This thesis explores the topic of seniors' participation in community planning. More specifically, it addresses the importance and relevance of including seniors, seniors' issues, and seniors' perspectives in community planning efforts, the circumstances under which seniors are most likely to become involved in community planning efforts, and guidelines for a practical process to encourage effective seniors' participation in developing local community plans. To address these issues, the thesis includes a review of the planning literature on public participation, a brief summary of relevant trends in gerontological literature, and an examination of the small amount of literature on seniors' participation in community planning. Two case studies in the District of North Vancouver, BC, "Seniors and the Lynn Valley Plan" and the "Seymour Local Plan Seniors' Forums," provide an example of a particular seniors' outreach process. This process is analysed for its effectiveness in including seniors, seniors' issues, and seniors' perspectives in local community plans and then factors influencing effectiveness are examined. This thesis reveals that the inclusion of seniors, seniors' issues, and seniors' perspectives engenders more accurate planning, increases acceptance of community plans, exercises democratic rights and duties, and promotes self-sufficiency and self-worth in individuals and communities. Seniors are most likely to become involved in community planning efforts when they feel included: when they feel they are fulfilling a meaningful role, when certain emotional needs are satisfied by the planning process, and when they are able to take advantage of participation opportunities, that is, when aging-related needs are taken into account in designing and implementing planning processes. The process employed in the two cases studied, with certain suggested improvements, is found to be an appropriate and effective method of including seniors, their issues, and their perspectives in community planning efforts. / Applied Science, Faculty of / Community and Regional Planning (SCARP), School of / Graduate

This study aims to examine how citizen participation can contribute to traffic development. The study examines which possibilities and challenges that comes with involving citizen, and how planners see their own role in this involvement. To examine this, planners who work with traffic development in Stockholm municipality have been interviewed regarding their opinions about citizen involvement. The result from the interviews have been divided into different themes and analysed. The study also contains a complementary document study to see how the municipality works with involving citizen in the planning process, with main focus on traffic issues. The study shows that planners sees themselves as experts, but they also think that citizens have knowledges that is necessary to create sustainable traffic solutions. It’s not a question about if they should be involved, instead it’s more about how they should. Planners who worked with traffic development got to describe their own experiences with involving citizens. A major key to reach consensus was to involve and discuss traffic problems and solutions at an early stage. This place expectations at a reasonable level and gave both planners and citizen knowledge about each other’s opinions.

Historically, citizen dialogue primarily took place through face-to-face meetings with a limited representation of the target group. However, societal changes have sparked interest in exploring alternative forms of citizen involvement. This study highlights the presence of barriers to inclusion and transparency in citizen engagement and identifies challenges in ensuring social sustainability within Swedish municipalities' efforts to engage citizens, particularly in the context of detailed planning processes. Overcoming these challenges is crucial for improving the relationship and collaboration among politicians, civil servants, and citizens.   The aim of this study is to investigate how Swedish municipalities can enhance citizen involvement in planning processes, with the goal of reducing appeals, minimizing time consumption, and fostering transparency and understanding. To achieve this aim, the study employed semi-structured interviews, with case selection guided by the growing political pressure on Swedish municipalities to enhance citizen involvement. The study's theoretical framework is built upon an extensive literature review, while empirical evidence is derived from 16 interviews. Through qualitative analysis and discussion, the study explores how local authorities can develop their practices regarding citizen involvement.  The study sheds light on the current practices and working methods employed by the interviewed local authorities, revealing the need to address existing barriers, such as digital exclusion, communication gaps, and empowerment issues. Previous research emphasizes the necessity for innovative and revised approaches to citizen involvement. Increasing the participation of citizens is crucial for ensuring representative democracy and leveraging digitalization can be a means to enhance involvement.

