What is participatory Planning

Participatory Planning

Mobilizing resources to address the root causes of urban poverty

Residents do not need to be told what is wrong in their neighborhoods, and in many cases they know how to make things better. What they often lack are the organizational and financial resources necessary to bring about change. In ESLARP projects, residents work with UIUC faculty, staff, and students to plan, finance, and implement effective solutions to pressing neighborhood problems. This involves applying a variety of community, University, and outside resources to solving the problem. This collaboration is not only about solving specific problems, but is also about enhancing the capacity of community organizations to deal with problems.

“ESLARP has provided me an alternative to traditional learning, it is an on-site classroom where I learn to interact with my peers and members of the community to make East St. Louis a safer, better place to live.” - Amy Flairty, Senior in Landscape Architecture, 2001

Research and technical agenda set by neighborhood residents

Neighborhood residents and their community organizations set ESLARP’s action agenda. As mentioned earlier, solutions are most likely to succeed if developed by local residents rather than outsiders. ESLARP’s Neighborhood Technical Assistance Center (NTAC) facilitates connections among East St. Louis community organizations and campus resources. NTAC staff work with members of community organizations who identify problems and set goals. For certain projects, NTAC staff provide analytical and plan implementation support. On more complex long-term projects, NTAC staff identify faculty who work with students in service-learning courses or graduate theses and provide this support.

Students, faculty, and residents work together and learn from each other

Neighborhood residents and University faculty and students work together in ways that promote mutual learning and assistance. Student commitment to project completion, through repeated visits to project sites and neighborhood meetings, encourages the continued involvement of residents. At the same time, neighborhood residents teach students and faculty about the problems and their solutions in distressed communities.

“I see ESLARP affecting the lives of the residents of East St. Louis, but it has also molded me as an individual, teaching me the importance of patience, acceptance, appreciation, organization, and trust.” - Jassen Johnson, ESLARP Research Assistant, 2002

Implementing increasingly large-scale neighborhood improvements

Neighborhood projects grow from the small to the ambitious. In Emerson Park, the initial activities included weekend-long clean-up projects. Later, this evolved into more ambitious house-building projects, neighborhood plans, and more recently a major affordable housing initiative. In a parallel evolution, the role of ESLARP diminishes over time. Early neighborhood activities involve considerable ESLARP participation, and help the organization establish its relevance to the neighborhood. The opportunity for hands-on work also attracts many students to ESLARP. Over time the neighborhood organization works mostly on its own; the Emerson Park Development Corporation now has significant staff and budgetary resources. At any given moment, ESLARP is working with a number of different neighborhood organizations, all at different stages in this evolution.

“Extraordinary professional assistance… NTAC has exemplified caring, courage, capability, and connections that cannot be ignored.” - Fern Watts, resident

Fully integrated interdisciplinary efforts

Diverse campus units come together to work on neighborhood projects in East St. Louis, and the number keeps increasing. For example, students and faculty in Architecture, Landscape Architecture, and Urban Planning collaborate on neighborhood plans, contributing their respective areas of expertise. Through these kinds of collaborations, students begin to better understand the concerns and responsibilities of other disciplines, and to develop their own professional identity. ESLARP provides training for a new generation of socially responsive community development professionals.

“ESLCAN has shared a unique relationship with NTAC…we have the advantage of having day-to-day technical assistance at our fingertips.” - Kim Hobley, Community Organizer

Expanding collaboration in the University and the community

Increasingly ambitious projects require greater planning and preparation. As community organizations demonstrate the ability to accomplish their goals, we hope to see increased local involvement in projects as well as collaboration with other campus units. ESLARP invites everyone interested and willing to contribute their particular skills and resources to join in the ongoing revitalization of East St. Louis. We hope that these working relationships will also be a model for other distressed areas, wherever concerned citizens seek technical assistance on realizing their ambitions of a better community.

“ESLARP taught me the positives, the negatives, and the challenges of community development…it taught me how to dig deeper to do what is necessary.” - Paul Foppe, ESLARP Alumnus