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THECONSULTERSCONCEIT
HOW PHONY PUBLIC CONSULTATIONS UNDERMINE DEMOCRACY AND THE MARKET
BRIANNA HEINRICHS
SEPTEMBER 26, 2013
KEY POINTS
Public consultations aim to discover public
preferences, but seldom consult representative
samples.
Consultations generally consider only those options
that are presently describable, whereas innovations
in the market place are often completely unforeseen.
Special interest groups have the ability and incentive
to dominate the public consultation process.
In the market place people constantly use prices
to weigh up the value of dierent options, but
consultations do not deal well with trade-os.
Cities should rely less on planning by consultation
and allow development to take place through the
market, which allows people to have a direct input
proportionate to their level of investment and risk.
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LACK OF COMPLETE
INFORMATION ON WHICH
TO BASE DECISIONS
IS A CONDITION SO
BASIC TO HUMAN LIFE
THAT IT INFLUENCES
THE STRUCTURE OF
ALMOST EVERY SOCIAL
INSTITUTION.
Anthony Downs, 1957
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Since implementing the engage! Policy in 2003, visioning and public engagement exercises
have been fashionable at Calgarys City Hall. The purpose of a consultation is to engage with
others and receive knowledge and advice. The City of Calgary states that it makes better
decisions when it consults with citizens and stakeholder groups (City of Calgary, 2003).
Following is a table listing some of Calgarys recent public consultations.
SECTION I:
INTRODUCTION
Write on the walls*. Eat a cookie. Marvelat the view. Ponder the funny boardroomnames. Youll have a blast.
*Yes. With dry erase markers. Its incred-ible. Youll feel like youre ve years old!
But you wont get in trouble and we wontsend you to your room (City of Calgary,
n.d.a).Have you ever attended one of The Citysmany public engagement events andthought to yourself, Wow this event couldreally use some LEGO bricks?(Hall,2013)
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6
Over 18,000 citizens participated in
imagineCALGARY, culminating in the Citys
Plan for Long Range Urban Sustainability. The
project asked Calgarians ve questions:
What do you value about Calgary?
What is it like for you to live here?
What changes would you most like to see?
What are your hopes and dreams for the next100 years?
How can you help make this happen?
The City boasts that imagineCALGARY
represents the largest community visioning and
consultation process of its kind anywhere in the
world (City of Calgary, 2013a).
Subsequent public consultations were to
be aligned with the goals and vision of
imagineCALGARY. Plan It Calgary focused
on setting out a long-term direction for
sustainable growth to accommodate another 1.3
million people over the next 60 years, and the
consultation engaged over 6,000 Calgarians in
public hearings, open houses, round table talks
and workshops to discuss the transit system and
urban development (City of Calgary, 2013b).
Another city-wide consultation was Our City.
Our Budget. Our Future. This resulted in
Calgarys 2012 to 2014 business plans and
budgets. The project reportedly included more
than 23,000 participants in its engagement
TABLE 1 - SAMPLING OF CALGARY CONSULTATIONS
CONSULTATION STATED PURPOSE NUMBER OF PARTICIPANTS DATES
imagineCALGARY Create a long-range urbansustainability plan for Calgary
18,000 January 2005 to 2006
Plan It Calgary Plan to accommodate another 1.3million people over the next 60 years
6,000 2007 to 2009
RouteAhead Create a strategic plan for transit inCalgary
4,000 Spring and summer2012
New CentralLibrary
Identify key expectations and prioritiesfor libraries
16,500 June to October 2012
Our City. OurBudget. Our Future.
Development of business plans, budgetand priorities for 2012 to 2014
23,000 Winter/spring 2013,(Web site launchedJune 2012)
$52-million/Dragons Den
Decide how council should use$52-million in tax room vacated by theprovincial government
Over 10,000 Spring 2013
Multi-family
Recycling Strategy
Review three potential recycling service
options
Ongoing Launched fall 2011
Continue theConversation
Learn how to make it easier for citizensto provide input into City decisions
Ongoing/370 responses to surveyquestion
Launched early 2012
TransformingPlanning
Design and deliver a high-performanceplanning system for Calgary
Ongoing Launched June 2012
8th Street SWImprovement
Develop a Public Realm Master Plan forthe 8th St. SW Corridor
Ongoing/200 at March 20, 2013Open House
Launched September2012
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process. The City advertised in several places,
including Facebook, local news Web sites and
public transit. The electronic newsletter list
reached 2,012 contacts (Dialogue Partners,
2011).
The Continue the Conversation project takes
a fresh look at how Calgarys consultations
take place so that the City can improve
its engagement process and make it more
accessible. Calgarians are encouraged to ll out
surveys, participate in live or tweet chats and
provide input through a discussion forum or by
calling 3-1-1 (City of Calgary, n.d.b).
The City also recently launched Transforming
Planning, a project that engages industry,
communities and citizens in revising the Citys
planning system, in order to build a vibrant,
prosperous and sustainable city for everyone
(City of Calgary, 2013c).
PLANNINGAND THEKNOWLEDGE
PROBLEMSection 632(1) of Albertas current Municipal
Government Act requires that municipalities
with a population greater than 3,500 adopt a
development plan (Province of Alberta, 2010).
The Act gives city councils the broad authority
to control development, make decisions about
infrastructure and establish fees for licences,
permits and approvals.
City planning is believed to be essential. The
rationale is that if cities are not carefully
planned and their development is constrained
by only market forces, cities will become
inecient and chaotic. Some worry that proper
infrastructure will not be developed in time to
support a growing population and that lower-
income communities will suer if resources are
not distributed fairly. People are concerned that
without planning and regulation, urban sprawl
will do unacceptable environmental damage.
However, small, central groups cannot possibly
plan well or make good decisions on behalf of
a large group of citizens. This is because of the
knowledge problem.
The knowledge problem, as Friedrich Hayek
put it, is a problem of the utilization of
knowledge which is not given to anyone in its
totality (1945). In other words, no single mind
or small group of minds has all the details or
knowledge necessary to organize a society at
least not in a way that will be in everyones best
interests (Hayek, 1945).
Like most cities, Calgarys current planning
regime depends on a small number of people
making decisions for a much larger number
of people. Calgarys population was 1,096,833
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people in 2011 (Statistics Canada, n.d.), and
its Planning Commission consists of two
administrators, two council members, six
citizen members and two sta (City of Calgary,
2012). The Planning Commission makes
recommendations to City council on land-use
planning matters, and it acts as Approving
Authority on all subdivision matters and
Development Authority on some development
matters (City of Calgary, n.d.c).
The Citys Planning, Development and
Assessment (PDA) department seeks to fulll
Calgarys vision for a great city by stewarding
the creation, redevelopment and valuation of
vibrant, sustainable communities by dealing
with land-use planning and policy as well as
development and building approvals (City of
Calgary, 2013d). The Citys PDA department
currently consists of 740 core sta and 83
contingent employees (City of Calgary FOIP[Freedom of Information and Protection of
Privacy] Oce, personal communication, June
11, 2013).
In an attempt to mitigate the knowledge
problem, City planners consult with
stakeholders and citizens to gain knowledge of
their needs and preferences.
