Community-based Planning Research Articles

Improving Access to Physical Activity

Environmental approaches to increase access to physical activity facilities are recommended for promoting physical activity. People with easy access to recreational facilities are more likely to achieve the recommended levels of physical activity, and neighborhoods that are walkable and provide access to public parks and jogging trails are associated with higher levels of activity. Friends for Fitness, a grassroots organization in West Hawai‘i spearheaded a community-based planning process and intervention to revitalize the Old Kona Airport into a walking/jogging trail. Through community engagement, support from local media and businesses, and volunteers, Friends for Fitness succeeded in increasing physical activity among residents. After three years, the number of walkers utilizing the trail increased more than 20%.

Regional Community-Based Planning: The Challenge of Participatory Environmental Governance

A new approach to environmental governance is sweeping Australia. Two national funding schemes require collaborative bodies to administer funds for regional on-ground projects to manage rivers, coastlines, biodiversity and vegetation. The devolution of power and resources to these bodies is contingent on participatory, representative and transparent processes. This decentralisation of responsibility reflects stakeholder expectations and a focus on empowerment and social capital. Supporters of the new regional arrangements anticipate that the heightened inclusion of community members in decision-making will contribute to a holistic and collaborative approach, in stark contrast to adversarial, ‘decide and announce’ approaches. Their case is strengthened by the consensus that traditional top-down governance has failed to achieve sustainable natural resource management and may, in fact, have contributed to adverse impacts, including salinity, ecosystem loss and climate change.

Street Science: Community Knowledge and Environmental Health JusticeJasonCorburn. . Street Science: Community Knowledge and Environmental Health Justice. . 2005. . MIT Press. : Cambridge, MA. . ISBN: ISBN: 0-262-53272-7. . $24

Street Science: Community Knowledge and Environmental Health JusticeJasonCorburn. . Street Science: Community Knowledge and Environmental Health Justice. . 2005. . MIT Press. : Cambridge, MA. . ISBN: ISBN: 0-262-53272-7. . <b>$24</b>

The Politics of Accountability in National Forest Planning

On December 6, 2002, the Forest Service published a proposed planning regulation that provides a framework for community-based collaborative planning for sustainability, alters the spatial and temporal scales of public involvement, and replaces postdecisional appeals of forest plans with a predecisional objection process. This article examines the potential effects of community-based collaborative planning on national environmental stakeholders and explores what it means to be accountable to a national constituency. The author argues that the focus on the community of place in collaborative planning, compounded by the loss of appeals, undermines the democratic accountability of the forest planning processes.

Commercial Insurance vs Community‐based Health Plans: Time for a Policy Option With Clinical Emphasis to Address the Cost Spiral

The nation continues its ceaseless struggle with the spiraling cost of health care. Previous efforts (regulation, competition, voluntary action) have included almost every strategy except clinical. Insurers have largely failed in their cost-containment efforts. There is a strong emerging body of literature that demonstrates the relationship between various clinical strategies and reductions in utilization and costs. This article describes the organization of health services, including integration of delivery and financing systems, at the community level as a model that effectively addresses the critical structural flaws that have frustrated control of costs. Community-based health plans (CHPs) have been developed and have demonstrated viability. The key elements of CHPs are a legal organizational structure, a full provider network, advanced care-management systems, and the ability to assume financial risk. Common misconceptions regarding obstacles to CHP development are the complexity of the undertaking, difficulty assuming the insurance function, and insured pools that are too small to be viable. The characteristics of successful CHPs and 2 case studies are described, including the types of advanced care-management systems that have resulted in strong financial performance. The demonstrated ability of CHPs to establish financial viability with small numbers of enrollees challenges the common assumption that there is a fixed relationship between health plan enrollment size and financial performance. Organizing the health system at the community/regional level provides an attractive alternative model in the health-reform debate. There is an opportunity for clinical systems and state and federal leaders to support the development of community-based integrated delivery and financing system models that, among other advantages, have significant potential to modulate the pernicious cost spiral.

