Citizens assemblies

The Ministry of Space Collective firmly believes that citizens have the right and capacity to shape the city and its surroundings in the common interest if they are well-informed and given the opportunity to discuss their ideas with experts and other interested parties. Our impression is that the existing prescribed forms of participation in the city development processes in Serbia must be inclusive and open to citizens as co-creators of plans. 

We want to participate from the beginning of the planning process!!

Currently, citizen participation in urban planning begins when a concept or plan already exists. In addition, the planning solutions on those occasions are presented through extensive and not easily accessible documentation, which further discourages the desire to participate.

However, even those with experience reading plans and writing comments to the plan rarely get an explanation when the comment or suggestion is rejected, and most often, they are rejected. Citizens' discouragement and mistrust of the participation mechanisms in urban planning were also seen in public opinion survey from 2021, which says that 93% of Belgrade residents have never submitted a comment or suggestion to an urban plan. However, every fourth resident claims they already have or would be happy to actively engage in solving spatial problems in their neighborhood.

What is deliberation?

Deliberation, the process of discussing and confronting different perspectives on a topic, is the key process for collaborative planning, the planning approach in which everyone affected by the decision must participate in the decision-making process.

If we need to agree on whether we will have a park, a school or a cultural center in a particular place, if we want to arrange a part of the city or decide on priorities in traffic development, then besides the technical knowledge of experts and institutional frameworks equally valuable is also the experiences of citizens who live in that city and use those spaces daily. By crossing all these experiences and perspectives and jointly creating the city through dialogue, we can say that the city is genuinely developing in the common interest.

Different formats of deliberation are already applied in the most diverse areas, from decisions about the political system of a society, through reproductive rights, to urban planning. What they have in common is the insistence on truly including the positions of all those affected by the decision.

We have tried what deliberation looks like through four mini-citizens’ assemblies, and we want more.

During 2021 and 2022, the Ministry of Space organized four mini-citizens' assemblies on various urban plans, during their creation and adoption. These assemblies are designed on the model of the citizens' assemblies that represent one of the models of deliberative democracy, which are organized worldwide either within or outside institutional frameworks. For the first time in Serbia, citizens' assemblies were organized by the Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory (IFDT) in November 2020 - the first in Belgrade on the topic of the development of the central pedestrian zone and the second in Valjevo regarding the problem of air pollution. Inspired by these examples, we wanted to establish a similar model in urban planning.

The assemblies were well-structured discussions in which citizens from the area where the plan was being drawn up, urban and spatial planning experts, and other stakeholders relevant to the specific plan participated. Unfortunately, representatives of the public institutions that worked on the plan and decision-makers didn't want to join us.

The discussion process is preceded by informing all participants about the forum topic, which entailed compiling informative materials on the plan's frameworks, what is proposed in the planning solution, and how it corresponds to real problems in that specific neighbourhood.

This phase implies that everyone enters the discussion with relatively the same knowledge and makes informed suggestions. The forums’ results have always been very concrete and relevant citizens’ suggestions (supported by the experts involved) that should be considered when developing the plan.

Given that it is a new format in the local context, we tried applying it to different levels of urban plans (detailed regulation plans, general regulation plans, and general urban plans) and at various stages in the development process—immediately after the adoption of the decision on the plan development, between early public and public insight, and before the public session of the Planning Commission.

We organized forums in Rušanj, Padinska Skela, and New Belgrade in person, while the one covering the entire territory of Belgrade was conducted online.

This experience helped us understand the effects of all these different circumstances and develop a model that can qualitatively improve citizens' participation in the planning of our cities.

Deliberation teaches us joint decision-making

The characteristics of this format - that it must be as inclusive as possible and that different opinions, arguments and affinities are confronted in one place through dialogue - make its results truly a reflection of common interest. In addition, our experience has undoubtedly convinced us of the potential of such assemblies to educate all participants, without exception, on the topic itself, but also on the process of discussion and co-creation.

We dream that more decisions are made through such formats and their results are actually implemented so that our cities reflect all of us, not just those with power.