When community involvement is emphasized
in the urban planning process, this is
participatory planning and can fall under
the theory of deliberative democracy.
Amy Gutmann and Dennis Thompson see
deliberative democracy as
a form of government in which free and
equal citizens (and their representatives),
justify decisions in a process in which they
give one another reasons that are mutually
acceptable and generally accessible, with
the aim of reaching conclusions that are
binding in the present on all citizens but
open to challenge in the future (2004, p. 7).
Gutmann and Thompson explain that some
deliberative democrats believe more direct
participation by ordinary citizens in policy-
making is the best or only way to foster values
such as mutual respect. Furthermore,
[g]reater participation not only gives more
citizens the chance to enjoy the benets
of taking part in deliberation, it also canhelp develop the virtues of citizenship,
encouraging citizens to consider political
issues in a more public-spirited mode
(2004, p. 30).
Seen in a positive light, participatory planning
is a mutually benecial endeavour. Planners
gain knowledge and make better policy
decisions, and citizens become educated
and more public-spirited in the process.
Furthermore, it satises the democratic right
of people to be involved in decisions aecting
their lives.
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PURPOSE OFTHIS REPORT
Winston Churchill said:
No one pretends that democracy is
perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been
said that democracy is the worst form of
Government except all those other forms
that have been tried from time to time; but
there is the broad feeling in our country
that the people should rule, continuously
rule, and that public opinion, expressed
by all constitutional means, should shape,
guide, and control the actions of Ministers
who are their servants and not their
masters (1947).
Democracy may be the best system of
governance we have, but public consultations
may do more to amplify the imperfect parts
of democracy than to enhance the good.
Looking deeper into the mechanics of public
consultations reveals aws in the process that
are logically impossible to overcome.
Important questions Calgarians need to askthemselves include the following:
Do public consultations help to keep
governments in check and ensure politicians
are servants and not masters?
How well do the City of Calgarys visioning
exercises and community consultations
reect what Calgarians want from
development?
First, this paper will discuss the mechanics
of facilitating meaningful and equitable
consultations in Calgary and elsewhere. It will
then consider some alternatives if people were
to determine that the Citys current methods for
planning a city are inadequate or inappropriate.
DEMOCRACY MAY BE
THE BEST SYSTEM
OF GOVERNANCE WE
HAVE, BUT PUBLIC
CONSULTATIONS MAYDO MORE TO AMPLIFY
THE IMPERFECT PARTS
OF DEMOCRACY THAN
TO ENHANCE THE GOOD
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To learn whether organizing a city through
consultations is reasonable, one must look at
who is consulted and whether the groups are
representative of the greater population. The
number of participants and their backgrounds
and motivations all aect the ndings of a
consultation.
NUMBER OFPARTICIPANTSMunicipal election voter turnouts in Calgary
ranged from 19.8 per cent to 53.2 per cent
from 2001 to 2010 (Alberta Municipal Aairs,
2012). People are encouraged to vote, because
government decisions aect them regardlessof whether they vote or not. The percentage
of people who can or do participate in public
consultations is much lower.
For example, only 18 people responded to an
online poll seeking feedback from businesses
and property owners on proposed changes to
Calgarys on-street parking rates (Howell &
Zickefoose, 2013).
On the other hand, the imagineCALGARY
project boasts about having more than 18,000
participants. Still, in a city of one million
people, this means not even 2 per cent of
Calgarians participated in creating a shared
vision for our city and a detailed plan for howto get there (City of Calgary, 2013a). The
imagineCALGARY targets drive development
plans and regulations aecting 100 per cent
of Calgarians, not merely the 2 per cent who
participated.
In practice, the vast majority of the population
cannot take a direct part in public deliberations,
due to the impossibility of nding a forum
where millions of participants can have their
say about the countless decisions that aect
their lives (Pennington, 2010, p. 165).
SECTION II:
WHO ISCONSULTED?
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Given that not everybody can participate
directly in every decision a government makes,
most democratic governments work by electing
a smaller number of representatives. Similarly,
people who attend public consultations become
representatives of the wider population,
since not everyone attends or can be involved
(Pennington, 2010, p. 165).
One can neither avoid nor ignore the possibility
of inaccurate representation. For example, a
person who is neither low-income nor female
will have trouble representing the perspective
of a low-income female (Pennington, 2002,
p. 165). Consultations run the risk of certain
groups of people or perspectives dominating
the process, intentionally or unintentionally.
For example, Robert E. Goodin and Julian Le
Grand argue that the middle class is more likely
to try to inuence policy, because its members
have greater faith in their power to change their
environment. They also have more resources
and are more articulate than is the working
class (1987, p. 153). This is a problem, because
however dispassionate [members of
the middle class] may be, or however
much they may perceive their interests
as lying outside those of the middle
class, it is unlikely that they will be able
completely to overcome the eects of
their background or of their current
social status (Goodin & Le Grand, 1987,
p. 153).
MISREPRESENTATION
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SPECIAL
INTEREST
GROUPS
Members of the middle class may be unable
to represent those of dierent backgrounds,
but most of the middle class is likely not
represented properly in consultations, either.
When members of the public act as participants
in central decision making, more-specialized
interest groups have an advantage. Tounderstand the dierence between a small,
organized group and the unorganized public,
consider a disciplined, coordinated army taking
an undisciplined, leaderless mob by surprise
(Olson, 1971, pp. 128-29).
Special interest groups have dierent
motivations to participate in the political
process. One example of how powerless the
political majority can be in the face of an
organized, motivated minority is the infamous
taxi cartel. In city after city, a small number of
taxi licence holders maintain a monopoly on
taxi services at the expense of other voters.
It happens this way: A taxi company can
become rich by getting the government to
establish a cap on the number of taxi licences.
Such a policy restricts new taxi drivers from
joining the industry as the population grows,
resulting in a taxi shortage (Seymour, 2009). In
Calgary in 2011, the people who owned the taxi
plates brought in $300,000 a week by renting
them out for $200 each per week to drivers
(Seymour, 2011). Meanwhile, consumers pay
more to ride because of the taxi shortage, and
potential new taxi drivers who cannot obtain a
plate must seek work elsewhere.
Such a policy signicantly benets those
running the taxi industry. Because the
regulations make them wealthy, they have an
incentive to see that the regulations remain
in place, and they are willing to invest their
time and resources to maintain the policy. On
the other hand, though members of the public
would benet from seeing the regulations go,
they would spend more time, money and eort
organizing against the taxi empire than they
would save if they were successful in their
eorts.
An individual member of a large, latent groupdoes not have an incentive to voluntarily push
for the large groups goal when he will not in
any case be decisive in seeing that the group
goal is achieved, and when he would be as likely
to get the benets from the attainment of the
goal whether he had worked for its attainment
or not (Olson, 1971, p. 129).
Because it is hard to solve this free rider
problem in a large group, where small groups
with common interests are concerned, then,
there is however a surprising tendency for the
exploitation of the great by the small (Olson,
1971, p. 3). Often the public is not even aware of
policies in place that support special interests.
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It should be clear that a consultation on the
issue of taxi regulation would have unbalanced
dynamics, and similar dynamics spill into
consultations on other policy topics.