Regional Community-Based Planning: The Challenge of Participatory Environmental Governance

A new approach to environmental governance is sweeping Australia. Two national funding schemes require collaborative bodies to administer funds for regional on-ground projects to manage rivers, coastlines, biodiversity and vegetation. The devolution of power and resources to these bodies is contingent on participatory, representative and transparent processes. This decentralisation of responsibility reflects stakeholder expectations and a focus on empowerment and social capital. Supporters of the new regional arrangements anticipate that the heightened inclusion of community members in decision-making will contribute to a holistic and collaborative approach, in stark contrast to adversarial, ‘decide and announce approaches. Their case is strengthened by the consensus that traditional top-down governance has failed to achieve sustainable natural resource management and may, in fact, have contributed to adverse impacts, including salinity, ecosystem loss and climate change.

A study on community outreach and community-based architecture and planning educational program

A study on community outreach and community-based architecture and planning educational program

The environmental planning and management approach towards the development and management of the Osun natural spring project, Ibadan, Nigeria

There is a general shortage of potable water in Nigeria, partly through the lack of natural provision and partly because of rapid urban growth that has largely been unplanned. The paper describes the recent redevelopment of a public water facility in a run-down area of Ibadan which is part of the Sustainable Ibadan Project. Despite funding from national and international bodies, the development is strongly based at community level. The local inhabitants feel they have control over their own water supply through their representatives on the various planning and managing committees. This aims to reduce vandalism and to increase pride and involvement in the community. The project is a pilot for other projects around Ibadan, some of which have begun and others are being planned. This paper describes the administrative structures and management principles that have been employed. It forcefully advocates community-based planning and management which respects both the environment and the water-users, and involves a major “bottom-up” element.

Agenda Setting within a Community-Based Food Security Planning Process: The Influence of Power

Objective To determine the effectiveness of using citizen politics as a framework for empowering citizens to build a community food security agenda. Design A critical perspective, case study design, and multiple qualitative methods were used. Participants/Setting Forty-four participants were purposefully recruited to participate in a community-based planning process called a search conference (SC). Seven additional disenfranchised stakeholders who did not attend the SC were also recruited to participate. Phenomenon of Interest To assess how power influenced agenda setting and to determine the extent to which disenfranchised stakeholders' most salient interests were incorporated into the final SC action agendas. Analysis The constant comparison method, content analysis, and consensus were used to produce the final analysis. Results Power influenced agenda setting by managing knowledge, problem framing, trust, and consent. Two of seven of disenfranchised stakeholders' most salient interests, including need for adequate food preparation skills and increased availability of locally produced foods, were incorporated into the final SC action agendas. Conclusions and Implications Citizen politics can be used to build a community food security agenda on issues that are not at odds with stakeholders in positions of power. To bring about change on issues in which power differences between groups are substantial, additional theoretical frameworks and public policy-making models are needed.

Learning Radical Planning: The Power of Collective Action

This article examines how citizens in authoritarian political contexts learn radical planning for social transformation. After identifying a series of gaps in the radical planning literature, the article uses a longitudinal study (1994-2001) of collective action in an urban settlement in Indonesia as a heuristic device to develop a more nuanced model of radical planning. The study illustrates how cumulative participation in state-directed planning, community-based planning, and covert planning over time resulted in a sense of collective agency that served as a foundation for demanding political reform at a moment when state control was weakened.

Buying Back and Caring for Country: Institutional Arrangements and Possibilities for Indigenous Lands Management in Australia

This article reports on research conducted for an Australian government agency concerned with the acquisition and management of lands for indigenous peoples. Using the theoretical and empirical literature on planning, this article considers institutional arrangements and processes to support the management of indigenous lands by their indigenous owners. The article examines recent calls for policy decentralization and community-based planning as a response to contemporary environmental management issues. The utility of three institutional models--(1) centralized institutional regulatory, (2) community-based planning, and (3) reticulist (facilitated process) approaches--are interrogated. The article develops a hybrid approach that integrates the positive features of different approaches. The hybridized model provides institutional arrangements that enable collaborative planning between indigenous peoples and state institutions. It overcomes the deficiencies of community-based approaches by retaining an active, albeit limited, role for state agencies.

まちづくり情報帳の開発とその市民評価

This study reports fabrication technique of "community-based planning information book (CPIB)" which had developed as the database for citizens share the information in the Tsuruoka City, and its evaluation by the citizen. The features of CPIB are to correspond for "extent of the problem consciousness of the citizen" and "extent of the citizen's relationship to the community-based planning". The evaluation results shows the roles of 4types of citizens -the citizen type of "person with right" and "person receives lifelong learning" as the good reader of CPIB, and the "person aims building agreement" and "NPO staff" as the producer of CPIB.

