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When gathering public input on openspace prioritization, an
integrative approach to valuation is most appropriate. While
an understanding of a rare species habitat on a given site may
factor into a respondent's valuation, asking all residents how
much they value each site for such specific, expert knowledge
is questionable for two reasons. First, asking the general public
to weigh in on issues that are categorically in the domain of
scientific experts will result in what Daniel Yankelovich calls
"uninformed public judgment." Unless respondents understand
a given set of fundamental premises, they are likely to pick
irrational or uninformed degrees of valuation. This leads to
the second problem with asking such questions. If the public
requires special education to provide input on an issue, the
motive for asking such a question should be examined. If an
issue such as rare species is in question, experts can conduct
inventories and determine where and to what extent rare species
are located within a community. While it is pefectly acceptable
to ask the public how much they value rare species, asking the
public to weigh in on specialized issues may result in an illusive
exercise of public participation that serves more to placate
residents and bolster expert positions than to gather useful,
policy relevant information. The public can provide a wealth
of information to the process of prioritizing openspace. The
strength of public input lies in residents' ability to integrate
all factors that influence how valuable places are for preservation.
Three survey questions address the issue of site specific valuation.
One question commonly used in community assessments to gauge
valuation is to ask people to what extent they would miss a
place if they moved away from the community. This is a holistic
question that allows people to integrate all knowledge, experience,
and feelings they have for the site. An analysis of local press
coverage revealed that much of the rhetoric of openspace acquisition
in South County focuses on the ability of openspace to preserve
the unique character of the rural towns in this region. While
the National Historic Registry and the RI Landscape Inventory
can provide information on sites and regions of historic and
scenic importance, when determining how to preserve Charlestown's
sense of place, we must rely on residents to provide their understanding
of how places fit into the cultural landscape. To focus respondents
on this salient issue, a question asks to what extent each survey
site significantly contributes to the unique character of Charlestown.
Although this investigation could be expanded to gather volumes
of additional information, this question serves as a means to
rate survey sites on a scale of cultural importance. Finally,
because this project aims to prioritize land specifically for
openspace preservation, an additional integrative question is
posed to ask how important respondents think it is to have each
site protected as openspace.
The following graphs present aggregate findings for the three
valuation questions. Results for each question are weighted.
From the graphs we see that, despite some variance, sites rank
fairly consistently for each valuation question. These aggregate
results suggested some apparent trends that were further analyzed:
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