Lobbyists are eternally on the job, (Olson,
p. 128) and consumers and the public are
disadvantaged because they constantly need to
protect their interests on all fronts. We should
expect that when individuals decide to join a
consultation, some among them would have
motives and preformed groups that would give
them an advantage over the average constituent.
THE SAMPLE
SELECTION
DILEMMA
Organizers of citizen engagement initiatives
have two basic options when inviting public
participation: They can advertise and allow
individuals to self-select, or they can take active
recruitment steps (Ryfe, 2005, p. 51). Choosing
a representative sample may mean having to
reject people who would like to be consulted,
but allowing self-selection may not produce arepresentative sample.
Citizens of Calgary typically self-select for the
Citys engagement programs, as participation is
not compulsory. Citizens can learn how to get
involved through the Citys Web site and other
advertising.
David Ryfe notes that a passive recruitment
method usually produces a snowball sample,
that is to say, interested individuals recruit from
their social networks, and these individuals
recruit from their social networks, and so on,
until the group is composed (2005, p. 51).
Consider the special interest group Bike Calgary.
It states on its Web site, We work with other
cycling and active transportation organisations
as well as with the City of Calgary to shape
policy and implement projects that benet
Calgarians who ride bicycles (Bike Calgary,
n.d.).
Calgarians who are unable to or do not
commute by bicycle may see transportation
needs dierently from members of Bike
Calgary, but Bike Calgary can mobilize and
coordinate its members to show up at relevant
City consultations. The City will not turn peopleaway; this would be seen as undemocratic.
Even if the City could reject people on the basis
that the group would cease to be representative,
how would the City know beforehand what
a person represents? The very reason that
cities consult with citizens is that they do not
know where citizens stand. Therefore, the City
would be unable to avoid the potential over-
representation of special interest groups at its
consultations where citizens self-select.
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14
CONSULTATIONS
ARE BIASED
TOWARDS
BIGGER
GOVERNMENT
A possible defence against the
misrepresentation charges and the low
participation rate is that consultation must
simply be tried harder. The excuse is that if only
more people were brought into the process, the
sample would become more representative.
However, providing additional opportunities
may only succeed in supplying additional
chances for special interest groups to gain
access (Pennington, 2002, p. 61).
Those in favour of the consultation model may
further argue that people who do not take the
initiative to give feedback cannot complain
about the results that aect them. However,
this seems to imply that people only have rights
to the extent they are able to defend them
through consultative processes.
Gutmann and Thompson argue, for most
people, the freedom not to spend a major part
of ones time deliberating about politics is part
of what it means to live the life of a free citizen
(2004, p. 31).
Public consultations are biased toward
government activity. Government initiates
them, and they generally occur when
government would like to take some kind of
action. People who want to see government
intervention, therefore, have a natural
advantage in consultations, and, ironically,
those who desire government to stay out of
their neighbourhood must get involved in
politics to avoid political intervention.
The City recently launched a consultation with
the intention of developing a multi-family
recycling strategy. However, residents of multi-
family dwellings, such as apartments and
condominiums, can already drop o recyclables
at about 50 community recycling depots, and
a number of companies provide collection
services (City of Calgary, 2013e).
The Blue Cart service, $7.40 a month in 2013,
is not optional for single-family residences
(City of Calgary, 2013f). Just as residents of
single-family dwellings may have disliked the
imposition of the Blue Cart program, residents
of multi-family dwellings may dislike the
government taking control of their recycling
practices.
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PUBLIC
INTEREST
VS. SELFISH
MOTIVES
Some people may carry an assumption
that people involved in representation or
consultation are basing their actions upon
achieving what they believe to be in the public
interest.
People seek government regulations because
of market failures, situations where if
each person acts according to self-interest,
everybody ends up being worse o than if they
had all acted in a more centrally coordinated
way (Friedman, 2004, p. 7).
However, it is important to recognize that the
consultation process and the private market
both rely on human nature. Consultations are
not an antidote to self-interest, but rather a
dierent medium for it. Public consultations
may serve vested interests as much as or even
more than private market interactions would,
because people who will benet personally
from government regulations are more likely to
attend public consultations.
The alternative to an unregulated private
market is not wise and benevolent regulators.
The true alternative is another kind of market:
the political market, a collection of people
interacting under the rules of democratic
politics, each, just as in the private market,
trying to achieve their own objectives
(Friedman, 2004, p. 11).
...IT IS IMPORTANT
TO RECOGNIZE THATTHE CONSULTATION
PROCESS AND THE
PRIVATE MARKET
BOTH RELY ON
HUMAN NATURE.CONSULTATIONS ARE
NOT AN ANTIDOTE TO
SELF-INTEREST, BUT
RATHER A DIFFERENT
MEDIUM FOR IT.
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16
SECTION III:
CHALLENGESIN GROUPDYNAMICS
Section II highlights problems with
consultations based on the composition of
the groups consulted. But even if a group
were representative of Calgarys entire
population and were seeking the public
good, in comparison with the private market,
the consultation process is an ineective
mechanism to receive and process peoples
knowledge.
Citizens are intelligent and can participate
in Calgarys development in many ways, but
the structure of public consultations provides
incentives for people to remain rationally
ignorant or rationally irrational.
Moreover, people are often guided when giving
their input, partly because they are not experts
in the consultations topic. But the validity
of making laws based on consultation results
depends on the participants independence.
In public consultations, people are not
eectively encouraged to make calculated
decisions, because they are not paying a direct
cost for them. Consultations, therefore, have
more diculty handling trade-os than does
the private market.
Even if people were knowledgeable of the
trade-os and costs involved, communicating
and explaining preferences in a consultationcan also be dicult. People may not even know
their own opinions until confronted with a real
situation, and people do not know what will
occur in the future.
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THE
DILEMMA OF
QUALIFICATIONS
A concern with the public consultation process
stems from the specialist nature of the topics.
Typically, people are not experts in the
consultations topic. This leads to a further
dilemma for municipal consultations: To what
extent should the publics input be guided and
interpreted by experts, and to what extentshould experts yield to the publics desires?
By their very nature, public consultations
value the opinions of the public because they
are members of the public. Yet, transport
engineering, for example, is a large and
complex body of knowledge where experts
have an advantage over lay people. Combining
public and expert opinion presents a dicult
challenge, when one opinion or the other has to
prevail.
Former B.C. Liberal leader Gordon Gibson once
remarked, I would never ride in an airplane
designed by a citizens assembly. They are not
qualied to do that kind of thing (Cayo, 2013).
If conclusions reached by members of the
public were binding on city council, the
outcomes have the potential to be damaging
to the city. This is because most Calgarians are
not, by trade, urban planners or developers.
On the other hand, dogmatically putting expert
opinions rst would defeat the purpose of
public consultation.
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18
RATIONAL
IGNORANCE
Public consultations carry with them an
incentive to be rationally ignorant. Rationalignorance means that a rational person will
ignore a decision when the eort required to
be informed is greater than the value of getting
the decision right. Anthony Downs writes
that ignorance of politics is not the result of
unpatriotic apathy; rather it is a highly rational
response to the facts of political life in a large
democracy (1957, p. 147).
