Researcher: Suzanne Mulder
Project Duration: November 2022 – July 2023
Project Partner: Municipality of Amsterdam
Research DESCRIPTION:
Citizen participation has been recognized as a valuable process to engage citizens in decision-making in urban contexts. The municipality of Amsterdam also applies participation in various projects, but not in quay wall monitoring. This research investigates the potential added value of citizen participation in quay wall monitoring, as well as the conditions under which it can be effectively implemented. The explorative and qualitative research design includes interviews with Dutch civil servants and citizens and a focus group session. The findings reveal that added value of citizen participation in quay wall monitoring is mainly perceived in informing citizens and involving them in data collection. Such participation could enhance public awareness of the problems regarding quay walls and increase the quality of decisions. Higher levels of participation in the monitoring process were mostly not considered or found risky by civil servants. A reason could be that monitoring is perceived as an expert domain to which citizens cannot contribute meaningfully. However, this is challenged by literature. Further research could investigate the quay wall monitoring process in more detail to determine more valuable citizen participation opportunities and the conditions for effective implementation. It is recommended that the municipality further explores the valuable options identified by this research and designs a suitable participation process for quay wall monitoring.