Civic Engagement in Urban Planning and Development

Abstract

The scientific literature has revealed that there is often a discrepancy between urban planning initiatives and the actual development of cities. Urban development is a complex process strongly affected by the self-organisation of citizens and entrepreneurs, who produce services and events, create new public places, and shape urban regeneration through everyday practices. However, the actors of self-organised urban development are rarely met in participatory urban planning practices. The gap raises the research problem of how to recognise and facilitate civic engagement in urban development. The authors of this article have been investigating the ontology and methodology of urban planning and development over the past two decades, culminating in the framework of expanded urban planning. The article aims to present multiple approaches to civic engagement in urban planning and development, based on an updated longitudinal study conducted in a Helsinki neighbourhood. The authors argue that urban planning should be updated with expanded urban planning (EP), which extends the focus of civic engagement from public participation to self-organisation and everyday life practices.

1. Introduction

Studies and empirical evidence demonstrate that urban planning often fails to achieve the desired outcomes of urban development. This is primarily due to the complex nature of urban development1, which is heavily influenced by the self-organising actions of citizens and entrepreneurs. These actors are crucial in generating services, events, and public spaces, thereby shaping urban regeneration through everyday practices. Furthermore, urban development occurs continuously and independently of the formal planning system, sometimes even in opposition [1].

The definitions of urban planning tend to vary according to planning theory and the planning system of the country [2]. Definitions range from those that focus mainly on physical form to ones that include development and governance. Leonie Sandercock [3] presents a holistic view of urban planning as “An unfinished social project whose task is to manage our coexistence in the shared spaces of cities and neighbourhoods in such a way as to enrich human life and to work for social, cultural and environmental justice”. However, planning often seeks to guide urban development through land-use planning and targeted initiatives. Additionally, other administrative sectors implement urban policies to foster social and economic development. However, the effective implementation of these policies requires localised actions that account for the polymorphic and contradictory nature of urban change [4].

The communicative turn in planning since the 1960s provided an alternative to the rational comprehensive planning approach by enhancing public participation [5,6,7]. Public participation has become an integral part of planning procedures in the EU countries, like in many other democratic nations. Participatory processes in statutory planning are expected to empower people and enhance pro-environmental attitudes. Consequently, planners receive richer planning data, which enables them to improve plans and urban space.

However, traditional participatory urban planning has produced disappointing results. Boonstra and Boelens [1] argue that the failure lies in the fact that participatory planning proposals remain controlled by public government, which is not adaptive to initiatives that emerge from the dynamics of civil society itself. Consequently, the actors of self-organising urban development are rarely met in participatory urban planning practices. The gap raises the research problem of how to recognise and facilitate self-organising urban development.

Over the years, participatory planning research has evolved from advocacy planning [8] to various supportive technological systems, for example, PPGIS [9], and to actor networks and their self-organised actions, which have been recognised as crucial in urban development. According to the post-structural approach, urban space and other socio-cultural phenomena can be produced and fostered outside formal governance and the actual planning system [1,9,10,11,12].

Our research group2 has conducted extensive research on participatory planning and development over several decades, culminating in the conceptualisation of expanded urban planning (EP), which focuses on civic engagement in various forms. EP is a post-structural approach to urban development [1,20] that can potentially generate an architecture of opportunities (see more in the next section).

This article aims to present multiple approaches to civic engagement in urban planning and development, based on an updated longitudinal study conducted in a Helsinki neighbourhood. Although we have written several articles, including three doctoral dissertations partly based on the same longitudinal study, this article comprises a conceptual elaboration of civic engagement in planning research, which has mostly concentrated on public participation within the planning process.

We argue that urban planning should be updated with expanded urban planning, which extends the focus of civic engagement from public participation to self-organisation and everyday life practices. The article begins by outlining the evolution of EP as a theoretical framework, followed by a description of the methodology employed and the research questions addressed. The subsequent sections present and discuss the research findings, leading to conclusions and recommendations for future endeavours.

