Social participation in planning, design, and management of public spaces: the case of Mexico

Top-down approaches often fail to involve, collaborate with, and consider social actors in the process of planning, design, and maintenance of public spaces (PDMPS). This research addresses how social participation is included in PDMPS in the Mexican case, by identifying the actors, the level of communication achieved, and their authority and power in the PDMPS process. The paper employs a case study approach, informed by semi-structured interviews. We use a democracy diagram to uncover the diversity of involved actors and how they are involved in the process. We show how government could provide support for social participation to implement participatory processes in PDMPS.