Noah Allison
In the United States, community involvement and collaboration plays a crucial role in how communities are built and developed. Reflecting on the past few decades, it has become well understood that public participation regarding urban affairs is particularly important in the local planning process as a result that policies to be implemented have a direct and palpable effect on the daily lives of communities. However, it’s interesting to note that historically public collaboration rarely took place in the urban arena; New York City, the pioneering metropolis in the development of American urban planning, is no exception. That is, much of the major public works projects that took place in the City occurred from a top-down approach. However, this arguably all changed shortly after Jane Jacobs clash with Robert Moses in the mid-60s, which was brought about as a result of Moses’s plan to raze Washington Square Park and much of Greenwich Village to build miles of vehicular expressways. Though, the attention that was engendered from Jacobs and the other constituent’s success for killing Moses monumental dream, drastically changed the way that urban planners interact with the public. Given this and the nouveau methods of contemporary urban planning, that is, comprehensive community outreach, one can argue that in terms of urban development, the planner and the participating citizen fall within the ranks of a street-level bureaucrat.
It has been argued that “bureaucrats are the most significant actors in the policy implementation process.”[i] Accordingly, in Michael Lipsky’s ground breaking book, Street-Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of the Individual in Public Services, the political scientist analyzes the significant role that bureaucrats play at the street-level in the policy implementation process. Lipsky points out that such bureaucrats are typically teachers, social workers, public lawyers, police officers, judges, health workers and other public employees who provide government services, enforce the law, and distribute public benefits to citizens directly, exposing the notion that these workers play a key role in the policymaking process.[ii] Further, Lipsky notes that this typically follows due to the alarming degree of discretion and the astonishing impact that decisions have on the lives of citizens, which provides the rationale behind Lipsky’s claim that these bureaucrats are in effect policy makers, though from a bottom-up approach, which interestingly affects policy implementation.[iii]
While it may be true that Lipsky hints at the fact that other public employees who provide government services may be considered street-level bureaucrats, it seems his definition of the street-level bureaucrat, in general, is limited. For example, how do firefighters, toll booth collectors, planners and librarians fit in to such categories? And how much discretion do they have, enough to be classified as street-level bureaucrats? Nonetheless, this ambiguity has opened the doors to test his conjectures on other civil service employees.
The reasons for public participation in the planning process are many. It has been argued that such processes not only help define community problems, but it also helps set agendas, enhances trust in local governments, helps citizens understand public tradeoffs and ensures that good plans remain intact overtime. Though, in order for the latter to occur, it is essential that community planning participation efforts, between the citizen and the planner, are ongoing. That is, the community stakeholder relationships that are established before the planning process is initiated continue after the plan is adopted, to address present concerns and achieve discretionary aspirations.[iv]
Though, in terms of the public participation in the planning process, it can be argued that these public employees may not have been mentioned in Lipsky’s 1980’s book as a result that it was perceived that planners, for example, have less discretionary power than the other actors mentioned above. However, regardless of the degree of discretion at ones hand, when best practices are in place, the unique interactions between the citizen and the planner in the community participation process is directly catalytic for bottom-up policymaking from a micro perspective. However, it would be foolish to disregard the fact that macro policies that are often dictated by the participatory citizen and the planner are typically put on the agenda by higher up policy entrepreneurs. Though, the difference today than from Jacobs time is that during the implementation process in such urban related developments, the discretionary power of the street-level bureaucrats openly have room to share their interests and work with the dominant decision makers from a bottom- up approach, not only reshaping original policies set forth by policy entrepreneurs who naturally work from a top-down approach, but ideally, meeting somewhere in the middle, and potentially creating outcomes of Pareto optimality.
[i] Howlett and Ramesh. Chapter 7: “Policy Implementation.” P. 160.
[ii] Lipsky, Michael, Chapter 2. Street Level Bureaucracy. Russell Sage Foundation, 1980. P18.
