As SPC Spatial team member, Franziska Lengerer participated in an online reflection workshop on ‘Democracy at local level’. The workshop was organised in the framework of the ISDN project (‚Integrated strategy for services of general interest and sustainability in rural areas‘), which is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). The aim of the workshop was to bring actors from different levels of governance in Germany in conversation with researchers’ perspectives on rural areas. Franziska presented first qualitative insights from the SPC Spatial project based on group discussions in one German case study region. Rural residents’ evaluations of their place of residence and their future perspectives for themselves and for the municipality were the main foci of the input. Her comparative analyses showed that perceptions of space are age-specific and dependent on one’s socio-economic status. After the presentations, several overarching questions were discussed, including how the inclusion of residents’ perspectives in spatial planning processes could be improved and how democratic the already established participation processes are.
Link to the ISDN project website (in German): https://www.schmoelln.de/wirtschaft-und-bauen/stadtentwicklung/konzepte-und-projekte/isdn