Public anger on two continents
In her latest post on the Planetizen blog, Barbara compares two public process meetings, one in an EU country and one in the American South. She describes one meeting:
Just as the lead developer was about to introduce the design team, we heard screaming people storming the entrance. There was visible concern among the attendees, and I believe the first thought of everyone in the room was “Are these people armed?”
A few weeks later, another meeting on another continent:
The PR firms’ intent was to learn what people thought of possible development. Well, you can imagine what people thought—over a three-hour time span we learned that people are angry that they had moved from the city to the county only to find more development coming to the county than was expected in the surrounding cities for the next decade.
How did these public meetings miss the mark? Why did they stoke rather than allay people’s anger? Read Barbara’s post.