City planning of today faces new challenges. Cities as social landscapes are becoming fragmented and multicultural environments. Interests and conflicts have become more diverse, and planning faces increased complexity. Cities in rapid transformation are particularly in desperate need for new methods in planning and development. Piecemeal planning that has characterised much city planning the last decades, destroying in the long run the image of the city as a whole. Synoptic, comprehensive planning has been discarded much due to the complexities in interest and values; it has become too time consuming and expensive. In addition, synoptic planning presupposes a local government in a position of social command that is no longer the situation, not even in social democratic urban settings.
There is definitely a need for new planning practices that are both legitimate responsive towards the citizens and at the same time, efficient. Local citizens claim to have a say in planning processes affecting their life. If that is to happen new standards of openness and transparency in the planning process has to be developed. Traditional methods of public participation in government decision-making often do not work. They do not satisfy members of the public that they are being heard and they do not improve the decisions that agencies and public officials make. Most often these methods discourage busy and thoughtful individuals from wasting their time in going through what appear to be nothing more than rituals designs to satisfy legal requirements.
We need new debating and decision-making forums and arenas, outside formal politics, in which also marginalized groups have voice and power. There is definitely a need for innovations in the practice of communicative planning; both of the arenas suitable for such participation, and of how conflicts can be identified and mediated, and how fixed interests can be handled. But how can such new communicative practices be designed?

“Open round”
A model consisting of a public sphere of political communication whose institutional basis is provided by civil society together with inputs of expert information would be the obvious solution. But how and by whom might such open democratic forums be created?

“Open round” can be understood as a communicative tool, relying on critical voices of the public sphere as a guiding principle in a planning situation where there are major conflicts over whose visions and goals should steer a particular development. It is the power of the public sphere that is used in this model. The point is to facilitate an open planning process, open for different views, perspectives and professions to be listen to and involved in performing the ideas for the development. The public sphere as an autonomous, critical voice should not be overruled if the process is opened up. Such a model presupposes a caring and reflexive local government, not an commanding one. Closed processes give all the power to the developer and to members of the representative political system, and no power to the citizens.

The difficulties of creating such a public sphere and ensuring it’s working in a just manner, is however problematic. We have to overcome situations in which the more articulate are able to generate greater power over decision-making. A public sphere is important in giving voice to the voiceless, being empowered to speak out or acting directly in the public spheres, something that decision-makers cannot ignore. Open processes, in which all actors can come up with their arguments publicly, should be an alternative to lobbying and direct action. Such a public sphere must give room for conflicts and competition, which is an unavoidable aspect of decision-making processes in a pluralistic society. We need channels which enable participants to move beyond potentially entrenched rights-based positions to constructively uncover each side’s interests and expectations from outcomes and what aspects are critical to them; channels which offer more in various ways than participants might otherwise obtain by pursuing their interests in legal, political or other arenas.