Participatory inclusive mechanisms to set the civic improvement agenda in Palmerston North, New zealand

This paper describes one of the earliest experiences of the New Zealand City Councils in using participatory approaches to gain active inclusion of community members and their views into decision making processes within Councils. The Palmerstone North City Council set out to gather Palmerstone North City residents' views on what they value about the physical and natural characteristics of the city. This was done in two residential suburbs; Hokowhitu and Takaro/Highbury, geographically opposite, being at either end of the city, and also very different in socio-economic circumstances. Methodologies used included community workshops with mapping and H-diagrams. Due to a poor turn out at the public workshops, community views were also collected from less formally organised activities where the maps generated from the workshops were taken to a range of sites such as sports clubs, shopping centres and pubs. The paper details the methods employed, the final reporting and follow-up to the process.