Master Planning & opening space

Chris Corrigan chris at chriscorrigan.com
Sat Aug 2 16:42:11 PDT 2003


Avner will be here on Bowen Island on Tuesday (yay! For me and Penny and
Michael H, who is also joining us here for a while).  If he doesn't get
the message because he is in transit, I'll print it off for him.

Cheers all,

Chris

---
CHRIS CORRIGAN
Bowen Island, BC, Canada
http://www.chriscorrigan.com
chris at chriscorrigan.com
(604) 947-9236

-----Original Message-----
From: OSLIST [mailto:OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU] On Behalf Of
Harrison Owen
Sent: Saturday, August 02, 2003 4:09 PM
To: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
Subject: Fwd: Master Planning & opening space

Romy Shovelton surfaced and had the following to contribute to Avner. I
guess she is not curretnly on the LIST -- so I will pass it on.

ho


Date: Sat, 2 Aug 2003 11:12:22 -0400
From: Romy Shovelton <romys at compuserve.com>
Subject: Master Planning & opening space
Sender: Romy Shovelton <romys at compuserve.com>
To: Avner Haramati <avner at inter.net.il>, Harrison Owen
<owenhh at mindspring.com>,
   John Thompson <jtp at jtp.co.uk>

Avner


Thanks to the generosity of Harrison (as always), he has woken me up to
a hugely important issue that you posted on the OSLIST, despite my being
virtually invisible there these days.

Firstly, I am in awe every time I hear of the work you are doing. What a
gift to Israel and our world.

So... needless to say, I would be honoured to see if there is anything I
can add or support.

As you might imagine, most of my own thinking would chime 100% with that
of Harrison. And....  I have a couple of other thoughts.

1) I agree that an important primary focus will be on mentoring the
planners & politicians, to get them to a place where they see the real
value of the direction you are taking in engaging the people - as
Harrison
says, so that they see how genuinely aligning with the desires of the
people
(rather than doing so in theory only) GIVES them extraordinary
power,rather
than taking it away.

What I might add, is that I believe you can move to participatory
democracy
in stages. It is true that, in many ways, when the people have tasted
Open Space,
you can't put the 'genie back in the bottle': they have a sense of the
effectiveness
of running their own show, and will not easily go back to 'business as
usual'.
However.... just as Open Space has a clear and strong framework (within
which is the freedom to create our world together),it is almost always
helpful to
be very clear on 'the givens' in any situation: these form part of the
framework.

So...you might say that a 'given' is that, in the current democratic and
legal
context, the planners and politicians have certain responsibilities for
taking
certain decisions. For the time being, they can retain those
responsibilities -
using the participation and dialogue with the people as the best
possible way of
making the best possible decisions ie.deciding with the people... and
NOT loosing
power, rather building it.

I agree that ultimately and ideally we will move to a situation where
decisions
are being taken through a process of hugely broader engagement of the
people. And..
even in that situation there are likely to be groups of people, and some
individuals,
who are asked to work on behalf of the people (eg. the teams who have
just been
working to produce some of the five-year-plan detail.). In a way we are
perhaps
grooming the P&P to work in a way that democracy was originally intended
to work?

So.. in short, I believe it's possible to work with the planners &
politicians (P&P)
without frightening them! In this way to bring them along into genuine
participation
with the people (as Harrison has said, in a lot fewer words!).

2) In addition to mentoring the P&P, Harrison is right that I have some
experience of
involving them in working directly with the people to draw up and
implement plans.
Working with John Thompson and his colleagues (www.jtp.co.uk
<http://www.jtp.co.uk/> ), we use community
architects, planners & urban designers to help 'the people' and the
planners &
politicians to take community desires to the next stage - to literaly
visualise
what the physical and social space could be like. The result is very
often a
Master Plan. Working groups are often formed, and these can also benefit
from the
expert input of community planners etc. These are people that can speak
the language
of the P&P, while almost translating the will of the people.

I have just returned from two such pieces of work in Yorkshire in
England. In one,
the main event, which pulled things together and effectively launched
the
implementation stage, included some significant transformation
activities, to
signal the change eg. closing the main street completely and building a
(temporary)
dry-stone wall down the centre - reclaiming local skills and acting as a
seat for
great local entertainment in the evening.

btw John Thompson has personally worked in many contexts with
significant conflit. I
will copy him on this note, to see if he has worked in Israel? You may
well have
local 'experts' who play a similar role. If not perhaps John might be
able to help?

3)the other thing, which I'm sure you will have given the P&P to
understand, is that
using Open Space (and appropriate related work)will not only support
them in their
power and popularity, it will also be MUCH more effective and
streamlined in creating
the needed output eg. Master Plan and its implementation. Having the
people on board
at the start is quicker and cheaper than lengthy objections and
obstruction later.

4) btw on the question of elections, I'm sure your aim will be to
involve those of
all parties and 'sides'. And they will be advised to show genuine
interest and desire
for dialogue too. Of course what you don't want is them using your
gatherings as a
political platform: they would be invited to join in like everyone else.
Perhaps
you have a more specific concern here?

