4.1.3. Participation
Participation is an ambiguous term that sometimes refers to the
involvement of people in the
life of their cit y or a project affecting their
community. According to Arnstein (1970), to legitimate participation in
a particular project, citizens should be informed of their rights,
responsibilities, and options (Arnstein, 1970: 218). In Arnstein's argument,
information seems
to be the core element of residents' participation in the life of
their city.
In discussing effective participation, Hill (1994)
states that effective participation depends upon the existence of
appropriate structures and processes, as well as on access to the
information available to citizens (Hill, 1994: 32). The question that I arises
may well be: Do
there exist in the inner city appropriate structures and
processes that can allow both South
Africans and FMs to effectively participate in the inner city's
life?
Before answering to this question, it is necessary to return
to the issue regarding Nigerians' involvement in drug trafficking. If
this accusation is true, the following hypothesis can be formulated:
the fact that Nigerians are drug dealers; this may mean that they
should know better how some criminals operate in the inner city.
Then, the following question may be asked: Why do local authorities not
associate, in a constructive manner, them in an anti-crime campaign for the
transformation of the inner cit y? According to me, I believe that they may
play a greater role in this process, in terms of providing information to the
police.
Crime is a challenge facing the city of Johannesburg,
particularly in the inner-city. The local government (LG) and the SAPS cannot
combat it alone. They should put in place structures that may encourage the
residents' participation because, as the inhabitants of the inner city,
they are aware of realities about crime that the police may ignore. Cooperation
between the LG, police, and the inner city residents may improve the city's
capacity to stop crime.
Participation is one of the values that Fainstein (1997)
recommends in her conceptualisation
of the just city; she condemns the exclusion of
ordinary people, including FMs, from the planning process and critiques,
as I said in Chapter Two, the hegemony of `experts' because she believes that
participation by all the city's residents in the city's life is a part of the
ideal
of the just city (Fainstein, 1997).
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