Aligning Public Participation to Stakeholders’ Sustainability Literacy—A Case Study on Sustainable Urban Development in Phoenix, Arizona

Authors

Matthew Cohen, Furman UniversityFollow
Arnim Wiek, Arizona State University
Braden Kay, Arizona State University
John Harlow, Arizona State University

Document Type

Article (Journal or Newsletter)

Scholarship Type

Faculty Scholarship

Publication Date

2015

Abstract

In public planning processes for sustainable urban development, planners and experts often face the challenge of engaging a public that is not familiar with sustainability principles or does not subscribe to sustainability values. Although there are calls to build the public’s sustainability literacy through social learning, such efforts require sufficient time and other resources that are not always available. Alternatively, public participation processes may be realigned with the sustainability literacy the participants possess, and their capacity can modestly be built during the engagement. Asking what tools might successfully align public participation with participants’ sustainability literacy, this article describes and evaluates a public participation process in Phoenix, Arizona, in which researchers, in collaboration with city planners, facilitated sustainability conversations as part of an urban development process. The tool employed for Visually Enhanced Sustainability Conversation (VESC) was specifically designed to better align public participation with stakeholders’ sustainability literacy. We tested and evaluated VESC through interviews with participants, city planners, and members of the research team, as well as an analysis of project reports. We found that the use of VESC successfully facilitated discussions on pertinent sustainability issues and embedded sustainability objectives into the project reports. We close with recommendations for strengthening tools like VESC for future public engagements.

Comments

This article belongs to the Special Issue Planning, Development and Management of Sustainable Cities in Sustainability 2015, 7, 8709-8728.

Additional Affiliated Department, Center or Institute

Earth and Environmental Science

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Recommended Citation

Cohen, M.; Wiek, A.; Kay, B.; Harlow, J. Aligning Public Participation to Stakeholders’ Sustainability Literacy—A Case Study on Sustainable Urban Development in Phoenix, Arizona. Sustainability 2015, 7, 8709-8728.