Community Forestry and the Politics of Agrarian Reform in the Chimalapas, Oaxaca

This paper explores the difficulties of promoting a viable community-based management system in an isolated rural area that has little infrastructure and unstable property rights. The community of Chalchijapa comprises residents of mixed African, Indian and European descent who had originally migrated from Veracruz over ten years ago. The residents of Chalchijapa were granted the surrounding land as an ejido by the Zoque, whose communal lands it rightfully belonged to. The Zoque did this in part to stem the illegal clearance and expansion onto this forestland by ranchers from the nearby town of La Colonia. Cattle ranching is considered an investment that can easily be liquidated, and generally provides steady, low risk returns, with a relative ease of transport to markets. Cattle raising is discussed in comparison with the community-based forest management plan of Chalchijapa as an alternative to ranch development. Both are placed in the context of land use policy and the national forest policy of Mexico.

Developing Land Use Policy for Environmental Objectives: Some Perspectives from the Rangeways Project in the Western Australian Goldfields

A decade ago, a national decline in the pastoral wool industry and increasing demand for other land uses made a rethink on land allocation, management and access in Australia's rangelands essential. Market forces were inadequate for achieving necessary structural adjustment and land values were based purely on perceived pastoral potential. Growing support for other land uses and other environmental and social values were not recognised by the market. As well, regional communities wanted greater involvement in decision-making about their future. The Rangeways project was established in 1995 to research ways of identifying and reconciling opportunities for different land uses within the framework of community-based regional planning and Ecologically Sustainable Development policy. Key outputs were to be processes, rather than a specific land use plan. At the end of the research phase in 2000, the project had successfully initiated community-based land use planning at a regional scale, but it remained a step along the way. This article summarises the project's breadth of activities and then focuses particularly on the economic and policy implications for land use.

GIS AND COLLABORATIVE URBAN GOVERNANCE: UNDERSTANDING THEIR IMPLICATIONS FOR COMMUNITY ACTION AND POWER

Through recent changes in urban governance practices, citizens and community organizations assume ever-greater responsibility for local-level planning and service delivery. Scholars have debated whether this shift disempowers community organizations by subsuming their plans and priorities into state planning imperatives or empowers them through inclusion of community priorities and local knowledge. In carrying out their new responsibilities, many community organizations are adopting tools such as GIS. Strikingly similar questions have been raised about empowerment, disempowennent, incorporation, and autonomy; but relatively little work has systematically documented the ways in which GIS use alters community-level decision-making efforts. In this paper, I show how GIS use fosters changes in the language, practices, and paradigms of community planning, particularly strengthening an instrumental rational approach to community planning and revitalization. Drawing on research with a Minneapolis, Minnesota, neighborhood organization, I argue that these impacts of GIS use on community planning practices complicate and intensify a dynamic tension between incorporation and autonomy that community organizations experience within collaborative governance approaches. [Key words: community-based planning, GIS, urban governance.]

Community-based organization and participatory planning in south-east Mexico City

This paper describes the experiences of community-based organizations in settlements and municipalities in south-east Mexico City in participatory planning and in the development of local projects and new employment opportunities. In order to do so, popular groups joined forces with students and professionals. They sought to demonstrate new models of urban and peri-urban development that met their inhabitants’ needs while avoiding the chaotic informal processes by which most low-income settlements develop. They also sought to ensure good natural resource management and the protection of their rich and diverse cultural heritage. Last but not least, they searched for new approaches to community-based organizational replication in harmony with the environment. This paper describes the many projects implemented in San Miguel Teotongo, Cananea and Sierra Nevada which included new schools, health centres and community museums, settlement lay-outs with planned and installed infrastructure, markets, the protection of green areas and historic sites and the development of new agricultural products and eco-tourism. It also included community-based mapping of municipalities to allow better management of natural resources. The paper also describes how these initiatives have developed over the last 20 years and their role within Mexico’s complex political changes, including their relations with different political parties.

Transportation for maternal emergencies in Tanzania: empowering communities through participatory problem solving.

