

Bund-Länder-Programm "Stadtteile mit
besonderem Entwicklungsbedarf - Soziale Stadt"

Activation and Participation as Part of Socially Integrated City

Activation and participation are central elements of programme implementation

In his welcome speech at the nationwide Neighbourhood Management impulse congress held in Leipzig in late 2000, Dr. Ulrich Klimke, former Director of Urban Planning with the Federal Ministry of Transport, Building and Housing, stressed that “the activation of self-initiative and self-help potential, the development of a common awareness and the establishment of neighbourhood networks” were crucial elements of the Socially Integrated City programme “alongside resource pooling and the testing of new forms of management and organization” (cf. German Institute for Urban Affairs 2001, p. 11).

Development in many districts is primarily the product of unconventional forms of political and civic commitment as opposed to conventional, institutionally guaranteed forms of participation such as elections or membership of political parties.(1) Associations, action groups, self-help groups and “new social movements” (cf. Roth 1998, p. 5 ff.) directly represent grassroots interest and are thus an important resource for integrated district development and the potential origins of democratic communities and a corresponding culture of debate (cf. Rucht 1997, p. 384 and 398). They promote civic involvement, the independent search for solutions and local lobbying. They are mouthpieces of the (critical) public and constitute a corrective and innovative potential for politics and administration (ibid., p. 390 ff. and Roth 1998, p. 2 f.)

By now many of these initiatives and organizations are active on the ground, although often they do not cooperate to any great extent. An example of this is the coexistence of district level civic initiatives and citywide Local Agenda 21 groups acting in isolation from frequently strongly middle-class (2) planning bodies and lay advisory bodies often more interested in sectoral rather than district development. Non-organized citizens and local businesses are often neglected as a possible basis for the creation and maintenance of jobs and as points of contact for employment and training measures.

In this light, the innovativeness of the Socially Integrated City programme is particularly marked. It aims to:

However, implementation of the Socially Integrated City programme in 249 districts has revealed that interpretations of “activation” and “participation” can vary tremendously from municipality to municipality, and that they have very different approaches to who should be activated and encouraged to participate by whom via which methods and with what goals.

Often observers assert that activation and participation cannot be defined separately. Activation is said to always involve participation and all forms of participation to have an activating component. Practice in the districts, however, does demonstrate that activation receives less attention than participation. It therefore seems appropriate and justifiable to consider them separately.

Activation

Since the 1970s, activation, particularly of disadvantaged sections of the population, has traditionally been a community action matter. Today it is a core element of the “district social work” largely developed from its predecessor “GWA” by the Essen Institute for District Social Work and Advice (ISSAB) “District work following the tradition of community action is a resident activation process with no reference to specific projects and themes which (usually) continues over many years. It does not exclude lighthouse projects but generally aims to mobilize a neighbourhood through a large number of smaller activation measures based on the directly expressed, and often fickle, interests of residents. These measures then become fertile grounds for larger individual projects.” (Hinte, as of 9/2001). If individual projects were to dominate district development strategies without mobilizing people in this way, the activation strategy would stand “on wobbly legs” with very limited impact on the community and little chance of permanently contributing to neighbourhood improvement. It is therefore necessary to “organize the collective aspects of individual concerns, to bring people together around a single table, to strengthen neighbourhoods and to mobilize local potential. The key phrases are: communication, production of ideas and organization of people and resources”. This should allow projects to “tap existing interests, activities and needs as useful tools for improving community life” (ibid.). “Anyone wanting to equip people with the ability to extend their potential must take the time to learn what makes these people tick” (Lüttringhaus, as of 9/2001).

The principles of “district social work” as the basis for empowerment are as follows (cf. ibid.).

  1. Needs orientation The question “What do you want?” is emphasized much more than the question “What do you need?”.
  2. Activation asks what contribution locals can make towards attaining goals they have defined themselves.
  3. Use of resources available in the district or neighbourhood
  4. Integrated action at all levels of activity and control and in all areas
  5. Networking of relevant players, projects and measures
  6. Improvement of the concrete situation in the neighbourhood (e.g. infrastructure, housing conditions)

That means that “activation” can be understood as all techniques for targeting individuals and groups and getting them to communicate with one another. The aims of activation are to establish contact with neighbourhood residents, to identify the problems they may experience and to ascertain the willingness of individuals to contribute to district development. That means that procedures are not tied to specific projects, tend to be informal and are largely outreaching.