Learning all there is to know about any given
topic in order to provide valuable input may be
noble, but rational people do not invest more in
a task than they will gain. The rational ignorance
of consultation participants is largely the result
of doubt that their contributions will be taken
seriously.
When Our City. Our Budget. Our Future.
asked respondents why they did not look for
information about the Citys 2013 to 2014
business plans and budget, some verbatim
responses suggested how strong apathy about
the consultation really was. One responder
wrote, what does it matter? They will do
what they are going to do without me. Another
response was, I have no control over it so I have
little to no interest in it (City of Calgary, 2012).
A Continue the Conversation survey question
asked respondents how they wanted the City to
demonstrate that their input in consultations
was heard. The options included a community
newsletter, the Citys Web site or a Community
Association presentation (City of Calgary, n.d.d).
Showing the participants input was valued
through the actual policy decisions made was not
listed as an option.
Mark Pennington asserts that a rationally civic
minded person may be better o spending time
and eort where her own contribution can have
a demonstrable eect by helping an elderly
neighbor, for example, rather than trying to
become politically informed (Pennington, 2000,p. 119).
J. Barry Cullingworth agrees that people may
withdraw from the engagement process because
participation is a sham. L. Christiansen-
Ruman and B. Stuart (as cited in Cullingworth,
1984, p. 6) muse that because expert opinions
dominate the process, this domination may be
the telling blow that sends the once edgling
convert to participatory democracy back to
apathy. Yet, as noted earlier, if expert opinions
do not prevail, a group unqualied to plan a city
could lead it to disaster.
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RATIONAL
IRRATIONALITY
Despite needing to invest time or eort in
gaining knowledge, most people do hold
opinions on political and policy questions.
Because no decision-maker can aord to
know everything that might possibly bear on
his decision before he makes it (Downs, 1957,
p. 145), individuals take information shortcuts
when developing their views. They typically
rely on some subset of information to make a
judgment and discard the rest of the relevant
information.
Researchers have found this process at
work in every level of choice making.
Research on mass opinion shows that
citizens make snap judgments on the basis
of party identication, their liking fora candidate, group aliation, personal
ideology, media frames, elite cues,
perceptions of likely winners and losers,
and a host of other cues (Ryfe, 2005, p. 55).
Bryan Caplan further developed rational
ignorance into the counterintuitive theory of
rational irrationality. He argues that people do
not change their minds once they are convinced
of a political position, even after they are
presented with the facts. He says that people
get a psychological benet out of believing the
world is the way they like to see it. Moreover,
carrying unpopular beliefs often makes a
person unpopular, so people choose to believe
what their friends do (2007, pp. 100, 115).
Downs argues that people are rational in
choosing not to become informed, and Caplan
argues that rational people (those people who
maximize their happiness) will similarly choose
not to discard cherished beliefs. He writes,
If ignorance were the sole cause of error
[y]0u could x any misconception with enough
facts. A few thought experiments show how
implausible this is (2007, p. 101).
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20
GUIDED
CONSULTATIONS
An important moral consideration is that
factors such as ideology or the media may
inuence the reasoning of consultation
participants. In the same way that it would be
wrong for a jury to make its decisions based on
emotional pleas and biased data, conclusions
reached by guided consultations are not
trustworthy. The appropriateness of Calgarys
citizen engagement initiatives is contingent on
the independence of the participants.
The imagineCALGARY consultation
involved the City putting forward ideas to
guide thinking. These were the concepts
of sustainability, the Melbourne Principles
to provide a sustainability lter, systems
thinking theory, the human needs framework,and the community asset-based approach
(2013a, p. 186). Similarly, Plan It Calgary was
grounded in principles of SMART growth
and sustainability principles for land use and
mobility (City of Calgary, 2013b).
Regarding Calgarys chief planner, Rollin
Stanley, City manager Owen Tobert said,
We need someone whos strong-minded,
has leadership capabilities and is persuasive
in arguments, and I think weve found such
a person in Rollin (Markuso, 2012). A city
seeking citizen input should not need to hire
people persuasive in arguments unless there is
an agenda involved. Democratic governments
are meant to serve the public, not manipulate it.
Civil servants and members of the government
have the right to share their views, but they
must also allow people to disagree with them.
Canadian Home Builders Association president
Charron Ungar made critical comments about
the Citys planning and suggested there was a
suburban development freeze in place. In
response, Calgarys Mayor, Naheed Nenshi,
suspended the Association from City Hall
proceedings and sent a reprimanding letter
to Ungar demanding an apology (Zickefoose,
2013).
People questioned whether the actions taken
were appropriate. Richard Truscott, director of
provincial aairs for the Canadian Federation
of Independent Business, said, That
[behaviour] sends a very worrisome signal in
our mind about their approach working with
external groups (Zickefoose, 2013).
If stakeholders get punished for providing
feedback that the City does not want to hear,
the City is denying itself potentially valuable
insight from citizens and stakeholders the
very thing it supposedly desires.
Cullingworth writes, There is a real conict
of view between those who see the inquiry in
narrow terms and those who refuse to accept
predetermined battle lines (1984, p. 8).
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UNLIKE THE ADVICE GIVEN IN
CONSULTATIONS, DECISIONS MADE IN
PRIVATE MARKETS INVOLVE PEOPLE
PAYING A DIRECT COST FOR THEIR
ACTIONS, SO PEOPLE WILL NATURALLY
REASON DIFFERENTLY.
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22
SPREAD-OUT
COSTS AND
TRADE-OFFS
Because the costs associated with public
consultation decisions are spread out among a
large number of people, people in consultations
often fail to consider or address trade-os and
can simply state what they want.
Unlike the advice given in consultations,
decisions made in private markets involve
people paying a direct cost for their actions, so
people will naturally reason dierently.
Consider that a broad range of sizes and types
of televisions are available in the market. It is
easy (or rational) for people to say they desire
a bigger and higher-quality TV, but people still
buy smaller and lower-quality TVs, due to price.
If people buy cheaper TVs, they will have money
left over to spend on something else. They pay
the entire cost of their decision themselves.
RouteAhead is a plan for transit development in
Calgary, and its rst phase included extensive
public engagement. On July 20, 2012, someone
suggested, [m]aking transit cheaper, buses
should run more often (City of Calgary, n.d.e).
While it is easy to understand why both cheaper
transit and more frequent buses are desirable,
addressing both of these desires simultaneously
is not so simple. Running buses more often costs
more money, but how does the transit system
get more money if they make transit cheaper?
This is merely one example of how people may
accidentally leave trade-os out of the equation.
Similarly, Beckerman (as cited in Pennington,
Sustainable Development and British Land-
use Planning, 2006, p. 79) notes that the
insistence of some environmental activists that
irreplaceable assets should be conserved, as
a matter of principle, requires that increases
in living standards be sacriced in order to
maintain the absolute integrity of habitats and
ecological systems.
Limiting suburban development to conserve
land is a signicant trade-o when housing
prices rise because of high land prices. High
housing costs hurt low-income people the
most. Peter Shawn Taylor writes, Density
requirements limiting access to new green eld
suburban developments are meant to articially
push up the price of existing single family
homes under a planning doctrine known as
Smart Growth (2013).