2. Evolution of Expanded Urban Planning

The origins of EP can be traced back to the student revolts of the late 1960s, which sparked a widespread adoption of participation in various fields, including planning and design. In Finland, architect Heikki Kukkonen, PhD [21], pioneered the concept of self-planning language, enabling citizens to participate in the co-creation of their living environments in Helsinki. This approach to empowerment through self-organised planning and design was also explored among different demographics, including children, youth, the elderly, and people with long-term mental health conditions, in the regions of Northern Karelia and Kainuu, Finland. While the international trend of communicative planning [5,7] influenced Finnish cases, self-organisation played a central role due to the absence of legislation until 2000.

Eve Mitleton-Kelly [22], with her coevolving, adaptive systems approach, inspired the development of EP, officially named expanded urban planning ten years later [13]. Ontologically, EP adopts pluralist realism without limitations. Drawing from complexity theories, EP is sensitive to the temporal dynamics inherent in urban development, such as the emergence of phenomena, self-organisation, and the transformative nature of urban processes. EP transcends traditional strategic and statutory planning, embracing the co-production, monitoring, and evaluation of spatial and socio-cultural appropriation (see Figure 1). As a result, participation and self-organisation can occur at all stages and adapt to contextual factors dynamically. EP has a dialectical relationship with public planning and self-organisation, incorporating rhizomatic and arborescent characteristics [17].

EP has adopted an ecosystem of digital and non-digital tools for empowerment and analysis [24] which resonate with its relational and dynamic epistemology. The methodological framework encompasses various enabling methods and future-oriented research tools such as urban informatics, city information modelling, and artificial intelligence [25,26].

This diverse methodology facilitates collaboration among local and global agents, including public, private, and community partnerships, to co-create participatory events and self-organised initiatives for adaptive neighbourhoods [27].

EP also acknowledges the dynamic role played by the spatial and material infrastructure in constructing the quality of everyday life experiences. As a result, EP integrates ecofeminist criteria that pay attention to the substance of planning [28] (see Figure 2).

The expansion of participation to everyday practice was theorised by Sirkku Wallin [11] (see Figure 3).

Thus, the forms of civic engagement comprise the following:

• Public participation [5,7] that takes place in the formal urban planning and decision-making processes;
• Self-organisation, in which people take action outside formal institutions, including non-governmental organisations NGOs [1,29,30];
• Everyday life practices which make changes in the physical and social construction of urban space [15,31].

Everyday life and its practices serve as a framework for understanding subjective and intersubjective interventions within a structural context. According to Heller [32] and Bech-Joergensen [33], the foundation of everyday practices lies in the reproductive actions that generate psychosocial forces enabling individuals to transform material and socio-cultural conditions into tangible and phenomenal experiences. The physical environment is shaped by social construction and serves as a tool for individual self-regulation [34]. While the environment may impose certain constraints on everyday activities, the way people shape their surroundings can also initiate potential changes at various levels. However, there is a need for places where intersubjective realities can be generated, and the “psychosocial powers of everyday life” can be unleashed [33]. Therefore, the intermediary spaces of everyday life [35] become significant “free living spaces” that bridge the gap between individual private lives and the formal public realm, enabling the collective building of community and the neighbourhood.

EP, which incorporates extended civic engagement, builds on and enhances current planning disciplines. The traditional planning system endorses linear procedures and a monolithic reality that provides a “fixed order” [10]. Public participation is part of the linear procedure, the main objective of which is to produce a plan or a statutory blueprint which is necessary from the administrative perspective. However, urban reality is diverse and complex, necessitating a variety of flexible approaches. EP emphasises citizen engagement that reflects and accommodates the diverse realities of urban settings in a versatile manner.