In 1993 Mohrlock, Neubauer, Neubauer and Schönfelder deplored GWA’s half-hearted approach towards activation and lack of satisfactory activation techniques: “it has no concrete recipe for how to develop strategies and intervention approaches” (ibid., p. 223). The authors elaborated a list of activation techniques on the basis of an investigation they conducted in the former West Germany . They distinguish between “direct techniques” and “visual aids”. Their definition of “direct techniques” is “when [professionals] contact citizens directly.They describe “visual aids” as “indirect tools for activating the residents of a community”, meaning that they roughly tally with neighbourhood public relations work.

The following two lists will reflect these different types of activation. The dichotomy is based on techniques identified by Mohrlock, Neubauer, Neubauer and Schönfelder. Their inventory is augmented by tools the Socially Integrated City programme employed in 16 pilot districts.

Direct techniques

Visual aids/neighbourhood public relations

Participation

In contrast, participation tends to begin at a formal level and is based on more or less planned, methodical procedures (fixed programme, specific locality, prescribed schedule and agenda, moderation) and to involve comparatively concrete objectives (e.g. discussing certain topics, developing projects, representing group interests). Examples of this kind of participation are:

In North Rhine-Westphalia a gradated committee structure with numerous forms of collaboration is emerging (cf. German Institute of Urban Affairs 2001, p. 50).

Participation processes do not just involve politicians and administrators. They also target inhabitants and players active in the local area, i.e. residents, local self-employed workers, retailers, initiatives, housing associations, companies and institutions and associations, as supralocal providers, too, So it is not simply a matter of mobilizing all the protagonists in the neighbourhood. Activation must go beyond, targeting professionals who can apply their specialist knowledge to developing the district.

It is important to involve political representatives in all forms of participation. They should at least receive regular updates about developments in the neighbourhood. It is also essential to find answers to the following questions: What is the legal status or validity of decisions made by participatory panels? Who receives the recommendations and resolutions? How is further procedure regulated outside the panel? Without a direct line to decision-makers in politics and local government there is a risk that laboriously negotiated compromises may have to be rejected at a later stage. That undermines trust in the entire development process, damages the programme’s credibility and reduces willingness to cooperate any further on participatory processes (ibid.).

Successful participation requires all parties to be equally informed at the start of the participatory process and for findings to be used for transparent input. A “culture of recognition” should be preserved, for example through public relations work on behalf of participatory panels. Several smaller project ideas at least should materialize quickly as visible evidence of the work. Tangible results also help activate people further.

It is not only necessary to employ activation techniques and introduce forms of participation. Ties to existing initiatives and organizations should be maintained (cf. Hinte, as of 9/2001) and incorporated into the networking activities of the following bodies in particular:

Quick, uncomplicated, democratic – contingency funds promote activation and participation

In the past the lack of decision-making powers at local level and thus of possibilities for rapid action was a major hurdle to successful activation and participation.

Activating the population and initiating independent organization requires the establishment of contingency funds or district budgets to help realize small projects and measures quickly and non-bureaucratically. The decisive factor is not the amount of money injected into a scheme. It is much more crucial that funds be disbursed directly in the locality through a straightforward process based on democratically legitimate decision-making structures. Of course, establishing a contingency fund will mean that local government has to surrender some of its traditional powers. Therefore it is necessary to make allies of politicians and to convince them that immediate contact with inhabitants and the local economy will gain them influence and improve their relationship with their constituency and that this will compensate them for their loss of power. If politicians are involved in the decision-making process during the early stages, genuine codetermination structures rather than rival structures arise in the “shadows of the hierarchy” of councils and district assemblies (c.f. Becker/Löhr, p. 27).

Contingency funds should by no means be considered mere instruments for “appeasing” neighbourhood populations, for example by facilitating the realization of a few smaller, bottom-up projects but still more or less concentrating on the classic, top-down approach.