Pennington asserts that this deep greenview is unlikely to nd support from those
still lacking access to the benets of economic
growth. Notably, a City that enforces this view is
making people adhere to a particular worldview
something fundamentally at odds with the
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stated emphasis on public participation, local
control and the acceptability of diverse views
(2006, p. 79).
But, if asked whether one would like land to be
conserved, most people would likely answer yeswithout realizing that their response may be used
to justify higher housing prices, which may or may
not aect them. Even if consultation organizers
are not guiding results, they cannot be sure
participants understand the implications of their
suggestions.
NEEDS VS. DESIRES
In the case of consultations, people are typically
asked about spending decisions where the
cost will be spread across a much wider range
of people than the individual or consultation
attendants. Consultations typically ask people
hypothetical questions such as Would you like
this? or What would be your preferred method of
transportation?
Saying what one wants is helpful to a point, but
making a purchase or private transaction is a more
useful signal to others of what people actually want
and need and is realistically an option. The market
eectively determines needs, while consultations
determine desires.
The risks of policies are not concentrated on the
individuals who are engaged in consultations.
That is to say, they are not held responsible if the
City implements bad policies. If people were held
responsible, they would be less likely to participate
in the policy-making process a telling sign that
perhaps consultations should not be held in such
high regard.
Discussion participants on the Citys Web sitecan remain anonymous, and the Transforming
Planning privacy policy states, Workshop
participant comments and feedback provided
directly to Transforming Planning will remain
unattributed (anonymous) (City of Calgary,
2013g).
If one can anonymously give feedback, citizens will
not know who is advocating for certain policies,
and there is a lack of ownership and accountability.
Gutmann and Thompson see deliberative
democracy as a process requiring citizens to
justify their actions or decisions, but anonymous
opinions, not justications, are usually being
sought.
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24
COMMUNICATION
DIFFICULTIES
Even if people are aware of the trade-os involved,
it is still dicult for them to properly communicate
their values to each other. An individuals
knowledge of the kinds of things he or she wants
may not be conveyed properly in verbal form
(Pennington, 2002, p. 52).
Consider the statement I love you. Anyone who
replies, How much do you love me? is usually
teasing. Some values and sentiments are beyond
the English language. In a market place, people can
choose products and places for reasons that they
cannot articulate. A person may prefer chocolate ice
cream to cherry cheesecake, but giving a waitress
justication for the decision is not worth the eort.
Consultations can only deliver or explain the
describable.
Policies based upon verbalized descriptions will
have questionable results when consultations such
as imagineCALGARY ask questions such as What
is it like for you to live here?
In the private market, prices and the amount people
are willing to pay serve as a signal of value. People
value the same things dierently at dierent times.
For example, Kirk may be willing to spend $7 for
a sandwich in the middle of his workday, but if
he leaves work early the next day, he may only be
willing to spend up to $5 on the sandwich, because
he is not yet too hungry and can eat something else
at home.
Prices serve a purpose beyond relieving people of
their money; they are a communication mechanism
within society. When something goes up in price,
people know there is a demand for it. When
something loses its value and becomes cheaper,
people value it less or too much of it is being
supplied. Prices are more easily able to express
trade-os and value than are government-run
consultations.
THE FUTURE
AND INNOVATIVESOLUTIONS
Sometimes people cannot share input simply
because they do not know what they would want or
would do. Economist Thomas Sowell writes:
I might think that, if faced with the stark
prospect of bankruptcy, I would rather
sell my automobile than my furniture, or
sacrice the refrigerator rather than the
stove, but unless and until such a moment
comes, I will never know even my own trade-
os, much less anybody elses. There is no
way for such information to be fed into a
computer, when no one has such information
in the rst place (1980, p. 218).
Planners and those participating in surveys or
consultations are working with existing knowledge,
but they are unsure of what the future looks like
and how they will respond.
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Many consumers love the iPhone, but no one
was demanding iPhones before Apple invented
them. Once confronted with the option of buying
an iPhone, consumers realized their desire for
the product and re-evaluated their original
opinions.
Imagine if 100 years ago, consumers dictated
and regulated what the development of the
telecommunications industry would be and
discouraged experimentation. Now, we are
envisioning Calgary over the next 100 years and
making our development plans accordingly. One
hopes that 100 years from now, cities planned
by consultations are not the equivalent of rotary
phones.
Something may be invented soon, or knowledge
will be obtained that will change development
options and the current understanding of the
land-use problems faced. Moreover, if a person
were to innovate, this would likely take place
within the private market where prot is a
possibility.
CONSULTING ON
CONSULTATIONS
The consultation process is an inadequate
mechanism to receive and process peoples
knowledge. The City apparently wants to learn
how to improve the process and make it easier
for more citizens to give input, so it launched
Continue the Conversation. But the City begs
the question when learning through its public
consultation process how to improve its public
consultation process.
The City of Ottawa also held public consultations
to learn where and how the public wanted to be
consulted. David Reevely noted ironically, [The
City of Ottawa] will be relying on its usual means
with an online survey planned for the citys
ottawa.ca website and four evening sessions
(2013).
PEOPLE ARE EFFECTIVELY DECLARING EVERY
DAY THROUGH THE PRIVATE MARKET WHAT
THEY LIKE AND WHAT IS PRACTICAL FOR THEM
THROUGH THEIR CHOICES AND PURCHASES.
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26
SECTION IV:
IS PLANNING BY
CONSULTATIONAPPROPRIATE?
Whom the government consults and how a consultation process receives feedback aect the valid-
ity of a consultations outcome. Questioning the validity of consultation results is important, because
policies made as a result of the ndings have the potential to do harm.
Participating in public consultations should not be seen as automatically virtuous, despite the City
encouraging everyone to get involved. Consultations cannot achieve consensus, but if they could,
subjective matters achieved by consensus should not be imposed on others. Consultations can restrict
the choices available to consumers as well as their ability to decide what is right for them. Moreover,
participating in consultations may simply give a government the perceived legitimacy it needs to do
what it wants.
CONSENSUS AND
SUBJECTIVITY IN
PUBLIC CONSUL-
TATIONSPublic consultations like to discover majority
opinions or even consensuses, but using consul-
tations to achieve a consensus is futile, because
there is no consensus in a population of one mil-
lion people.
If a community was to pursue a particular course
of action based on a perceived consensus or ma-
jority opinion and it turned out to be a big op,
greater harm would result than if a variety of
actions were attempted. We are not a smart city if
we put all of our eggs in one basket.
Moreover, majority opinions shift. For example,
in the second half of the 1900s, people argued
that the market process did not lead to a proper
geographical division of functions that is to
say, housing, leisure, work and shopping were all
mixed together. A division was seen as desirable,
and people believed planning towns as a whole
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was needed to see their vision come to fruition
(Davies, 2002, p. 20).
This very mix of functions within a city is what
many people are advocating for now, yet they
believe deliberate government action is needed to
provide walkable cities or sustainable growth.
