Urban governance has become the buzzword in development circles. What the UN-speak boils down to is that local governments must realise they can no longer plan a town or city alone.

Today, building and expanding urban centres require partnership with the local business and residential communities who have a stake in the decisions made by local authorities.

It means prior consultation with those likely to be affected by key decisions, and accommodating competing interests fairly.

And that is the challenge today how to institutionalise good urban governance, given the variety of interests that exists in any community and the imperfections within each category of stakeholders.

For, around Asia, local government, the private sector and civil society each have to struggle with their own weaknesses, while learning to harness strengths to make life liveable for the urban communities they must serve.

These were among issues raised at the recent 18th Eastern Regional Organisation for Planning and Housing World Planning Congress held in Kuala Lumpur.

The biennial meeting brought together top experts, government officials, civil society representatives and academicians to discuss the future of urban development.

Private sector

Dr Yap Kioe Sheng, who heads the human settlements programme of the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (Escap) says rapid development of cities, as well as within cities, makes it tough for good governance measures to be implemented.

He attributes this partly to the rise of the private sector in urban growth, which has led to the relevance of local government being undermined.

In the busiest section of Bangkok, for example, stands a now-abandoned building that was to have housed a French-owned hypermarket. The incomplete concrete hulk has become an eyesore, while vehicles moving around the site are caught in daily congestion.

This, Yap explains, was not a problem caused by development per se, but by lack of proper consultation and decision-making.

"Who is in control here, the local government or the business entity? The fact is, when privatisation becomes crucial for urban growth, many local governments are not in a position to negotiate terms anymore," he says.

He suggests that local governments re-define their roles in creating cities to remain relevant to the people.

"Having a not-in-my-backyard syndrome is just as bad as arbitrary development. What we need is to find the balance by increasing public participation," he says, adding that the local government's role is to create a mechanism for communication.

People's voices

Television, community radio and increasingly cyberspace are now being used as powerful and meaningful communication tools to overcome major setbacks caused by a lack of co-ordination between implementing and enforcement agencies.

In Malaysia, a call-in segment of a weekly programme broadcast by the state-run Radio Ibukota, for example, enables a Kuala Lumpur City Hall official to refer listeners to appropriate departments if they face specific difficulties. Maintenance problems are recorded for follow-up action.

The 'metro' section of almost all the national dailies exclusively raise governance problems in the form of letters to the editor, news and features.

The situation differs in the Philippines. Decentralisation following the 1991 Local Government Code has spawned community journalism, to operate as a bridge between local governments and the people. It provides a platform for people to participate in the decision-making process.

Manila-based Centre for Community Journalism and Development executive director Red Batario says community (or civic) journalism offers opportunities for public debate in determining priority issues and on solutions required.

"It ... encourages citizens' participation by providing them with information that would help them make decisions in a democratic, self-governing social structure," he says.

"It ... helps readers, listeners and viewers understand the impact of the news on their lives and how they can actively participate in developing or building the news agenda."

Community contributions

Dr Andy Siswanto, an architectural and urban planning consultant who has undertaken case studies in and around Jakarta, says the more a community contributes to the planning and management of a neighbourhood, the more sustainability can be achieved.

"In general, we can (say) that when the community is enabled systematically, they are able to do contributive and valuable neighbourhood planning and management," he says.

"Case studies have shown that planning and management can be a mechanism for structuring a partnership between the community-based organisation as the core stakeholder, the government, the private sector and others."

Conversely in Malaysia, the concessionaire of the RM2.1 billion Sungai Selangor Dam had to prepare an extensive information kit on the rationale, implications and benefits of the project, following public protests against the relocation of the indigenous families affected. The project had been planned without adequate consultation.

Mobilising the middle class

Management lecturer Dr Catherine W Ng of Hong Kong says the educated middle class can be mobilised via cyberspace, if all else fails.

"Given the historical characteristics of a non-democratic state, a profit-driven market and an apathetic citizenry, the current preoccupation with social, political and economic reforms is fraught with contradictions," she says.

She feels that top-down governance makes for an uneasy partnership between the state and civil society and since social and political developments are heavily influenced by economic priorities, belief in community empowerment is not as strong in Hong Kong as in the West.

"When the state and market make a powerful duet, how can the third component counterbalance that power?" she asks.

Ng answers her own question by referring to the work of the Citizens Party, an anti-discrimination interest group which has found solutions in cyberspace to address various problems affecting ordinary people.

In late 2000, audio-visual multimedia advertising was introduced in buses plying only certain routes. Unhappy passengers could not get support in stopping the barrage of noise although they went to the government, ombudsman or bus company to end the multimedia broadcasts.

"However, when a website was created (early this year), many computer-literate people took advantage of this channel to articulate their frustrations," Ng explains of the 'Hush-the-Bus' campaign.

A sub-group in the Citizens Party, which set up the bilingual website, won the assistance of an enthusiastic public in taking on the government, lawmakers and executives of bus company. Its e-newsletter has about 300 subscribers from all walks of life and age groups.

This also illustrates why top-down approaches do not work in urban governance and, indeed, is discouraged. Not the least of the issues this raises is who decides what is best for communities and how this should be implemented.

Yap has the final word on this.

"It is (the citizens') duty and responsibility to create a platform for informed decision-making, with the local government playing the role of defender of the whole process. Sometimes, they themselves have problems understanding the consequences of certain decisions," he says.

"The best practice is where balanced tripartite participation is possible, which also means that public apathy is unacceptable."