Experience with activation and participation in implementing Socially Integrated City

The activation approaches and techniques of GWA and “district social work” and the participation forms resulting from the reforms of the 1970s and 80s are nothing new (cf. Roth 1997, p. 436 ff., ibid. 1998, p. 13 ff., Weßfels 1997, p. 223).

The novelty of Socially Integrated City is that it advocates an holistic district orientation for approaches and slants organizations’ and local government’s internal management structures towards these new forms of resource activation and utilization. If the Socially Integrated City programme is to be efficiently implemented it is essential that the appropriate flexible, cooperative and deregulated political and administrative structures exist for the measures, activities and mobilization and revitalization processes which are considered necessary. If not, it must be possible to create them at short notice. The solution is neighbourhood management (cf., for example, Franke/Löhr 2000, p. 2 f.; Franke/Löhr/Sander 2000, p. 243 ff.). The prerequisite is decentralization of decision-making authority and local resources in the relevant sectors, i.e. devolution of power structures.

Experiences during programme support have demonstrated that stimulating activation and participation depends on the passing of resolutions on integrated action plans and new forms of cooperation. Councils and government department heads must back activation and participation strategies if they are to be taken seriously as grassroots democratic tools and methods. Overcoming compartmentalization, establishing clear district orientation, building cooperative administrative structures and collaborating with local politicians are additional imperatives.

Activation and participation will probably be most successful in those municipalities where neighbourhood management is fully established in government, at intermediary levels and in the neighbourhood (district office). Conversely, problems can easily prevail in places where urban planning perspectives and methods dominate, where intermediary levels are too strongly characterized by classical participatory processes and local activation activities are low priorities. In some municipalities participatory panels are chiefly peopled by professionals instead of locals.

All different kinds of activation and participation methods can yield success. The decisive factor is that the measures are tailored to the respective district and its usually very heterogeneous population. It is ordinarily not possible to directly transfer measures that have worked well in one area into another without adapting them beforehand. Activating neighbourhoods demands an open attitude towards new processes and ideas, due consideration of the local situation and effective use of a diverse portfolio of methods, even if this conflicts with the administration’s concrete ideas about projects, schedules and output. It is a sad fact that life and administrators move at different speeds. Work is hampered considerably when insufficient decision-making powers exist and no contingency funds are available. As a general rule, project leaders trying to fulfil residents’ needs should not delude them. Processes must be transparent. Successful participation and activation demands the continuous presence of specialists and the existence of open contact places with low-threshold services.

Conclusion

The joint federal-Land programme, “Districts With Special Development Needs – the Socially Integrated City” enhances urban development aid. It considers itself “an investment and supervisory programme for districts with special development needs” (ARGEBAU 2000, p. 15) and thus as a package of financial and non-financial measures for integrated urban development. Therefore the programme is neither a classic urban planning assistance programme nor can it independently finance the implementation of integrated action plans. A traditional interpretation would largely limit programme implementation to top-down urban development and renewal measures including more or less classic participation possibilities. But Socially Integrated City’s scope goes far beyond such approaches. Its innovativeness lies in the pooling of material resources and of communication, cooperation and coordination at all levels of integrated neighbourhood development. Socially Integrated City ’s goal is to effect self-reliant structures in disadvantaged neighbourhoods. This can only be attained if the needs and interests of the local population are prioritized. That is why appropriate neighbourhood management and tailored activation and participation forms are of central significance.

Close cooperation between many different protagonists, for example planners and social workers, is essential. The former often coordinate programme implementation and the establishment of neighbourhood management. The latter are demanding a more influential role in programme implementation, arguing that activation, participation and neighbourhood management were originally the tasks of GWA or “district social work”. “There are few precedents for collaboration between urban planners and social players. It is therefore important that these central axes now join forces” – Reinhard Thies from the Hesse Task Force for Social Hotspots speaking at the federal neighbourhood management impulse congress in Leipzig in late 2000 (cf. German Institute for Urban Affairs 2001, p. 25). Hesse ’s tandem solution is to staff local offices with one planner and one social worker to respond to this demand and to fuse participation and activation directly at local level.

