Scale Compromise: Three Challenges of Large-Scale but Citizen-Driven Urban Planning

Amongst various urban crises, some fundamental ones require long-term policies and large-scale developments to be effectively mitigated. Since multiple government-led large-scale projects raised more and more public opposition, the question whether such grand endeavors can be approached by citizen-driven initiatives became urgent. However, large-scale urban planning issues are still believed to be too big, too complex, and too difficult to be solved from the bottom up. This paper examines such recurring belief—here termed the “scale compromise”—and conceptualizes it across two essential dimensions of urban planning: spatial and political. The scale compromise is presented twofold, as each side of the compromise is embedded within a separate strand of urban planning practice: large-scale urban planning as traditionally associated with the authority-led approach, and citizen-driven urbanism as traditionally linked with locality. Regarding each approach, respectively, the causes, consequences, and difficulties of the scale compromise are discussed from both perspectives. Finally, by breaking down the resulting compromise across three integral aspects of planning—the socio-economic, organizational, and technical—the “scale compromise” conceptual framework indicates three scale-related challenges. Accordingly, this paper argues why all the three challenges must be met concurrently, as failing at one squanders the efforts made for the others. Finally, some recent experience in the development of urban greenway projects in the U.S. are discussed as promising points of reference for dealing with the scale compromise and for seeking new solutions to fundamental urban crisis.