The right to participate: The role of participation in drafting the General Plan of Madrid, 1985

Abstract

The city we plan is far from citizens' needs and desires. To face this situation, participatory processes in urban planning appear to be essential, not only to exercise the rights -and obligations- of citizens, but as a way to achieve "urban sustainability". Studies on this field focus on improving methodologies of participation, emphasizing the essential need for training and information on the subject. This research considers these elements as necessary, but questions whether they are sufficient or not. To do this, the essay looks back and critically analyzes the paradigmatic case of the process of development of the General Plan of Madrid in 1985 (1980-1985), which included several conditions for participation to reach its maximum degree. This is a successful Plan which seeks to recover the right to the city, but whose actual scope will be limited mainly by how the system absorbs the economical pressures that naturally occur. The key is the articulation of the "rules of the game": a legal framework in which development participation has been limited. This research insists on the need to open to participation the development of the foundations of the system, to obtain and guarantee efficiently the Right to the City