Med omtanke om staden : Motiv till privatpersoners engagemang i samhällsplanering

Sammanfattning: Community planning is a complex process in which many different interests have to come together. Cities have always been under continuous development, but today there is a pressure from different stakeholders to build and densify the central parts of many cities. Disagreements arise when the opinions of citizens don’t correlate with the public institutions' way of conducting community planning. This study aims to investigate what motivates individuals in the city of Kalmar to engage in community planning processes. The theoretical framework of the study include theories about citizen participation and controversies in planning processes. Data has been generated through interviews and the project in focus was the Linnaeus University’s building of new facilities in Ölandshamnen, a project that has been debated by public insitutions and citizens for several years. Results from the study show that individuals engaged in the planning process for different reasons, whereof two main reasons where experiences of a non-functioning democracy, and experiences of dominant public support for other proposed locations. The study concludes that there is a big difference between how people perceive their involvement and how it is treated by other stakeholders.