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The primary purpose of this study was to determine the efficacy of corporate-based recycling for communities without access to curb-side pick up of recyclable material. The secondary purpose was to use the taxonomy of behavior change strategies as devised by Geller et al. (1990a, b). The hypotheses of the study were as follows: 1) corporate-based recycling is an effective means of dealing with residential waste management in a rural community, 2) the effectiveness of one behavior change technique with a score of three (as proposed in the Taxonomy of Behavior Change Techniques) will be the same as an intervention package comprised of several techniques with a score of three, 3) the smaller the company, the more effective the intervention package and, 4) salaried employees will deposit more recyclable materials per person at the drop-off site than wage employees. Recycling drop off sites were established at the work place of rural residents as an alternative to curb-side pick up of recyclable material. Three sites chosen were located in a rural community in Southwestern Virginia. Two of the companies produced machine parts (n= 220, n=300). The third company produced printed material (n=32). Each company had both male and female wage and salaried employees with varying ages and levels of income. Recyclable materials (clear glass, green glass, brown glass and aluminum cans) were collected in four 33 gallon barrels in the parking lot of each company every Friday and weighed at the county collection center. In an attempt to motivate participation in the recycling program, the employees were informed of the availability of the barrels, given written prompts in the form of paycheck inserts and posters, and given group feedback in the form of a poster showing the weekly amount of each material collected at an individual company. One company also received a group meeting to promote consensus and to determine the weakness of the project. All prompts and feedback were given as a package at discrete periods of time in a multiple baseline design by groups. The intervention package was given twice at one site to determine the impact of repeated exposure to the intervention materials. Findings of the study indicated an erratic pattern of participation across the three sites. One site had such low participation that it was dropped from the study. The intervention packages did not significantly increase participation and the differences between wage and salaried employees were insignificant. It must be concluded that while some employees did participate in the recycling program refinements to both the interventions and the measurement techniques are needed. Directions for future research on the feasibility of corporate-based are discussed. / Master of Science

Interested citizens use the Internet for, among other purposes, expressing their opinions and views about political issues and local concerns. There is much expression by citizens in web logs (or blogs). Blogs are a form of individual expression, publicly available and constantly updated. Blog entries may contain a variety of topics of discussion. Two topics are the focus of this thesis: political and local issues. Often blogs are aggregated into regional collections. These aggregated sites are a good source for local and regional discussions. However, because the discussions are only implicitly connected, tools are needed to identify similarity in otherwise individual blog entries. Blog visualizations can help address this problem. We have created a tool, VizBlog that supports the task of local blog discussion discovery. This blog visualization tool visually presents information in a way that helps users identify blog entry clusters of similar content, helps citizens find other citizens opinions, and also helps government officials identify local hot issues. This research seeks to: a) validate the accuracy of the automated similarity classification done by VizBlog; b) evaluate the usability of VizBlog; and c) study the characteristics of local conversations scattered in a series of regional blogs. The results of the evaluation showed that VizBlog did make it easy for users to identify topics of interest from the visualization, in addition to providing insight on ongoing discussion taking place in regional blogs. In addition, the automated similarity computation was validated when compared to classification done by humans. Finally, the thesis discusses the findings of the structure of the regional blogosphere. / Master of Science

