Unpacking citizen participation in planning at the neighbourhood scale: Learning from Jerusalem’s Community Councils

This paper discusses local participation in the planning arena and examines the establishment and operation of micro-governance arrangements under multiple scales of crisis – local, municipal, national and global. The city of Jerusalem, with a diverse population of nearly one million people, has long relied on an intermediary local governance mechanism known as Community Councils (CC’s). Since the 1990s, 32 CC’s operate across Palestinian and Jewish neighbourhoods. Jointly run by nominated paid professionals and locally elected volunteers, CCs provide information, training and services to local residents. Based on qualitative data collected during a decade before and after COVID-19 (2010-2020), from urban forums in various CCs, complemented with survey data, we explore the participation of residents in the planning arena through Community Planning Forums (CPF), which operate as special committees under the auspices of CCs. We suggest that CPFs voluntary operation, provides residents with an opportunity to effectively participate in the planning arena through a micro-governance mechanism. They monitor municipal plans, elucidate their meaning to local communities, echo local knowledge, and represent neighbourhood interests. Despite considerable variance across CCs, CPFs show high levels of adaptability enabling residents to react to multi-scalar challenges. A major strategy of CPFs is meeting on a regular basis, at small numbers, and adopting a professional planning discourse to augment their voice, influence plans and affect residents’ daily lives. Theoretically, we argue that these institutions demonstrate the concept of subsidiarity, as they create opportunities for the rescaling of decision-making to the community level, demonstrating grassroot democracy. Subsidiarity hence allows more political power to be shared with local institutions and communities. Moreover, Community Planning Forums enable residents to participate in a context of multi-scalar crises. At the local level, many neighbourhoods face plans that might radically alter their physical form and social composition, specifically threatened by large scale urban renewal schemes, densifying built-up areas, and new mega-infrastructure development. Importantly, plans are advanced in a municipal context where the city has no valid statutory masterplan, thus effectively limiting residents’ ability to influence development patterns. Nationally, Israel’s planning system has increasingly become more centralised with the restructuring of the national planning system, further decreasing the public’s ability to influence the planning arena. Moreover, planning in recent years has relied to a large extent on technocratic decision making, leaving little room for public debates and for considering planning alternatives. Yet, despite this post-political situation, that might lead to political apathy, citizen cynicism and elite control behind the façade of formal democratic political systems, it can also lead, as we wish to argue, to a professional and knowledgeable public participation, where residents adopt the planning discourse to increase chances to be heard. The current COVID-19 global crisis has further pressured democratic liberties, on the one hand challenging residents’ daily lives, but on the other hand providing new forms and opportunities of participation.