4. Rationalities at Work: How to Read the PII Isola Participatory Process Through Three Different Conceptual Models

In particular, he referred to three conceptual models or conceptual schemes of interpretation of choices and actions in the field of foreign policy analysis. In his work, Allison describes each of the three conceptual schemes and tries to test them into practice. In detail:

Patti Territoriali (Territorial Agreements), Contratti d’area (Area Contracts) and Piani e Programmi Complessi (Complex Programs and Plans), each of these objects refers to similar approaches to plan the city: all of these partnership instruments within public bodies and between them and private subjects are integral components of urban planning. The debate on planning tools and methods revolves around the possibility to rely on private interventions retrieving surplus values and financing what is public in an urban development project. As early as in the 70s, several researches in the United States were investigating ways to provide public services through private investments and promote planning tools which are even more effective in recovering surplus-values.

The participants in the meetings with Hines were associations having their seat or a few craftsmen owning workshops in Stecca degli Artigiani (Cantieri Isola, Controprogetto, Isola Art Center, Aporidia,Gas Isola, +Bici, Isola tv); neighborhood Committee I Mille; Legambiente; Parenthood Association, association of local retailers, architect Stefano Boeri.

I believe that it can be interesting to better explain why Marianella Sclavi translates the English expression “consensus-building” into the Italian “gestione creativa dei conflitti” (dispute creative resolution). As well explained by the author in a recent book, written in collaboration with Larry Susskind, this need lies in the ambiguous contents implied in consensus-building. This wouldn’t mean searching for compromises, agreements, rather, in a deliberative perspective, generating new value through dialogical confrontation, which is “consensus” (in Susskind’s words) on fundamental agreements among all the participants. Sclavi’s methodology for consensus-building is mainly grounded on “active listening” a concept stemmimg from social psychology and anthropology.

Among to the most recent taxonomies for participatory planning techniques, I will refer to the one proposed by L. Bobbio in his A più voci (2004), According to his classification, in the specific case of Isola participatory process, each technique implied are classified as Techniques for Constructive Interaction, which main purpose is to collectively redefine the problematic situation as perceived at the beginning of the process, thanks to direct interaction and dialogue among participants, so as to gather more knowledge and reciprocal learning, between experts and locals. The purpose is mainly to extend the knowledge of the starting problem and redefine it thanks to values added produced throughout the process. Specifically, an Open Space Technology is a very open technique grounded on self-organization of participants while defining the problem at stake and the way to deal with it; a Design Charette is also a very open technique, mostly implying considering the project and relevant development as the intermediate language mediating and facilitating interaction and knowledge interbreeding between experts and non-experts. (For further details, see Saporito E. (2008), Partecipazione e progetto. La costruzione collettiva di senso nelle esperienze di progettazione partecipata, Tesi di Laurea Magistrale, Luglio 2008, Politecnico di Torino.)

This quotation is taken from an in person interview with the author given on November 25^th 2011.

This consideration was discussed with the former president of Cantieri Isola, interviewed in May 2013.

An interesting analysis of this topic can be found in Micoli (2007), Participating and Belonging. The Construction and Negotiation of Group Identities in a Neighbourhood of Milan, EIDV Paper, 43. Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei Series Index: http://​www.​feem.​it/​Feem/​Pub/​Publications/​EURODIVPapers/​default.​htm.

The birth of Stecca Network was officially marking the collaboration between Cantieri Isola, I Mille, IDA and other groups already occupying Stecca, including Controprogetto, Rifondazione. (Micoli 2007).