Thomas Franke, Difu

(1) With regard to the difference between “conventional” and “unconventional”, several authors have mentioned that now things previously considered “unconventional” have become “conventional” and that “conventional” forms of participation are increasingly resorting to “unconventional” methods (cf. Rucht 1997, p. 382 f. and Roth 1997, p. 409, FN 15).

(2) Activation and participation in disadvantaged areas should not be confused with the more middle-class-oriented “civic commitment” or disguised “honorary posts” in “the civitas”. Socially Integrated City is particularly concerned with the (re)construction of community action structures in neighbourhoods which are often characterized by the lack of “civicness” and its various options for exercising political influence.

References

ARGEBAU – Construction and Urban Planning Panel of the Housing Committee, “Leitfaden zur Ausgestaltung der gemeinschaftsinitiative ‘Soziale Stadt’”, p. 15, German Institute of Urban Affairs (ed.), Arbeitspapiere zum Programm Soziale Stadt, Volume 3 (programme documents), Berlin 2000.

Becker, Heidede, and Rolf-Peter Löhr, “‘Soziale Stadt’. Ein Programm gegen die sozialräumliche Spaltung in den Städten”, Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte, Vol. 10-11/2000.

German Institute of Urban Affairs (ed.), Impulskongress Quartiermanagement, documentation, Berlin 2001 (working papers on the Socially Integrated City programme, Volume 5).

Franke, Thomas, and Rolf-Peter Löhr, “Überlegungen zum Quartiermanagement”, Soziale Stadt info 2, Berlin 2000, p. 2–3.

Franke, Thomas, Rolf-Peter Löhr and Robert Sander, “Soziale Stadt – Stadterneuerungspolitik als Stadt­politikerneuerung”, Archiv für Kommunalwissenschaften, Vol. 39, 2000, Volume II, p. 243–268.

Hinte, Wolfgang, “Bewohner ermutigen, aktivieren, organisieren. Methoden und Strukturen für ein effektives Quartiermanagement.” www.stadtteilarbeit.de/Seiten/Theorie/Hinte/Quartiermanagement.htm.

Lüttringhaus, Maria, “Förderung von Partizipation durch integrierte Kommunalpolitik.” www.stadtteilarbeit.de/Seiten/Theorie/Luettringhaus/Buergerbeteiligung.htm.

Mohrlock, Marion, Michaela Neubauer, Rainer Neubauer and Walter Schönfelder, Let’s Organize! Gemeinwesenarbeit und Community Organization im Vergleich, Munich: AG SPAK 1993, p. 223 (community work series, AG SPAK Bücher M 113).

Roth, Roland, “Die Kommune als Ort der Bürgerbeteiligung”, Klein, Ansgar, and Rainer Schmalz-Bruns (eds.), Politische Beteiligung und Bürgerengagement in Deutschland. Möglichkeiten und Grenzen, Bonn 1997, p. 409, FN 15 (Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung, special series, Volume 347).

Roth, Roland, “Lokale Demokratie ‘von unten’”, Wollmann, Hellmut, and Roland Roth (eds.), Kommunalpolitik. Politisches Handeln in den Gemeinden, Bonn 1998, p. 5 ff. (Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung, special series, Volume 356).

Rucht, Dieter, “Soziale Bewegungen als demokratische Produktivkraft”, Klein, Ansgar, and Rainer Schmalz-Bruns (eds.), Politische Beteiligung und Bürgerengagement in Deutschland. Möglichkeiten und Grenzen, Bonn 1997, p. 382 f. (Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung, special series, Volume 347).

Weßfels, Bernhard, “Politisierung entlang neuer Konfliktlinien?”, Klein, Ansgar, and Rainer Schmalz-Bruns (eds.), Politische Beteiligung und Bürgerengagement in Deutschland. Möglichkeiten und Grenzen, Bonn 1997, p. 223 (Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung, special series, Volume 347).


Source: Soziale Stadt - info 7, Der Newsletter zum Bund-Länder-Programm Soziale Stadt, Deutsches Institut für Urbanistik (Difu), Berlin, 2002

Soziale Stadt © 2000-2008 Deutsches Institut für Urbanistik
Im Auftrag des BMVBS vertreten durch das BBR. Zuletzt geändert am 22.03.2007