In recent years, the importance of civic engagement has been acknowledged not only in planning and development but also in co- or hybrid governance [30]. Co-governance integrates formal, semi-formal, and informal networks and public spheres to establish a deliberative system [36]. Semi-formal mixed spheres, facilitated by community informatics, act as intermediaries bridging formal and informal domains, enhancing political activities and decision-making processes. This fosters communication between grassroots-level participation and formal decision-making, facilitating the formation of new partnerships among the public, private, and people partnerships [17,37].

However, governance in its various forms is tied to the concept of public good or interest. According to the study by Puustinen, Mäntysalo, and Jarenko [38], planners tend to have a variety of approaches to the concept of public interest, depending on whether it is individually or collectively based, regulated (by authority) or non-regulated. Thus, we agree with Puustinen et al. that the interpretation of public interest and its application in specific planning situations depends on the relationship of the context to its discursive framework.

In conclusion, EP advocates for a broader understanding of civic engagement that goes beyond traditional notions of public participation, encompassing self-organisation and everyday life practices within urban planning and development.

3. Methodology and Material

The research questions are as follows:

• What is self-organisation in urban development?
• What is the role of civic engagement in urban development?
• How do we enhance civic engagement in urban planning and development?

The design of the study comprised the following:

(a)

A longitudinal case study in 2004–2009 in the Herttoniemi neighbourhood and its follow-up in 2023–2024; and in the spring of 2024;

(b)

A conceptual analysis of the literature during the past ten years;

(c)

A discussion on civic engagement based on a and b.

The article is based on a data set gathered during the decade-long case study on the Herttoniemi neighbourhood, Helsinki, by our study group [11] and its recent follow-up in 2023–2024. A case study always has limitations, but on the other hand, we believe, like Bent Flyvbjerg [39], that the strength of the case study is not in its power to comprehensively explain the world but to give an example that makes the world more comprehensible.

The first phase of the case study in 2004–2009 was based on action research that followed the principles of advocacy planning [8]. Thus, the urban planning and community development interventions were intertwined with the study of different actors and their activities in the neighbourhood. The action research followed the learning-based network approach (Figure 1), which integrated the shared practices of community development into the urban planning process by using enabling tools and various research methods [23]. The enabling tools comprised local gatherings and workshops, which were organised with community workers, local NGOs, and activists. The traditional data-gathering methods consisted of a literature review, surveys, interviews, focus groups, and observations.

The action research aimed to examine the urban development of the neighbourhood and to find out how to support people’s everyday lives and opportunities to participate in urban planning. Therefore, the objectives of the data gathering were 1. to collect views of different actors concerning the ways to develop the neighbourhood and to disseminate information for deliberation and 2. to enable the monitoring of the evolving context (see

Table 1. The data from Herttoniemi research (see also Appendix A and Appendix B).

Data Source	Phase I: Action Research 2004–2009 [11] (p. 41)	Phase II: The Follow-Up 2022–2024
Primary data Data from local gatherings, produced by the actors and stakeholders (memos, drawings, photographs)	Memos of local assemblies (23 cases), memos from the formal urban planning participation events in Herttoniemi (4 items) Memos from semi-formal planning workshops and the gatherings of local stakeholders (5 cases)	Planning documents produced by the Helsinki planning department (2018–2023) Participatory budgeting documents (2023)
Secondary data Data gathered by the researchers (surveys, interviews, and data from observation)	Survey I (2004) Survey II (2007) Group interviews with local stakeholders (3 items) Group and personal interviews with administrators (5 items) (2009–2010) Observation memos and graphics from the local events and happenings (over 200 items during 2003–2012)	Observation memos (2022–2024) Local newspaper articles (2019–2023) Articles on the Herttoniemi and Roihuvuori websites (2010–2023)
Supporting data Planning documents and formal announcements related to the participatory processes (plans, strategies, statistics, etc.)	Planning documents produced by the Helsinki planning department (2004–2017) Statistical data of Helsinki (2001–2017)

).