So... Avner please forgive me for probably stating the obvious.... At
least maybe
I'm endorsing your own thinking (as well as that of Harrison)?!

In summary, it would be wonderful to support you in your work. Please do
let
me know if there is anything at all that I can do.

btw it was also such an honour to be invited to assist with /facilitate
the work
in Rome, with representatives from Israeli, Palestinian and Italian
universities.
As you will know, the intended event at the end of April was postponed:I
am planning
to drop an email to Sharon Rosen and Daniel Kropf to see what news there
is.
While so far, Sharon and I have only 'met' by  telephone, it was
wonderful to spend
a brief time with Daniel when he was in London at the end of April/early
May.

With very best wishes Avner

Romy

-------------Forwarded Message-----------------

From:   Harrison Owen, INTERNET:owenhh at mindspring.com
To:     Romy Shovelton, romys

Date:   31/07/03 12:05 PM

RE:     Some help?


Haven't seen you on the OSLIST recently -- and presume you are alive and

well. Avner Haramati (Israel) put up a note, and I thought some of your
experience might be helpful. He said: --

Dear colleagues

9 months ago we opened (holded) a space in a Regional Council that
includes
25 villages and Kibutzim ( corporate villages). They decided to build a
5
years strategic plan for the region together with the inhabitants. 11
teams
worked on the issues that stemmed from the Open Space and last friday 10

teams that included inhabitants (130 of them) and civil servants
presented
their final suggestions in an open event/market to the public and guests

and were acknowledged as the official guidelines of the strategic plan.
The
teams decided that they want to continue. The issue of the missing team
was
as Harrison calls it "clear as mud" and was publicly declared by the
Head
of the Council as the next focal point.
The event and all the process was declared by the Inhabitants and the
Academic and Govenmental guests as the first manifestation of real
participatory democracy that they have experienced and they were
thrilled.
One of the inhabitants shared her understandind of the process: " We
were
excited by the 4 principals but I would like to add to the 4th: It ends
when it ends but then it starts again". Or as Tova said " After 9 months

the baby was born but now all the work of raising him up starts" It
seems
that they are getting addicted to this, and our role along the way is
just
slightly to remind them of the tune (in their words).

And the question:
We (with Tova) are in a process of using OS in the context of
inhabitants
participation in building a "Master- Plan" for a small city.  We would
be
very thankful to hear and learn about your experience in this kind of
work,
especially on the allignment with the city planners and the planning
stages, and how coming elections effects it?

Thank you

Avner Haramati
Jerusalem

I answered: --

I think Romy Shovelton has done some work in this area -- she is
sometime
lurker on the list -- but just to get her attention, I will forward this
to
her. As far as your question goes -- You have surely asked the tough
one. I
find that both city planners and politicians are (in general) adverse to

Open Space. The bottom line is control. They think they should have it
(control), Open Space makes it clear that nobody really does -- and so
the
problem. While there are undoubtedly ways to integrate Open Space events

into the whole process (At the beginning to set the stage, in the middle

for course corrections and working the "clear as mud issues", and at the

end -- or continuing -- for implementation) I find that the critical
thing
it to seek the active, continuing, participatory involvement of planners

and politicians.  Things go badly astray when planners and pols consider

the Open Space to be an exercise of the people which they may observe,
and
from which they may receive recommendations -- the old "senior
management"
model. Pulling this one off is a major task, and usually involves
something
like a "soul change" for the P & Ps. Indeed for some of them it requires

that the world as they have seen it be turned upside down. All of a
sudden
the people are "in charge" and the task of the planners and politicians
becomes one of working out the technical details -- a most important
task
-- but definitely secondary. This is called democracy. From the sounds
of
things (your story) you are off to a good start. My suggestion would be
to
spend a lot of time with the P & P in mentoring relationship, helping
them
to understand to genuine power of aligning their efforts with the
desires
of the people. As Gandhi was purported to have said -- help them to find

out which way the parade is going and clear the route and manage the
traffic. Actually, Gandhi didn't say that exactly, but I think he could
have.

Harrison


Hope all goes well with you. I am in Maine, enjoying the summer. If you
want to respond to Avner directly < avnerh at inter.net.il > will do it.
And
it would be great to see you on the list.

ho

Harrison Owen
7808 River Falls Drive
Potomac, MD 20854 USA
phone 301-365-2093
Open Space Training www.openspaceworld.com
<http://www.openspaceworld.com/>
Open Space Institute www.openspaceworld.org
<http://www.openspaceworld.org/>
Personal website http://mywebpages.comcast.net/hhowen/index.htm

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From: Harrison Owen <owenhh at mindspring.com>
Subject: Some help?
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Harrison Owen
7808 River Falls Drive
Potomac, MD 20854 USA
phone 301-365-2093
Open Space Training www.openspaceworld.com
<http://www.openspaceworld.com/>
Open Space Institute www.openspaceworld.org
<http://www.openspaceworld.org/>
Personal website http://mywebpages.comcast.net/hhowen/index.htm

OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options,
view the archives of oslist at listserv.boisestate.edu
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