Public Participation Process in Urban Planning

Kamal Uddin, a Town Planner by profession, has been working in academia and the public and private sectors for more than 20 years in Australia, Bangladesh and Thailand. His interests are in line with the broader traditional forms of town planning, urban design, strategic management, community consultation and environmental design.Bhuiyan Monwar Alam is a professor in the Department of Geography and Planning at the University of Toledo, Ohio, USA. He has 30 years of work experience in Bangladesh, Thailand and the United States. His major research interests are in transportation planning and environmental planning.

In Public Participation Process in Urban Planning, Kamal Uddin and Bhuiyan Monwar Alam adds to the literature on CACs by focusing on Planning Advisory Committees (PACs), which are a less widely discussed option. PACs differ from CACs in that these groups consist of nonprofessionals as well. Uddin and Alam have masterfully crafted a "theoretical framework for evaluating public participation in urban planning" (p. 37) and applied the conceptual model to evaluate the propensity of PACs to achieve fairness and effectiveness in public participation. [...] The strength of this book derives in part from the authors’ use of a narrative approach to present the findings. Uddin and Alam provide rich background and experiences, sharing perspectives, often excerpts of interviews, from various types of stakeholders. This collage of perceptions informs the authors’ analysis and creates a well-rounded understanding of the process, ensuring that all viewpoints are accounted for. [...] The book is exceptionally clear and detailed, and the authors use a variety of visuals, such as diagrams and tables, to provide further context and strengthen the readers’ understanding of the content. There is some repetition, but this overlap is done constructively to reinforce the main themes and findings. I encourage practitioners and academics alike to read this book. I predict that Uddin and Alam’s theoretical framework for evaluating public participation will become highly influential in future research on citizen participation. - Athena Nicole Last for the Journal of Urban Affairs.

• 1. Introduction 2. What We Know About Fairness and Effectiveness in Public Participation in Urban Planning 3. Theoretical Framework for Evaluating Pubic Participation in Urban Planning 4. Methods of Evaluating Public Participation in Urban Planning 5. Evaluating Fairness in Public Participation Process in Urban Planning 6. Evaluating Effectiveness in Public Participation Process in Urban Planning 7. Interpretation and Discussion of the Findings 8. Conclusions: A Conceptual Model of Fair and Effective Public Participation Process in Urban Planning