The analysis of the action research data was based on a systems evaluation method called CATWOE [6,40]. The method provided the possibility to perform the following:

• Conduct an analysis, which defined development patterns that took place in the neighbourhood (urban development processes and the performance of the plans);
• Evaluate complications and progress that occurred;
• Interpret the different modes of civic engagement versus administration [11] (p. 43).

The follow-up to the study was carried out focusing on the planning process that went on in Herttoniemi in 2023–2024. The statutory urban development initiative continued with a new planning process, which aimed to improve the metro station again, as well as to create novel housing and services. In this phase, the analysis was based on the planning documents, official data on public participation in the planning process, articles in the local newspaper, and observation in situ.

The data of the study, both the action research (Phase I) and the follow-up (Phase II), comprised plans and planning documents made by the City of Helsinki and local news describing and commenting on the Herttoniemi initiatives (Table 1).

A literature analysis of self-organising urban planning and development research was conducted to comprehend and position the case study. A Scopus search on major concepts, such as self-organisation, civil engagement, and urban development, revealed that only a few new, relevant articles were found in addition to the list of publications we were already aware of (cf. introduction and references). Our method of analysis was based on the research questions. The outcome of the case study and literature analysis are dealt with in the discussion.

4. Results

We will answer the research questions considering the case study and the follow-up in Herttoniemi.

4.1. Statutory Planning and Self-Organising Urban Development

The Herttoniemi neighbourhood has provided a rich context for studying participatory planning and urban development, reflecting the overall urban transformation in the Helsinki metropolitan area3.

As one of the oldest suburbs of Helsinki, Herttoniemi has been subject to various internal and external factors that have influenced its development.

Since the late 1990s, significant changes have occurred in the Herttoniemi harbour site and neighbourhood. These include transformations in terms of functions, population, townscape, and its position in the metropolitan area’s central hierarchy. Gentrification, like in many other neighbourhoods near city centres, has been prominent. Social housing apartments have been converted into owner-occupied dwellings, resulting in a concentration of new urbanism and green activism in what was once a working-class neighbourhood.

Over the past twenty years, the City of Helsinki has undertaken a large-scale urban development initiative aimed to rebuild the Herttoniemi metro station area with a shopping centre and housing project (see Figure 4). This endeavour has involved several planning processes, occurring from 2005 to 2007, 2009 to 2011, and again from 2018 to 20244.

During these processes, statutory planning has successfully developed the east side of Herttoniemi Centre. The shopping mall (Megahertsi) has undergone two expansions since its opening in 2003. Real estate developers have constructed three new housing blocks adjacent to the mall. On the west side of the centre, K-Market Hertta has also capitalised on the opportunity for expansion. However, the planning process for the metro station itself is still ongoing.

Figure 5 and Figure 6 show how the city has been persistent with the idea of creating high-rise dwelling blocks and a bridge between the east and west sides of the centre in all different planning processes during the past two decades.

The plan for Herttoniemi Centre and the associated planning process faced criticism from residents, as well as from the local library and youth services, when it began in 2005. Participants in the statutory planning process put forward an alternative plan that focused on the renovation of the metro station. This alternative plan did not propose additional square meters beyond the metro plot, which the city required for its financial contribution to the development. The number of participants in planning meetings and local debates ranged from 30 to 60 people, indicating that most residents were unaware of the administrative intentions for the neighbourhood.

Throughout the 2010s, urban activism grew more prominent in Helsinki, with various web-based communities advocating for urban planning and development agendas. Some groups proposed urban densification, while others pushed for improved bicycle infrastructure or the preservation of green spaces and natural sites [12,16]. The City of Helsinki took note of this increased interest in urban issues and emphasised participatory processes in their statutory planning efforts. It also sought legitimacy through numbers using large-scale web-based surveys like the local place-based questionnaire “Kerro Kartalla” (Tell on the map) [41]. However, this data-gathering survey, designed and delivered by the administration, primarily provided data for planners without necessarily reflecting local aspirations or self-organising initiatives.

