Greenlining the Rustbelt: Participatory Politics and Non-Profit Governance in Flint and Detroit’s Master Plans

• In Event: 189 - Section on Community and Urban Sociology Refereed Roundtable Session and Business Meeting

Abstract

Public participation in urban governance is on the rise across the United States and around the world. From participatory budget exercises, to town hall style planning meetings, these processes offer the possibility to include citizens in decision-making outside the realm of electoral politics. This paper offers a comparative examination of the participatory mechanisms used in master planning processes in Flint and Detroit. While significant scholarly research has approached the topic of participation from a so-called “communicative perspective” (Baiocchi and Ganuza 2014) focusing on the intergroup dynamics and power relations among participants, less research has been done on the “empowerment dimension” – the juridical and political mechanisms for incorporating citizen input into policy.

The current gap in the scholarly literature between the communicative and empowerment dimensions of participatory governance is increasingly important as participatory processes exist alongside strong critiques of downtown-centric planning in cities like Detroit. How has a process that included hundreds of resident meetings and thousands of hours of local participation resulted in a plan that appears to instantiate the interests of elites over those of everyday citizens? Does Flint’s plan, led by the local government rather than private interests – as is the case in Detroit – better reflect the democratizing potential of participation?

To answer these questions, this paper examines the pathways through which urban planning decisions are made and the interactional and institutional patterns that emerge between stakeholders and everyday citizens.

Author

• Jacob H. Lederman, University of Michigan-Flint