This is a qualitative exploratory, descriptive study to ascertain the feasibility of public administrators at the local government level using an Appreciative Inquiry approach to increase direct citizen participation. It is framed by the interpretive paradigm. Twenty city managers or their designees from cities of between 40,000 and 250,000 citizens were interviewed. Specifically, respondents were asked twelve semi-structured interview questions. Content analysis was used to identify six themes in the data. Ultimately, this study found that Appreciative Inquiry may be useful in limited circumstances as long as barriers to implementation were adequately addressed. However, the potential risks may outweigh the benefits. / Ph. D.

No description available.

No description available.

Civil society is a widely discussed concept, often proposed as a means to address problems associated with a weakening of the social fabric. Nearly all civil society literature works from the notion that creating more or richer discourse around any given issue will help build agreement about the key values and in so doing, civil society will emerge. What this literature has not yet turned its attention to is, what is necessary for a strong social bond, which is a prerequisite for the possibility of social discourse in the first place, to exist. Historically, the social bond has been built on common religious, cultural and/or political perspectives. However, the constitutive power of the institutions that comprise each of these areas has diminished substantially. This research draws on concepts developed in the field of environmental psychology to understand how place can serve as the basis for the development of a social bond and subsequent emergence of civil society. Two concepts drawn from environmental psychology -- place attachment and place identity -- are used to demonstrate how individuals and groups become connected to place, and how such a connection shapes and contributes to social relations. Specifically, this study contributes to the body of civil society literature by illuminating how a public agency can foster the development of the social bond by drawing explicitly and symbolically on place and in doing so, contributes to the emergence of civil society -- or on the other hand, fails to foster it as effectively as it could by being attentive to the role that place can play in creating the social bond. / Ph. D.

published_or_final_version / Asian Studies / Master / Master of Arts

published_or_final_version / Urban Studies / Master / Master of Social Sciences

published_or_final_version / Urban Planning / Master / Master of Science in Urban Planning

Thesis (B.S.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 1976. / MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND ROTCH / Bibliography: leaves 66-67. / by Carl Raymond Strauss. / B.S.

This study is on coproduction as a governing policy instrument. Coproduction can be understood as the joint production of services by local officials and individual citizens intended to raise the quality and or amount of service provision. The concept of coproduction as developed in this study suggests that urban services are not simply created by officials and delivered to a passive public. Rather that actions of citizens are an integral part of the service production process. The study purposes are two-fold: (1) to construct a model of coproduction which provides a basis by which citizen involvement in the provision of public services can be fully understood and appreciated; and (2) to examine the usefulness of this model by using it to frame and guide evaluative research on a specific program which targets coproductive participation of citizens. The research examined efforts to implement a program to encourage recycling by residents in multifamily complexes in the City of Portland by involving the direct participation of the managers of the complexes. The research conducted in this study addressed both the inputs and outcomes of citizen involvement in coproduction. Findings of this research are suggestive of the potential importance of both inclusion and volition to furthering citizen involvement in the coproductive process. The level of citizen involvement in producing the programmatic outcomes was by most measures demonstrated to be very important. The results of the investigation in demonstrating the importance of involvement in coproduced programs in generating broader levels of community awareness and involvement, however, were not as conclusive. The model of coproduction developed in this study provides a potentially useful conceptualization of the process and outcomes of coproduction. The empirical investigation provides an assessment of the nature and strength of the relationship between citizen involvement and the coproductive process in the case of Portland's multifamily recycling program. Both the economic and civic considerations of coproduction which were specified and measured in the research contribute to a number of observations about coproduction as a policy instrument leading to several policy recommendations for programs which are built on citizen involvement.

Urban decay has become a serious problem in many countries around the world, and urban renewal has been widely adopted as an important national strategy to encounter such problem. After decades, public participation as a soft part was taken into account to supplement the physical reconstruction. In developed countries and regions such as Hong Kong, Singapore, U.K., etc, the spirit of public participation has permeated in the whole society, and has been applied in the urban renewal process, while in developing countries such as Mainland China, public participation is more like a slogan. In the real practice, to complete urban renewal as fast as possible, participation is generally ignored by the government, and the public do not have the consciousness of participation. General conditions and specific cases of public participation in urban renewal in both Mainland and Hong Kong are illustrated. In this dissertation, however, unlike most scholars’ judgment, advantages of Mainland’s mode are confirmed, and disadvantages of Hong Kong public participation are a little different from common argument. Based on literature review and international best practices, four factors are extracted to establish an ideal framework of public participation in urban renewal, namely special executive agency, comprehensive and detailed legislations, public’s consciousness of participation and rich free social resources, which mainly refers to non-government organizations. Recommendations to both Mainland and Hong Kong will be proposed on account of the model in the end of the dissertation. / published_or_final_version / Urban Planning and Design / Master / Master of Science in Urban Planning