To be or not to be: Collaborative Governance and The Case of Continuous Master Planning in Lahti

Abstract

The benefits of collaborative actions between different stakeholders has been recognized broadly and has been admitted as one of the key factors in regional development. However, the research has so far focused on examining cases retrospectively, leaving a gap in looking into something on-going and uncertain, as well as it has been common to consider regional development through abstracts concepts. Therefore, there exists less information on the practical implementation of the theories and policies within regions. Additionally, it is important to take into consideration the ever-growing trend of cross-sectoral collaboration - however not only in public-private interface, but also involving the third and the fourth sectors into the regional decision-making processes and development activities, which can be seen creating new kind of benefits but also less discussed challenges. The city of Lahti has fundamentally turned around the master planning of the city; instead of considering the extensive legislation and regulations restrictive, Lahti has chosen to approach the rules as resources. Lahti is not a forerunner only in the technical aspect, but also in its management work: Lahti has defined the citizens as its makers, and therefore, pointed out the citizen involvement and participation being in key position in its strategy work to reach the set development goals for the city – therefore, also in making the master planning of Lahti. In this case study has been looked into the third ongoing continuous master plan process to see, whether in the implementation of participative strategy can be found characteristics of collaborative governance. Collaborative governance is often used as a model to solve environmental issues by involving several stakeholders creating solutions together. The concept of collaborative governance is still considerably new and vague in definition; however, it has been recognized to have possibilities for sustainable and mutually beneficial outcomes. Finding more diverse ways to utilize collaborative governance expands the current knowledge and provides new kind of insight to the field, especially combined with an innovative, and one-ofa-kind solution like master planning in Lahti. As result of the study can be stated, that there was found several characteristics of collaborative governance in the case of Lahti, including both common pros and cons of collaborative actions. The stakeholder involvement and citizen participation is a complex topic with no straight answers, and the potential downsides should be brought to more open discussion - however, it is unarguable that through collaboration, participation and involvement can be reached outcomes, that would not have been possible for one action to reach alone.