Local Impact Evaluation in the Design of Large-Scale Urban Systems

Abstract

Abstract When public service systems are designed in accordance with a highly aggregated definition of the public interest, their impacts often clash with community welfare as seen from a local perspective. In this article, such conflicts of interest are not viewed as an aberration of planning for large-scale systems, but as an inherent and central issue of designing and evaluating public services in urban areas. This problem is reflected in serious disparities between abstract models of planning, and the more practical processes of decision-making. To explore means of looking at public system impacts from the concrete and unique viewpoint of neighborhoods, this discussion focuses on the nature of evaluation strategies that might best cope with these conflicts. A number of evaluation procedures are reviewed with this requirement in mind, including benefit-cost and cost-effectiveness analysis, computer interaction techniques, and a process suggested under the name of “dialectical scanning.”