By 2020, the planning process in Herttoniemi had not delt with the metro station plot, but otherwise, the development had followed the goals set by the administration 15 years earlier. Commercial services were concentrated near the metro station, and many public services followed suit, despite the criticism from residents in the public hearings and planning surveys.

Consequently, the locals shifted their aspirations towards other issues, particularly the maintenance of the surroundings. The safety and cleanliness of public spaces, particularly around the metro station, became focal points, especially after the completion of the metro line’s west section and the renovation of several older stations. The City of Helsinki began funding for local initiatives through participatory budgeting projects allowing citizens to allocate a small portion of public funds for urban development. The implementation of these projects involved surveys in which all citizens had the right to vote. In 2023, one of the winning ideas was the renovation of the Herttoniemi metro station, aligning with the self-organising actions of previous decades.

However, the actual renovation of the metro station has not taken place, as the city is anticipating a more substantial transformation through the ongoing planning endeavour. Instead, the city provided funding for planting flowers, which, although desired by many locals, fell short of the anticipated development.

Table 2. Comparison of statutory urban planning and self-organising development.

	Statutory Urban Planning	Self-Organising Urban Development
Stakeholders	Real estate developers, landowners, commercial enterprises, public services, city administration	Residents, small local enterprises, hobby groups
Interests	Large-scale real estate development for services and housing	Improvement of the current metro station, housing, and service structure without extensive new building rights
Actions	Development initiatives with several planning processes and partnership contracts	Initiatives to improve local surroundings, clean up, and plant flowers. Interests in developing services and new commercial spaces

reveals the contrasting roles and actions of investors and landowners, including the city, in comparison to self-organising local actors. While the self-organising actors aimed to enhance the quality of urban spaces and services while maintaining the existing urban scale and structure, the city introduced a comprehensive plan for housing projects and a new service cluster. However, the city did not allocate resources towards supporting small initiatives that aimed to improve urban spaces.

4.2. Role of Civic Engagement in Urban Development

During the ongoing planning processes in Herttoniemi, various participatory initiatives took place, which the residents frequently commented on. However, the analysis revealed that citizens had limited influence on public participation regarding urban planning, while civic engagement at large played a significant role in shaping urban development on a local level [11].

The analysis showed that participants, particularly in formal public hearing procedures, had little actual impact on the processes or outcomes of the plan. While public gatherings provided information and engagement for residents, they served more as an arena for interaction between local actors and civil servants, benefiting the self-organising urban initiatives more than the planning of Herttoniemi Centre. The ladder of participation proposed by Arnstein [41]5 remained stuck in its early stages, as the public could not effectively implement their ideas.

The city had full control over both the planning procedure and substance. If the city had desired to improve the condition of the Herttoniemi metro station, it could have made that decision instantly years ago. However, the deteriorating state of the metro station, which serves as a major transportation hub for the eastern part of the metropolitan region, has remained unchanged since its opening in 1982. The development process of the metro station is still ongoing after 20 years of planning. Public participation was not able to challenge the administration and planners.

On the other hand, the case study revealed that self-organisation differs from public participation not only in terms of occurrence, dynamics, and motives for action but also in terms of legitimacy. The quality of public participation is often measured by democratic representativeness, as it requires participants to be in favour of or against the planning proposal. Self-organisation, however, is driven by the action itself and carries a progressive ethos. Actors participate based on their agendas, which are openly presented through implicit and explicit forms of action. These agendas are also acknowledged by those involved in the action.

Therefore, the sovereign nature of self-organisation is not based on the number of actors. Unlike public participation, nobody represents anyone else but themselves, even though many people are motivated by the desire to do good or work for others. Self-organisation does not require large numbers of social actors or movements. Even a small and enthusiastic action group can be effective, as seen in several local initiatives in the Herttoniemi neighbourhood6 [11].