[iii] Ibid. P14
[iv]http://www.lgc.org/wordpress/docs/freepub/community_design/guides/Participation_Tools_for_Better_Community_Planning.pdf
In the United States, community involvement and collaboration plays a crucial role in how communities are built and developed. Reflecting on the past few decades, it has become well understood that public participation regarding urban affairs is particularly important in the local planning process as a result that policies to be implemented have a direct and palpable effect on the daily lives of communities. However, it’s interesting to note that historically public collaboration rarely took place in the urban arena; New York City, the pioneering metropolis in the development of American urban planning, is no exception. That is, much of the major public works projects that took place in the City occurred from a top-down approach. However, this arguably all changed shortly after Jane Jacobs clash with Robert Moses in the mid-60s, which was brought about as a result of Moses’s plan to raze Washington Square Park and much of Greenwich Village to build miles of vehicular expressways. Though, the attention that was engendered from Jacobs and the other constituent’s success for killing Moses monumental dream, drastically changed the way that urban planners interact with the public. Given this and the nouveau methods of contemporary urban planning, that is, comprehensive community outreach, one can argue that in terms of urban development, the planner and the participating citizen fall within the ranks of a street-level bureaucrat.
It has been argued that “bureaucrats are the most significant actors in the policy implementation process.”[i] Accordingly, in Michael Lipsky’s ground breaking book, Street-Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of the Individual in Public Services, the political scientist analyzes the significant role that bureaucrats play at the street-level in the policy implementation process. Lipsky points out that such bureaucrats are typically teachers, social workers, public lawyers, police officers, judges, health workers and other public employees who provide government services, enforce the law, and distribute public benefits to citizens directly, exposing the notion that these workers play a key role in the policymaking process.[ii] Further, Lipsky notes that this typically follows due to the alarming degree of discretion and the astonishing impact that decisions have on the lives of citizens, which provides the rationale behind Lipsky’s claim that these bureaucrats are in effect policy makers, though from a bottom-up approach, which interestingly affects policy implementation.[iii]
While it may be true that Lipsky hints at the fact that other public employees who provide government services may be considered street-level bureaucrats, it seems his definition of the street-level bureaucrat, in general, is limited. For example, how do firefighters, toll booth collectors, planners and librarians fit in to such categories? And how much discretion do they have, enough to be classified as street-level bureaucrats? Nonetheless, this ambiguity has opened the doors to test his conjectures on other civil service employees.
The reasons for public participation in the planning process are many. It has been argued that such processes not only help define community problems, but it also helps set agendas, enhances trust in local governments, helps citizens understand public tradeoffs and ensures that good plans remain intact overtime. Though, in order for the latter to occur, it is essential that community planning participation efforts, between the citizen and the planner, are ongoing. That is, the community stakeholder relationships that are established before the planning process is initiated continue after the plan is adopted, to address present concerns and achieve discretionary aspirations.[iv]
Though, in terms of the public participation in the planning process, it can be argued that these public employees may not have been mentioned in Lipsky’s 1980’s book as a result that it was perceived that planners, for example, have less discretionary power than the other actors mentioned above. However, regardless of the degree of discretion at ones hand, when best practices are in place, the unique interactions between the citizen and the planner in the community participation process is directly catalytic for bottom-up policymaking from a micro perspective. However, it would be foolish to disregard the fact that macro policies that are often dictated by the participatory citizen and the planner are typically put on the agenda by higher up policy entrepreneurs. Though, the difference today than from Jacobs time is that during the implementation process in such urban related developments, the discretionary power of the street-level bureaucrats openly have room to share their interests and work with the dominant decision makers from a bottom- up approach, not only reshaping original policies set forth by policy entrepreneurs who naturally work from a top-down approach, but ideally, meeting somewhere in the middle, and potentially creating outcomes of Pareto optimality.
[i] Howlett and Ramesh. Chapter 7: “Policy Implementation.” P. 160.
[ii] Lipsky, Michael, Chapter 2. Street Level Bureaucracy. Russell Sage Foundation, 1980. P18.
[iii] Ibid. P14
[iv]http://www.lgc.org/wordpress/docs/freepub/community_design/guides/Participation_Tools_for_Better_Community_Planning.pdf