Citizen Participation, Design Competition and the Product in Urban Design: Insights from the Orange County Great Park

Ajay Garde

Journal of Urban Design, 2014, vol. 19, issue 1, 89-118

Abstract: The purpose of this study is to determine the contribution of citizen participation and urban design competitions to the quality and outcomes of urban design projects. Urban design projects sometimes involve citizen participation and a design competition before a proposal is accepted for implementation. Although there is considerable literature on citizen participation and on design competitions, there is scant empirical research on the implications of the process for the product. A case study approach was used, in which the author evaluated data collected from a multi-phase citizen participation process and an international design competition for the design of the Great Park in Irvine, California. The design elements proposed by citizens during the citizen participation process and those proposed by the professionals in their competition entries were analyzed for their contribution to the quality of design of the project. The research reveals that, while these processes consume considerable financial and non-financial resources, the citizen participation by itself contributes commonplace ideas and is inadequate for achieving excellence in urban design projects. The paper concludes with recommendations to make the process more effective to achieve optimal results for the product.

Date: 2014
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/13574809.2013.854697 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:cjudxx:v:19:y:2014:i:1:p:89-118

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/cjud20

DOI: 10.1080/13574809.2013.854697

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Urban Design is currently edited by Professor Taner Oc, Professor Michael Southworth, Professor Matthew Carmona and Dr Elisabete Cidre

More articles in Journal of Urban Design from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().