Collaborative planning for city development. A perspective from a city planner

A number of definitions related to collaborative governance have been developed since early 2000. The common characteristics of collaborative governance are, among others, policy consensus, community visioning, consensus rule-making, and collaborative network structures. Collaborative planning is a new paradigm of planning for a complex contemporary society through which it encourages people to be engaged in a dialogue in a situation of equal empowerment and shared information to learn new ideas through mutual understanding, to create innovative outcomes and to build institutional capacity. This indicates that collaborative planning can provide policy makers with more effective community participation. Collaborative process is the key of collaborative planning which also emphasizes the significant role of collaborative leadership. The process includes a participatory activity of dialogue oriented to the joint decision and summarized in a collaborative process. The collaborative leadership is crucial for setting and maintaining clear ground rules, building trust, facilitating dialogue, and exploring mutual gains. Along with the shift of planning paradigm, the role of city planner will also change since the city planning deals with the political process. In the political process, city planners must be able to perform as technocrats, bureaucrats, lawyers and politicians who always uphold their ethics because they are responsible to the society, the assignor for their integrity and professionalism.