The Arnstein Gap: Twenty Years On, What has Changed?

Bailey, Keiron and Grossardt, Ted (2025) The Arnstein Gap: Twenty Years On, What has Changed? URBAN INNOVATION: TO BOLDLY GO WHERE NO CITIES HAVE GONE BEFORE. Medium sized cities and towns as a major arena of global urbanisation. Proceedings of REAL CORP 2025, 30th Intl. Conference on Urban Development, Regional Planning and Information Society. pp. 873-880. ISSN 2521-3938

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Abstract

At REAL CORP 2006 authors Bailey and Grossardt introduced the Arnstein Gap. Pioneering the use of Arnstein’s Ladder of Citizen Participation (1969) as a direct gauge, they measured the perception of two key levels of public involvement – the experienced and the desired – using anonymous real-time polling in planning at professional forums and open public meetings in the U.S. Since beginning this protocol in 1999, Bailey and Grossardt had already amassed a database spanning numerous meetings from which they adduced four principles of public involvement. By aggregating these data and mapping the difference between the two measurements, they illustrate a predictable difference between experiences and expectations for specific groups, as well as between groups such as planners and citizens. Beacuse this difference is measured directly using Arnstein’s ladder this is defined as the Arnstein Gap. In the following years, including at subsequent REAL CORP conference (2007) as well as in various journals (e.g. Bailey and Grossardt 2010, Bailey et al 2011, Bailey and Grossardt 2015), the authors continued building the Arnstein database and conducting measurements in a number of US states as well as internationally in countries ranging from Japan, Singapore and New Zealand, to Romania, and Costa Rica and Colombia. Since 2005 other researchers have adopted this framework and applied it during their work, adding to the knowledge base (e.g. Wood 2015, Weymouth and Hartz-Karp 2019, Weymouth et al. 2020). This article summarizes this work across the temporaral perspective of twenty years and a strongly international geographical range, spanning more than twenty-five countries where such measurements have been conducted. This review in combination with extensive raw stakeholder data obtained by the authors at numerous planning forums, shows that the key Arnstein Gap measurement remains remarkably consistent across time, and that although there are variations in the baseline perceptions of public involvement, depending on local planning experiences, methods, and outcomes and leading to variations in the documented magnitude of the Arnstein Gap from almost four rungs at maximum (Romania, Colombia) to less than two rungs at minumum (Vienna), the desired level of “partnership or level six on the Ladder, is remarkably consistent. These easily-obtainable data present significant implications for planning professionals in both the theory and practice of urban planning. For example, professional assumptions about citizen expectations and perceptions of public involvement may not be shared by the citizens, and that effective planning in the face of a large documented Arnstein Gap ( > 3 rungs) presents different challenges and requires a different set of methodologies and practices than in cases where the measured Gap is smaller.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Methodology, Planning, Citizen Participation, International, Arnstein Gap
Subjects:	G Geography. Anthropology. Recreation > G Geography (General) H Social Sciences > HD Industries. Land use. Labor H Social Sciences > HM Sociology
Depositing User:	REAL CORP Administrator
Date Deposited:	20 May 2025 08:46
Last Modified:	20 May 2025 08:46
URI:	http://repository.corp.at/id/eprint/1182

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