Regardless, some matters do not concern every-
body and should not be regulated by government,
because the types of development that constitute
an improvement in the quality of life are subjec-
tive.
People have dierent preferences and priorities.
Some people may prefer to raise their family in
Cochrane and drive into Calgary for work every
day; others prefer to live in an apartment down-
town and walk to work.
In many cases, consultation participants are
merely trying to impose their tastes on others.
Nevertheless, in democracies, citizens are allowed
some privacy and independence. Consultations
serve no practical purpose, however, if they only
show that everyone has a dierent opinion.
Ironically, an imagineCALGARY target is [b]y
2036, 100 per cent of Calgarians report that they
feel respected and supported in their pursuits of
meaning, purpose and connectedness, and thatthey extend respect and support to others who
meet this need in ways dierent from their own
(City of Calgary, 2006, p. 94).
MORAL RIGHT TO
PARTICIPATE
At least one theorist questions whether public
participation is always right and moral, even
when the topic concerns the greater public. In The
Ethics of Voting, Jason Brennan challenges the
folk theory that any vote in good faith is morally
acceptable and that each citizen has a civic duty to
vote (2011, pp. 1-3).
People argue that voting, regardless of how a
person votes, tends to preserve stable democracy,
yet when the public fails to vote, this destabilizes
democracy (Brennan, 2011, p. 21). It may be that
citizens engaging in elections or public consulta-
tions are doing more harm than good, especially if
the outcomes of the process in which they engage
has greater ramications than they are aware of.
Arguably, it is irresponsible to impose decisionson others, especially when one is not informed
about the decision.
Brennan writes, Even though individual votes
almost never have a signicant impact on election
results in any large-scale election, I argue that this
does not let individuals o the hook. Individual
voters have moral obligations concerning how
they vote (2011, pp. 2-3).
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28
WHAT IF THE
GOVERNMENT
DOES A BAD JOB?
If public consultation results do not accurately
convey the needs and interests of the public and
the government makes poor decisions, the costs
are spread among the entire city and mistakes
may not even be realized. There is no institution
competing with a governments attempts at
city planning; there is nobody to provide an
alternative that may be better. Citizens must
take what they get or leave the city. Monopolies
can be harmful, but competition encourages
better performance.
In the private market, consultations are kept
in check by the fact that actors in the private
market face competition, and the public is
not bound to the private decisions of others.
If a consultation is done poorly, the people
who carried it out will be unsuccessful in
their initiatives. Moreover, those conducting
market research may have results that are more
accurate because they do not face the same
obstacles that politicians do.
THERE IS NO
INSTITUTION
COMPETING WITHA GOVERNMENTS
ATTEMPTS AT CITY
PLANNING; THERE IS
NOBODY TO PROVIDE
AN ALTERNATIVE
THAT MAY BE BETTER.
CITIZENS MUST TAKE
WHAT THEY GET OR
LEAVE THE CITY.
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CONSULTATION CAN RESTRICT
CHOICES IN THE MARKETPLACE
Public consultation and participation may bring
with it connotations of inclusiveness and the
ability of all people to have a hand in shaping their
destinies and ensuring sustainability. However,
the downside to public consultations is that
they can be used to justify rules, regulations and
expenditures that remove choices from citizens.
The Citys Municipal Development Plan
(MDP) seeks to guide Calgary toward the
imagineCALGARY vision (City of Calgary, 2009,
p. 1.6). The MDP has led to a wide range of
strategies, goals and policies that restrict the
choices Calgarians have when it comes to land use.
They are summarized in table form in the MDP
(overleaf).
...[T]HE DOWNSIDE TO PUBLIC CONSULTATIONS
IS THAT THEY CAN BE USED TO JUSTIFY RULES,REGULATIONS AND EXPENDITURES THAT REMOVE
CHOICES FROM CITIZENS.
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30
No. Core Indicators Metric Baseline 60-year
target
1 Urban Expansion Per cent of populationgrowth accommodatedwithin developed area(2005 boundary area)
In 2005, the developed areaof the city was losing 5 %of population to greeneldarea.
50%
2 Density People per hectare In 2005, Calgary had apopulation density of 20people per hectare.
27
Jobs per hectare In 2005, Calgary hademployment density of 11
jobs per hectare.
18
3 Population/JobsBalance
Population/Jobs East/West Ratio
In 2005 the population/jobs East/West Ratio was2.7
1.7
Population/Jobs North/South Ratio
In 2005 the population/jobs North/South Ratiowas 1.9
1.7
4 Mix Land Use Land Use Diversity Index In 2008, land use mix diversity index was 0.53
0.7
5 Residential Mix Residential Diversity Index In 2008, residentialdiversity index was 0.19.
0.4
6 Road and Street Infrastructure
Roads to Streets ratio 0.72 (42% Roads and 58%Streets)
0.57 (36%Roads and
64% Streets)
7 Accessibility toPrimary TransitNetwork
Per cent of populationwithin 400m of PrimaryTransit Network
LRT is the only transitservice approaching
Primary Transit levels ofservice in Calgary today
45%
Per cent of jobs within400m of Primary Transit
Network
LRT is the only transitservice approaching
Primary Transit levels ofservice in Calgary today
67%
8 Transit Service Annual transit service
hours per capita
9 Goods Access Per cent of intermodal and warehousing facilitieswithin 1600m (actual) of
Primary Goods MovementNetwork
Currently, 73% ofintermodal andwarehousing facilities arelocated within 1600m of
Primary Goods MovementNetwork
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10 TransportationMode Split
Walking and Cycling ModeSplit (all purpose trips, 24hours, city-wide)
In 2005, walk and biketrips contributed to 14% ofall trips made
20% - 25%
Transit Mode Split (allpurpose trips, 24 hours,city-wide)
In 2005, 9% of all tripswere made by transit 15% - 20%
Auto Mode Split (allpurpose trips, 24 hours,city-wide)
In 2005, 77% of all tripswere made by car 65% - 55%
11 Accessibility toDaily Needs
Per cent of populationwithin Major andCommunity ActivityCentres and 600m ofUrban and NeighbourhoodCorridors
In 2006, 18% of allpopulation was locatedwithin Major andCommunity ActivityCentres and 600m ofUrban and NeighbourhoodCorridors
30%
12 Watershed Health Per cent of impervious
surface
In 1998, 32% of land cover
was impervious (made upof roadways, parking andbuildings)
10% - 20%
13 Urban forest Per cent of tree canopy Canopy cover was 7% in1998
14% - 20%
14 District Energy Per cent of land area withdensities supportive ofdistrict energy systems
In 2005, only 0.3% ofland area had densitiessupportive of districtenergy systems
1.7%
Table 2: Core Indicators for Land Use and Mobility (City of Calgary, 2009, p. 5.10)
People who like to drive, have lots of space and
live in a quiet residential neighbourhood may
nd that its supply is articially restricted. Goal
two of the MDP calls for an increase in density,
while goal 10 calls for a decrease in trips by car
and an increase in trips by transit. However,these are just a couple examples, since the Citys
consultations cover a broad range of topics.
Choices made through consultations are not
without a cost; they reduce the available choices
in the market place. They also seem frustrat-
ingly arbitrary and not really connected with the
consultation process. For example, it is dicult
to see what logical process led to a target of 27residents per hectare, why not 26 or 28?
