A new role for citizens’ initiatives: the difficulties in co-creating institutional change in urban planning

Abstract

In this paper, we analyze the institutional work that underlies the attempt to institutionalize a more active role of citizens in urban planning. We draw on a case in which a group of citizens aims to redevelop a brownfield site into a vital urban area. This citizens’ initiative is co-creating a new form of urban planning with the municipality, private organizations and individual citizens. The study shows how citizens’ initiatives can be a driver for institutional change, but that uncertainties about new institutions tend to reinforce the maintenance of existing ones. This paradox explains why even if the ambition for a new form of planning is widely shared, actually realizing institutional change can still be difficult and time-consuming.