“Because we are all people”: outcomes and reflections from young people's participation in the planning and design of child-friendly public spaces

Child-Friendly Cities were conceived as a means to integrate children's rights into city decision-making and governance. Participatory research about child-friendly cities consistently finds overarching themes across ages and regions: children desire access to services, nature, and play; freedom from physical danger; and opportunities for inclusion within the city. This article explores a two-year visioning and participatory design process that engaged approximately 225 young people, aged 4–16, in the planning and design of a prominent public space in the City of Boulder. While participatory research with children has received much attention in the academic literature, much less attention has been given to what can be achieved through sustained integration of children into municipal planning processes, particularly in the USA. This paper thus moves children's participation beyond rhetoric and into the challenging reality of planning a city with children as a valued constituent.     

“Talking of citizenship … ” Exploring the contribution an intergenerational,participatory learning project can make to the promotion of active citizenship in sustainable communities

The value of participating in community projects for the creation of a sustainable community is widely recognised but there remains little research into the multiple dispositions, knowledge, and competencies necessary for building and maintaining such a community. This article examines a small intergenerational social learning project that brought together students from a local community college and members of the town community association to explore the concept of sustainability-focused citizenship. The project was founded on themes of active citizenship, social learning, and intergenerational interaction, and was jointly evaluated by the participants and the researcher. This article presents two key ways in which this community-based learning project contributed to the promotion of citizenship for a sustainable community – firstly, as effective preparation for citizenship for sustainability, through the development of knowledge, disposition, and competencies, and secondly, in the performance of citizenship during the course of the workshops, through the encounter with, and negotiation of, difference.     

Conflict and engagement: An empirical study of a farmer-extension partnership in a sustainable agriculture program

Stakeholder engagement is a crucial concept of extension education. Engagement expresses democratic values of the land-grant mission by providing opportunities for stakeholders to influence program planning, including setting the agenda and negotiating resource allocations. In practice, the concept of engagement guides the formation of partnerships among extension, communities, industry, and government. In the area of sustainable agriculture, however, stakeholders may conflict, presenting challenges to the engagement process. Results from a study of a Canadian sustainable agriculture program, produced using cultural anthropology and participatory action research, detail challenges of the engagement process that led to reconstruction of a farmer-extension partnership. Notable in the early phase of the reconstruction process were critical reflection, stakeholder forums, exclusion through caucusing, and coalition building. An argument for a neopragmatist view provides a theoretical basis for understanding counterintuitive dimensions of engagement revealed by the study.     

Conflict and Engagement: An Empirical Study of a Farmer-Extension Partnership in a Sustainable Agriculture Program

Stakeholder engagement is a crucial conceptof extension education. Engagement expressesdemocratic values of the land-grant mission byproviding opportunities for stakeholders to influenceprogram planning, including setting the agenda andnegotiating resource allocations. In practice, theconcept of engagement guides the formation ofpartnerships among extension, communities, industry,and government. In the area of sustainableagriculture, however, stakeholders may conflict,presenting challenges to the engagement process.Results from a study of a Canadian sustainableagriculture program, produced using culturalanthropology and participatory action research, detailchallenges of the engagement process that led toreconstruction of a farmer-extension partnership.Notable in the early phase of the reconstructionprocess were critical reflection, stakeholder forums,exclusion through caucusing, and coalition building.An argument for a neo-pragmatist view provides atheoretical basis for understanding counterintuitivedimensions of engagement revealed by the study.     

How to foster agroecological innovations? A comparison of participatory design methods

Facing contemporary environmental crisis implies fostering agroecological innovations that take into account local ecological regulations and rely on multiple stakeholders' innovation capacities. This paper draws on two fields of literature that remain unconnected so far: participatory approaches and design sciences. It proposes an analysis grid to support a reflexive analysis of cases of implementation of three participatory design methods: ComMod (Companion Modelling for concerted management of natural resources), Forage Rummy (simulation-based board game for designing farming systems) and KCP (collective design workshops to foster innovation). This analysis highlights key features of the methods in view of agroecological innovation challenges, focusing on knowledge management and organisation for exploration.     

