Why use the Internet to facilitate public participation?

Traditionally, community assessments and inventories have relied on resident teams and planning charettes to facilitate public participation. Core groups of involved residents organize and lead strategic planning workshops. While this approach has resulted in many successful projects, there are a few significant shortcomings that are characteristic of this methodology.

1. A reliance on workshop participants often results in the incorporation of a limited number of resident opinions. Few residents have time to commit to citizen planning committees, task forces and subgroups. Local town meetings and planning workshops are often attended by a small group of highly self-selected "usual suspects" who are already active in local politics.
   
   
2. The picture at the top right illustrates a practical, but quite limiting, shortcoming of common workshop methods. Planning workshop participants are often limited to the few people who can fit around a table of maps or plans. When planning for openspace preservation, spatial data (often represented in large format maps) serve as a primary means of orienting participants and focusing discussions on specific areas of geographical interest. While techniques for presenting this information are improving, residents attending workshops may face barriers to participate if they cannot physically access the maps. Furthermore, special consideration must be given to residents who may not be well versed in interpreting and discussing spatial data, especially if workshop discussions are focused on a single set of maps.
   
   
3. Depending on the political climate surrounding an issue, workshops may not provide an open forum in which residents voice their questions and concerns. In the case of openspace planning workshops, one can imagine how a pro-development resident may feel discouraged from vocalizing minority positions, and how workshops could easily become polarized or unproductive.
   
   
4. Finally, if the municipal planning community seeks to gather public input for an assessment or inventory, a fundamental question of the purpose for public participation must be addressed. Will the opinions of a workshop committee provide sufficient representative qualitative input? How democratic do planners want to make the participation process?

In the case of Charlestown's openspace planning workshops, it quickly became apparent that a reliance on the workshop participatory model would insufficiently meet project goals, and that an Internet survey could better facilitate public participation. Initial workshops were poorly attended, and those residents who did attend could not commit to service on an openspace committee. Although the Planning Commission expressed a strong desire to incorporate the views and opinions of various community interests, such as hunting, fishing, development, conservation and recreation, it was clear that those views would not necessarily be represented in workshop discussions. Furthermore, limited attendance made the workshops better forums for Planning Commission discussions, and less of an opportunity to gather significant and useful input from residents.

By creating an interactive Internet survey to address the Planning Commission's goals, many more residents had the opportunity to participate in prioritizing potential openspace. Not only does an online survey increase the potential numbers of participants in the planning process, but it further democratizes the participatory process. By creating the Internet survey, the highly political issue of prioritizing openspace is brought into the privacy of residents' homes where they can voice their opinions equally. This is of particular importance, considering that community assessments and inventories rely on gathering as much representative qualitative data possible to inform policy making decisions.

Will residents be online?

Internet penetration in the US has reached 60% of the population (NielsonNetRatings, 2.15.2001). Studies indicate a slow, continuous rise in penetration, and the demographics of Internet users is looking more and more like the general population. There are, however, some notable differences in access demographics. A recent study conducted by the Pew Internet Project found that while 82% of Americans living in households with more than $75,000 incomes have Internet access, only 38% of those in households earning less than $30,000 are currently online. This study also reports that 15% of those over 65 are online, compared to 75% of those between the ages of 18 and 29. Furthermore, approximately 28% of the retired population is currently online (NetValue, 2001). Given the socioeconomic and age demographics of Charlestown, it is reasonable to believe that many residents have Internet access and that an online survey has the potential to garner significant input from numerous participants. The initial judgment that Charlestown hosts a viable online community and is an appropriate community for web-based projects is supported by demographic findings from survey results, which show a concurrence between the aforementioned national access studies and respondent characteristics.