AbstractsBiology & Animal Science

Our thesis zooms in on the structures of Copenhagen’s local committees’ district plans and their interaction with the government and the City Council. District plans must represent the voice of the citizens, in regards to the development of their neighborhoods. Local Committees are an important conduit for local democracy in large municipalities where the central government has been, and still is moving further away from their citizens. District plans are a tool to add a participatory contribution to the urban planning. Our thesis is concerned with examining the conditions of the participatory contribution, and furthermore how the guidelines set for district plans are affecting the participatory contribution. It is possible to induce a certain level of public involvement, but if governments and politicians control the process, it will affect the qualitative resource the public involvement potentially possesses. Our theoretical framework builds upon the communicative planning theory of Bo Elling. We use this optic to illustrate the structures surrounding the district plans and the rationales from which they are created, in order to examine whether they are suitable for citizen involvement in urban development or not. It is important that the various rationales of the various institutions complement each other in order to achieve a long-term and holistically oriented planning.