Civic Participation and the Process of Local Community Revitalization. Multinational Perspective and Experience

From the perspective of many regions, the Western cities seem to be more developed, prosperous, democratic and their residents seem to be more involved in local affairs and issues. The Western cities have become a kind of a model for cities in the rest of the World.

That is why, in recent years in the cities of many countries two significant phenomenon might be observed. On the one hand, strong pro-development and pro-growth tendencies. In this context the processes of revitalization become more interesting for municipalities, non-governmental organizations, inhabitants, and city researchers. Revitalization is to be seen as a remedy to the city crisis and all problems “inherited” from the previous system.

On the other hand, increasing citizens' interest in the affairs of the city is observed. Some groups of residents are willing to have stronger impact on the city policy, and be involved in shaping it. City authorities are also more willing to invite residents to decision-making processes. Public consultation, participatory budgets become more and more popular and obvious to authorities as well as residents. Whereas these two phenomena are very important and connected, during our session we would like to discuss the role of civic participation in the context of revitalization, both with reference to Western perspective and experience and the rest of the World; and the level of civic participation in cities of different regions of the World, as well as determinants of its level, and to exchange experience with researchers from different countries and cities.