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32
PRE-MADE
DECISION SEEKS
LEGITIMACY...
Because government decisions bind everybody,
politicians cannot rightly decide an issue
simply by claiming that they know that their
preferred policies are right for their fellow
citizens (Gutmann & Thompson, 2004, pp.
22-23). Governments need to demonstrate that
every decision made reects the public interest.
Public consultation is seen as part of the
governments solution to dealing with public
scrutiny. Put another way, public participation
is simply public relations: providing the public
with information and, possibly, reassurance
(Cullingworth, 1984, p. 7). Arguably, people
are less likely to complain about a government
decision they dislike if they believe it was made
through a democratic process.
In Calgary, some citizens are questioning
whether the recent consultation over how to
spend $52-million was appropriate, not simply
because it was done in the style of the Dragons
Den game show, but because of claims that theprovince intended the money to be returned to
taxpayers. Licia Corbella writes:
The provincial government overtaxed
Calgarians by $52 million, and as a
result, it is returning the money. Thats
the right thing to do. Mayor Naheed
Nenshi and city council, however,
are now going through some pretty
imaginative, if not bizarre, exercises to
determine what to do with the found loot
(2013).
A scientic poll showed 39 per cent of
Calgarians supported the option of returning
the money to taxpayers and 25 per cent opted to
cut the Citys debt. The transit option, believed
to be favoured by the mayor, was supported by
17 per cent (Bell, 2013).
The City reports, however, that their own
consultation was a qualitative study and
no numbers were collected (City of Calgary,
2013h). Marc Henry of ThinkHQ says, It seems
like council in their public consultation was
looking for forgiveness, not permission (Bell,
2013). Some argue that consultations do more
to inuence public opinion than policy (Ryfe,
2005, p. 61).
Additionally, a number of people see the results
of some Calgary consultations as quite obvious,
causing them to wonder whether the City is
merely going through the motions of public
participation.
For example, RouteAhead received comments
from 4,000 people, and the top ve priorities
were identied: buses should be scheduled to
arrive at stops more often, routes should go
where people need them to go, fares should stay
aordable, vehicles should be comfortable and
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vehicles should arrive on time (City of Calgary,
n.d.f, p. 25). City council should not need to spend
taxpayer money and seek out citizens in order to
know that most transit riders want comfortable
seats and their buses to arrive on time; this is
intuitive.
To learn how Calgarians would like their money
to be spent, the City dispensed nearly $1-million
on public consultations before creating its budget.
Perhaps Calgarians did not want a million of their
dollars spent on the public consultation. Moreover,
Alderman Andre Chabot pointed out that the
consultation results did not heavily inuence
amendments in the budget that council passed
(Gandia, 2012).
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34
If Calgarians decide the Citys current practice of public consultations is inappropriate and non-benecial,
they may consider promoting more transparency, introducing a more scientic method to the process, re-
stricting the scope of public consultations to truly public matters or call for an end to public consultations
entirely in favour of other decision making methods.
SECTION V:NEW APPROACHES
If the public consultation process is to continue, the
City should be more open and honest with citizens
about the benets of the process. The engage! Policy
states as a principle, The promise, purpose and
limitations on engaging stakeholders will be made
clear and understandable (City of Calgary, 2003, p.
3).
In practice, this should mean the City is required to
educate the public on the diculties in achieving
fair and useful results when the public participates
in consultations. The City should be required to
clearly describe the constraints within which the
consultation takes place and to share the funda-
mental assumptions, if any, that independent bod-
ies discover.
The City needs to be clear about how it will use the
feedback it receives. Are the conclusions reached
in the consultation binding? Is the City seeking to
learn the state of public opinion, or is the City using
the consultation as a means to educate the public of
its plans?
Following the consultation, the City should report
on the composition of the group sample. It can state
the gender balance, areas where the participants
reside, levels of income, levels of education, ethnic-
ity and ages, all factors that determine whether the
group is a true representation of the city as a whole.
The City should state whether the members of the
group were requested to participate or if they had
selected themselves. The City must tell the public
where it advertised the initiative and which external
groups were invited or were not allowed to partici-
pate.
To encourage accountability, participants could also
agree to be named. Rather than simply receiving
composed reports, the public should have access
to all of the Citys materials, feedback, and data for
each of its consultations.
GREATER TRANSPARENCY
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The City of Calgary asked Dialogue Partners to
organize the consultation process for Our City.
Our Budget. Our Future. Dialogue Partners did
share demographic information on the partici-
pants, but declared:
The project was not intended to be market
research where a statistically valid opin-
ion is provided as a snapshot in time. The
engagement process has multiple goals,
which reach far beyond the gathering
of opinions, and is not statistically valid
(2011, p. 32).
A meaningful reform would be to ensure that
consultation research results are statistically
valid. One may wonder what the engagement
process is about if it is meant to go far beyond
gathering opinions.
All consultations could be done, as a rule, with
randomly selected rather than self-selected
participants. This would sacrice the ability of
any citizen to have his or her say, but it would
remove the snowball sample selection and the
presence of interest groups.
Such a reform might also be likely to remove the
diculty of low turnout. By going to the people
rather than waiting for them to come, the City
would be able to ensure the sample size is large
enough to be statistically meaningful.
RANDOM SAMPLE SELECTION
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36
RESTRICT
CONSULTATIONS TO
PUBLIC SPACES
Governments have already established a set of envi-
ronmental standards and regulations within which the
market is allowed to operate. Because these standards
exist, consultations could be used only where public
property is concerned.
Citizens may participate in consultations for the re-
vitalization of a street or matters concerning a publicpark, but the public should refrain from dictating the
development of private property. In these cases, those
who participate in consultations are meddling in other
peoples aairs.
Richard White calls for an end to the consensus mod-
el, referring to the process of seeking consensus among
all stakeholders, ranging from developers to nearby
residents. He asserts that the consensus model is too
time-consuming and inhibits the adoption of innovative
ideas. He writes, Any development is always too much
for some and too little for others very few think it is
just right. There is no perfect plan or policy (2010).
If politicians were to restrict consultation to matters
concerning public properties, this would limit the scope
of potential for special interest groups to take advan-
tage of government power. However, there is still the
potential that these groups will inuence the overarch-
ing policies and regulations for private properties so
that these will be in their favour.
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DO AWAY WITH PUBLIC
CONSULTATIONS IN FAVOUR OF
MARKET AND OTHER DEMOCRATIC
DECISION MAKINGAnother option is for politicians and public o-
cials to relinquish control and allow development
to take place through the market or private cov-
enants.
Sometimes a commoditys value is contingent on
being part of a package deal. Private shopping
malls are an example of this concept. Shopping
centre merchants who fail to supply parking or
who do not collect garbage may be able to charge
less for their goods, but they will also lose clients
or customers who value these services (Penning-
ton, 2002, p. 92).
Similarly, a housing developer that fails to provide
amenities, adequate infrastructure, and aesthetic
touches will lose to its competitors who do so
(Pennington, 2002, p. 92).