Inadequate health care and long delays in obtaining care during obstetric emergencies are major contributors to high maternal death rates in Tanzania. Formative research conducted in the Mwanza region identified several transportation-related reasons for delays in receiving assistance. In 1996, the Cooperative for Assistance and Relief Everywhere (CARE) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) began an effort to build community capacity for problem-solving through participatory development of community-based plans for emergency transportation in 50 villages. An April 2001 assessment showed that 19 villages had begun collecting funds for transportation systems; of 13 villages with systems available, 10 had used the system within the last 3 months. Increased support for village health workers and greater participation of women in decision making were also observed.

Using Digital Resources: Perceptions of First Nations University Students

Canada's indigenous peoples face many educational challenges, including the need to learn how to use digital resources. The purpose of this study was to examine the perceptions of First Nations students regarding their use of digital resources. The participants in the study were students studying at the First Nations University of Canada, an institution developed to serve indigenous students. This collaborative research project was intended to provide recommendations for policy and practice to teachers, teacher-librarians and administrators working with First Nations students in Kindergarten to grade 12 schools as well as to administrators and librarians in universities serving First Nations students. The community-based planning approach to the research emphasized listening to the voices of the First Nations students and developing recommendations based on their perceptions of their access to, use of and capacity to use digital resources.

Developing a Sustainable Community-Based Aquaculture Plan for the Lagoon of CuyutlÀn through a Public Awareness and Involvement Process

This study presents evidence from the Cuyutlàn lagoon, which demonstrates that aquaculture can be socially acceptable, economically viable and environmentally friendly when consideration is first taken of the local circumstances and environment. This evidence was obtained through a user survey, which asked key questions of the local fishing community. These questions aimed to determine the desires and needs of the local community in the context of the local environment. The results from this survey of 56% of the fishing community were presented. The wishes of the fishing community are discussed and a compromise suggested for a sustainable aquaculture for the Cuyutlàn lagoon.

HIV/AIDS in Ethiopia: An Overview

Problem Statement: The rapidly growing literature on HIV/AIDS in Ethiopia has failed to examine the epidemic, its impacts, and the national prevention and control program in their socioeconomic, cultural, and political contexts. Objectives: This paper reviews the epidemiology, driving forces, and impacts of the epidemic at the societal level and evaluates prospects for prevention and control. Methods: The literature was reviewed through online searches of PubMed/ National Institute of Health, Medscape, and PAHA (Partners Against HIV/AIDS in Ethiopia) databases; unpublished sources were obtained from the Ministry of Health and other Ethiopian institutions, United Nations organizations, as well as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and nongovernment organizations. Results: Since the rapid spread of HIV infection in the 1980s and 1990s—primarily by commercial sex workers, truck drivers, and soldiers along major transportation routes—children, adolescents, and the general population have increasingly become infected. While the epidemic has spread rapidly in the slowly in rural areas, surveillance activities remain underdeveloped. Thus, the fragmentary data on the occurrence and impact of HIV/AIDS are speculative, and planning and implementation of prevention and control programs have been hindered. Available data show that knowledge levels about HIV/AIDS and use of condoms have increased in towns, and a few populations with declining risk behavior have been identified in Addis Ababa, although a high degree of denial, discrimination, and high-risk behavior persist. Little is known about the situation in rural Ethiopia. Poverty, war, gender inequities, traditional practices, and political problems have all inhibited the effectiveness of prevention and patient care/support programs. The socio-ecnomic impacts of HIV/AIDS are severe and increasing, and a sharp decline in population growth is anticipated. The national HIV/AIDS prevention program is briefly reviewed, and prospects for decentralized, multisectoral, and community-based planning and implementation of prevention and patient support strategies are examined. Conclusion: The HIV/AIDS epidemic has become a major threat to Ethiopian society. Limited administrative capacity and persisting economic, behavioral, and attitudinal problems at all levels of society need to be improved rapidly, and the Ministry of Health's Multisectoral HIV/AIDS Strategic Plan should be implemented on schedule to reverse the epidemic. Emerging behavioral changes associated with declining HIV rates in selected urban populations similar to those reported from Uganda and other countries with successful prevention programs give rise to guarded optimism, assuming that these changes can be achieved in the broader population.