“At the water's edge”: community voices on climate change

The photovoice research project, “At the water's edge”, which gives voice to communities exploring the threats and impact of climate change and rising sea levels on coastal communities, was conducted during an environmental art symposium in the Noosa Biosphere Reserve, Australia in June 2009. Photos by participants illustrated both local and global threats and reflected psychological tension between global and local action. This research partnership with the local people demonstrated an innovative visualisation technique which can be used to collaboratively build capacity and consensus about adaptation to climate change. It also contributed to the Biosphere Reserve's educational and cultural aims in relation to climate change.     

Who are our informal recyclers? An inquiry to uncover crisis and potential in Victoria,Canada

What is considered garbage embodies a recoverable economic value, and environmental cost if not recycled. Throughout the world, the often marginalised and impoverished population earns a living through informal recycling. This is also true for Victoria, British Columbia, one of the most affluent cities in Canada. This paper discusses results of a participatory socio-economic survey involving informal recyclers in Victoria, BC to determine their livelihood determinants. The findings reveal that “binning” is an important survival strategy to generate income. A new waste-management model that considers the social and environmental context is needed. Inclusive public policies can respond to the livelihood concerns outlined in this paper by facilitating access to recyclable materials, devising occupational safety improvements and educating about alternative strategies for resource recovery. This model can contribute to the overall sustainability of the community by reducing the waste of resources and people, empowering marginalised populations and reducing the environmental impacts of natural resource use and waste disposal.     

Skewed Riskscapes and Environmental Injustice: A Case Study of Metropolitan St. Louis

This article presents a case study of Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) air pollution exposure risks across metropolitan St. Louis. The first section critically reviews environmental justice research and related barriers to environmental risk management. Second, the paper offers a conventional analysis of the spatial patterns of TRI facilities and their surrounding census block group demographics for metropolitan St. Louis. Third, the article describes the use of an exposure risk characterization for 319 manufacturers and their air releases of more than 126 toxic pollutants. This information could lead to more practical resolutions of urban environmental injustices. The analysis of TRIs across metropolitan St. Louis shows that minority and low-income residents were disproportionately closer to industrial pollution sources at nonrandom significance levels. Spatial concentrations of minority residents averaged nearly 40% within one kilometer of St. Louis TRI sites compared to 25% elsewhere. However, one-fifth of the region's air pollution exposure risk over a decade was spatially concentrated among only six facilities on the southwestern border of East St. Louis. This disproportionate concentration of some of the greatest pollution risk would never be considered in most conventional environmental justice analyses. Not all pollution exposure risk is average, and the worst risks deserve more attention from environmental managers assessing and mitigating environmental injustices.     

Sustainable development and participatory practices in community forestry: the case of FUNDECOR in Costa Rica

This paper studies the emergence of one particular ‘new’ environmental policy instrument: disclosure of emission and pollution data. Disclosure is part of a relatively new sub‐set of regulatory measures, based on monitoring, transparency, citizen‐empowerment and accountability. It originated in the United States but has recently attracted international attention. The attractiveness of disclosure is obvious; it promises environmental improvement combined with strengthened environmental democracy and community empowerment. By analysing the experiences in the US, and the developments in the Netherlands, this paper seeks to assess the functioning and effectiveness of disclosure. The available empirical evidence suggests that disclosure has a positive impact on the environmental performance of industrial facilities as well as a democratising effect. It is argued that Dutch policy makers wrongfully assume that disclosure cannot work in the Netherlands. The consequence is that citizens are provided with little specific information that cannot be used to put pressure on polluters.     

New consumer roles in waste water management

Network‐bound systems such as water and energy systems are increasingly confronted with environmental problems that cannot be solved without changing their modes of provision. More than any other flow provided through a network‐bound system, the waste water flow comes very close to intimate personal and social life, complicating the introduction of environmental innovations in this sector. Using the concepts of trust and identity, questions concerning changing consumer roles in two cases of Decentralised Sanitation and Reuse Systems in the Netherlands are addressed. In both cases the building of trust within provider networks and between consumers and providers, as well as the possibility for consumers and providers to identify themselves with the aims of the project were key factors determining the success or failure of environmental innovations in waste water flows.