A person may not want his or her neighbours
to replace their home with a 10-storey building,
because it will ruin ones view and block sunlight.
If that person became part of a private covenant
when moving into the neighborhood, he or she
and the neighbours would face restrictions on
what they can do with their land. Most likely, the
neighbours are unable to replace their house with
a taller building. If a private covenant restricts too
much, however, people who seek more freedom
can buy a house elsewhere, where the stipulations
of the covenant are dierent.
People should be able to voluntarily associate with
organizations that restrict their personal freedom,
and they will do so because it benets them.
In places where people have the right to do with
their property as they like, others may nd some
decisions distasteful. However, those who nd a
decision distasteful have equal rights to do with
their property what they like or can bargain with
the other property owner. The rights people desire
for themselves must also be granted to others.
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38
SECTION VI:
CONCLUSIONKenneth Minogue writes:
Our rulers are theoretically our repre-
sentatives, but they are busy turning us into
the instruments of the projects theykeep
dreaming up. The business of governments,
one might think, is to supply the framework
of law within which we may pursue happi-
ness on our own account (2010, p. 2).
Calgary can move away rom a system where policies
avouring the ew are seemingly legitimized through
public consultations. Insight into how the political
process works shows that the outcomes o consulta-
tions are not so air and praiseworthy, aer all.
As explained earlier, not everyone can or will par-
ticipate in public consultations, and special interest
groups or activists dominate the process. Some peo-
ple enjoy participating, but many people do not have
the time to be constantly deending their interests.
Moreover, the quality o input received in public con-
sultations is questionable. Te majority o people do
not have expertise in city planning. Participants do
not pay a direct cost or their decisions, and consulta-
tions have diculties accommodating trade-ofs.
Consultations necessarily carry underlying assump-
tions or have constraints, so this is a problem or peo-
ple who are unaware o a consultations limitations or
disagree with the methodology used.
Lastly, in cities with tens o thousands o people,
consensus cannot be reached. Preerences are subjec-
tive, and oen the government even i at the word
o others can impose moral decisions on citizens
when it has no right.
Every person should be able to take part in the de-
velopment process directly, rather than a small group
o consultation participants deciding the path or
everyone. Interactions within the private market are
better indicators than consultations o what Calgar-
ians want.
I consultations are merely used as a public relations
tool to push agendas, citizens should demand that
money be better spent elsewhere.
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SECTION VII:
RECOMMENDATIONS
POLICY CURRENT STATUS DESCRIPTION BENEFIT
GreaterTransparency
Raw data fromconsultations notalways available
City makes raw datafrom all consulationspublic as soon asavailable
Greater trust inprocess if robust,healthy skpeticism ifnot
Introduce RandomSample Selection
Samples tend tobe self selecting,unlikely to reect
population
Ensure samplingis proportionate to
population as per publicopinion research best
practice
Results ofconsultations morereective of population
Restrict Scope ofPublic Consultationto Truly Public
Spaces
Publicconsultations usedto set global goalsthat aect futuredevelopment and
the use of privateproperty
Public consultation usedonly for matters wherethere is an established
public interest, forexample redeveloping
an established street
Great choice in privatematters, consultationretained for truly
public spaces
Do Away withPublic Consultationin Favour of
Market andOther Democratic
Decision Making
Consultation iswidely used policy
Reject the currentconsultation paradigmin favour of privatechoices in the market
place and conventionaldemocracy throughelected representatives
Greater choince inmarket place, easier toidentify representativeresponsible fordecisions and holdthem to account
MOREAMBITIOU
SREFORM
LESSAMBI
TIOUSREFORM
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40
APPENDIX: SELECTED CITY OF
CALGARY CONSULTATION LINKS
City of Calgary. (2013). What is imagineCALGARY? Retrieved July 2, 2013, from imagine-
CALGARYhttp://www.imaginecalgary.ca/what-imaginecalgary
City of Calgary. (2013). Plan It Calgary. Retrieved May 7, 2013, fromhttp://www.calgary.ca/PDA/LUPP/Pages/Municipal-Development-Plan/Plan-It-Calgary/Plan-It-Calgary.aspx.
City of Calgary. (2013). RouteAhead: What We Heard. Retrieved July 4, 2013, fromhttp://www.routeahead.ca/397-2/what-we-heard/
City of Calgary. (2013, February 7). News Release: 16,500 Calgarians Voice Opinions onNew Central Library. Retrieved July 4, 2013, fromhttp://calgarynewcentrallibrary.ca/news-release-16500-calgarians-voice-opinions-on-new-cen-tral-library/
City of Calgary. (2013). Our City. Our Budget. Our Future. Retrieved July 4, 2013, fromhttp://ocobof.blogspot.ca
City of Calgary. (2013). How Should the City Use $52 Million? Retrieved July 4, 2013, fromhttp://www.calgary.ca/52million
City of Calgary. (2013). Multi-family Recycling Project Status. Retrieved July 2, 2013, fromhttp://www.calgary.ca/UEP/WRS/Pages/Recycling-information/Residential-services/The-3rs-reduce-reuse-recycle/MultiFamily-Recycling-Status.aspx
City of Calgary. (2013). Continue the Conversation. Retrieved July 4, 2013, from http://www.calgary.ca/getinvolved/Pages/Continue-the-Conversation.aspx
City of Calgary. (2013). Next City: Transforming Planning. Retrieved July 4, 2013, fromhttp://www.calgary.ca/PDA/Pages/Transforming-Planning/Transforming-Planning.aspx
City of Calgary. (2013). 8 Street S.W. Corridor Public Realm Plan. Retrieved July 4, 2013,from http://www.calgary.ca/Transportation/TP/Pages/Planning/Centre-City/8-Street-S.W.-Cor-ridor-Public-Realm-Plan.aspx
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
BRIANNA HEINRICHS is a Masters student at the Universityof Calgary. She holds a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) degree in Political Science
from the same institution and currently coordinates the radio and internship
programs at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy. Her next project for the
Manning Foundation focuses on transparency at City Hall.
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46
MUNICIPAL REPORT SERIES
The Manning Foundation is building intellectual capital for municipal governance in ve streams of public policy
enquiry. Each stream will include a series of public policy reports designed to stimulate new thought about the role
of municipal government in society. Manning Foundation research reports are placed in the public domain via the
Foundations website and are available for review, debate, criticism and support by Canadians regardless of their
political aliation.
1. ORGANIC CITIES
An enquiry into how cities grow and what role government should play in regulating growth and providing
infrastructure, with the goals of economic eciency and liveability. Much of the debate around municipal development
is based around what urban forms are desirable, with sprawlers and smart growthers alike arguing that land-use
regulation and infrastructure provision should favour their optimal urban form.
The Organic Cities project takes a dierent perspective: that what is important is not the urban form that emerges,
but the processes that are in place, particularly the role of government. On this view, it is more important that the
market is left free to serve consumer demand, with the important constraints being property rights and the real costs of
infrastructure provision rather than land-use regulations.
Upcoming reports include enquiries into the eects of future advances in vehicle technology.
2. APPROPRIATE ACTIVITIES
An enquiry into the optimal role of government, with a positive analysis of what municipal government currently does