Thesis (MPhil)--Stellenbosch University, 2015. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Lack of collaboration amongst resource user groups in protected areas undermines effective community participation in protected area management. Currently, collaborative approaches are recognised as a planning tool and less of a management tool. However practice reveals that utmost, participatory approaches are recognised in management plans, but fail in the actual implementation. With this study an attempt was made to identify a possible means of enhancing community participation in protected area management by evaluating the extent to which the community of stakeholders in Lake Malawi National Park effectively engage in the management of the protected area. To achieve this aim, the research identified the stakeholders; their relationships with the park; and their relationships with each other. It further evaluated the present level of collaboration on whether it was adequate to enhance community participation in the sustainable management of the park. This research followed a descriptive-qualitative approach because the researcher was interested in exploring wider perceptions of people. It took the form of a case study to allow for an in-depth understanding of the phenomenon through understanding the participants‟ point of view in their natural setting. A critical review of related literature and a field research were conducted where data was collected from park documents and seven representatives from three stakeholder groups through the use of semi-structured interviews in English and Chichewa (official and national languages respectively); supported by note taking. The study has four findings. Firstly, that the primary stakeholders were the park authority management, lodge operators and indigenous people (villagers). Secondly, that stakeholders were found to have a special relationship with the park as it provided business opportunities, a source of livelihood, a sense of empowerment, relaxation space and employment. Thirdly, that stakeholders were not satisfied with the level of relationships in the park especially towards park authority management. This is a deviation from the expected in that for a long time relations in the park were seen to be faulted by the indigenous people and especially towards lodge operators, yet in this research, the relationship between these two stakeholder groups were found to be satisfactory. Fourthly, the research found that whilst there were reduced levels of conflict and that stakeholders related as and when need arose, the general level of collaboration was below the community‟s expectation. On a positive note, the findings showed the willingness of the stakeholders to form a representative body which they all felt would be better placed to negotiate decision-making and would improve the level of collaboration and management in the park. Five recommendations followed on how collaboration and stakeholder skills could be improved in the park and some of which include: the speedy facilitation of the registration of an already existing umbrella association; and the formal recognition of tour guides by Government. These issues if critically looked at, will create an environment in which stakeholders are able to collaborate and work as a community in the management of the protected area which is necessary for conservation and sustainability of livelihoods, the park‟s objectives. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: ʼn Gebrek aan samewerking tussen die gebruikersgroepe van hulpbronne in beskermde gebiede ondermyn doeltreffende gemeenskapsdeelname in die bestuur van hierdie areas. Samewerkingsbenaderings word tans gesien as ʼn beplanningsinstrument eerder as ʼn bestuursinstrument. Die praktyk wys egter dat terwyl deelnemende benaderings herken word in bestuursplanne, dit nie geïmplementeer word nie. In hierdie studie is daar gepoog om moontlike maniere te identifiseer om gemeenskapsdeelname te verbeter in die bestuur van beskermde gebiede deur middel van ʼn evaluering van die mate waartoe die gemeenskap van belanghebbendes in die Malawi Meer Nasionale Park doeltreffend betrokke is in die bestuur van dié beskermde gebied. Om dit te bereik, het die navorsing die belanghebbendes geïdentifiseer, sowel as hulle verhouding tot die park en hulle verhouding met mekaar. Verder is die huidige vlak van samewerking geëvalueer om vas te stel of dit voldoende is om gemeenskapsdeelname te verbeter in die volhoubare bestuur van die park. Die navorsing volg ʼn beskrywende-kwalitatiewe benadering omdat die navorser belanggestel het daarin om die breër persepsies van mense te ondersoek. Dit het die vorm aangeneem van ʼn gevallestudie om sodoende ʼn dieper begrip van die fenomeen te kry deur die deelnemers se oogpunt in hulle natuurlike omgewing te verstaan. ʼn Kritiese oorsig van verwante literatuur en veldwerk is uitgevoer waar data ingesamel is uit parkdokumente en van sewe verteenwoordigers van drie belangegroepe deur die gebruik van semi-gestruktureerde onderhoude in Engels en Chichewa (onderskeidelik amptelike en nasionale tale); asook deur die neem van notas. Die studie het vier bevindings opgelewer. Eerstens, die primêre belanghebbendes is die bestuursowerheid van die park, verblyfoperateurs en die inheemse bevolking (dorpsbewoners). Tweedens is daar gevind dat rolspelers ʼn spesiale verhouding het met die park aangesien dit die bron was van sakegeleenthede, inkomste, ʼn gevoel van bemagtiging, ontspanning en werk. Derdens, die rolspelers was nie tevrede met die vlak van verhoudings in die park nie, veral ten opsigte van die bestuursowerheid van die park. Dit is ʼn afwyking van wat verwag word in soverre daar vir ʼn lang ruk gedink is dat verhoudings in die park deur die inheemse bevolking bederf is, veral ten opsigte van verblyfoperateurs. In hierdie studie is daar egter gevind dat verhoudings tussen hierdie twee groepe rolspelers bevredigend is. Vierdens het die navorsing bevind dat hoewel konflik afgeneem het en dat rolspelers met mekaar skakel indien nodig, die algemene vlak van samewerking nie voldoen aan die gemeenskap se verwagtings nie. ʼn Positiewe punt is dat die bevindings wys dat die rolspelers gewillig is om ʼn verteenwoordigende liggaam te stig wat in ʼn beter posisie is om oor besluitneming te onderhandel en wat die vlak van samewerking en bestuur in die park kan verbeter. Vyf aanbevelings het gevolg oor hoe samewerking en die vaardighede van die belanghebbendes in die park verbeter kan word. Waarvan sommige sluit: die spoedige fasilitering van die registrasie van ʼn reeds bestaande oorkoepelende vereniging, en die formele herkenning van toergidse deur die regering. As hierdie kwessies krities beskou word, kan ʼn omgewing geskep word waarbinne belanghebbendes kan saamwerk as ʼn gemeenskap in die bestuur van die beskermde gebied, en dit is nodig vir die bewaring en volhoubaarheid van lewensonderhoud en die park se doelwitte.

published_or_final_version / Housing Management / Master / Master of Housing Management