However, there were also shared features with traditional participation. The same individuals who represented the traditional neighbourhood association were also active in community initiatives and other urban activism efforts. The semi-professional “super participants” [42] engaged in public participation and formed a “community of practice” [43]. For example, the activists involved in local web pages and social media tools were just a handful of people, yet they were engaged in various urban issues and local identity-making. Most methods and tools of participation (e.g., social media gatherings, event-making, application of PPGIS) were found to be valuable and successful when applied outside of traditional planning procedures and integrated into everyday life practices. The transition from participatory planning to participatory co-production accelerated and enabled satisfactory outcomes, such as the maintenance and renovation of the Roihuvuori yard [15,16].

Thus, civic engagement was inherently dispersed but connected to the local realm, serving as a foundation for local development. It sometimes served as a check on administrative decisions through NIMBYs (not in my backyard), while at other times, it accelerated developments through YIMBYs (yes in my backyard) and even contributed to the creation and maintenance of new public spaces and functions.

Nevertheless, statutory planning and self-organisation existed in separate realms, not as competitors, but spatially and temporally separated. Civic engagement expanded the temporal aspect of urban development, as self-organising groups could take immediate or short-term action, while statutory planning aimed to attract long-term investments through development plans.

When the relationship between civic engagement, formal planning, and administration was not contested, it proved to be productive. In the early stages of the action research, representatives of traditional planning did not acknowledge local activists, but the situation has slightly changed in recent years (see next section).

4.3. Potential of Civic Engagement in Urban Planning and Development

Until recently, the administration did not prioritise urban initiatives with immediate local impact (such as participatory budgeting). The statutory urban processes were initiated by urban developers with external funding, and the initiatives focused on enhancing larger metropolitan development. These large-scale changes were often not well received by residents.

Despite the 20-year planning process, the large-scale metro station project did not materialise. However, the city did not support minor-scale renovations that could have coexisted with the larger development initiatives. As a landowner, the city could have explored various developmental strategies, such as revitalising the metro station and allocating some sections for small entrepreneurs, community services, or leisure activities. Thus, the official priority of urban development was not the physical surroundings of the metro station but rather the expectation of economic value through potential building on the plot.

Simultaneously, different departments within the city were enthusiastic about developing the neighbourhood through participatory planning processes. Community and youth workers played a crucial role in enhancing local networking and participating in unofficial co-governance [14]. Unofficial co-governance included local websites maintained by residents, as well as gatherings where people planned and designed spaces for family services, shops for DIY farming products, and leisure activities. However, the outcomes of this co-governance remained unclear, as the statutory planning process continued with predetermined objectives and outcomes.

For real estate developers, self-organising groups were not particularly interesting, as they operated within economically less-valued segments and had limited capacity to purchase or lease properties. Similarly, self-organising groups were not favoured when it came to city-owned properties. As a result, the space for self-organisation was limited. However, self-organising actions that contributed to a lively everyday life culture [33], such as the Hanami event in Roihuvuori, were appreciated, as they improved the neighbourhood’s image and vibe.

In summary, while the administration accepted participatory processes involving residents, these processes did not align with the substance of urban planning. Statutory urban planning was and still is primarily focused on facilitating real estate development and commercial services, with limited attention given to the creation of shared urban spaces or the improvement of public service properties. The economic interests of the city seem to take precedence, overshadowing the potential for enhancing civic engagement at large, which nevertheless thrived despite the formal processes.

5. Discussion

According to our literature review, various researchers have explored the link between urban planning and self-organisation. The Complexity and Planning group of the Association of European Schools of Planning (AESOP) has been particularly active in this area since 2005 [4,44]. Their articles often focus on enhancing self-organisation from the perspective of governance and planners. One approach they propose is rule-based planning, which involves creating a few basic rules that enable citizens and collectives to initiate their projects or prevent negative effects [40,45]. Instead of striving for predefined outcomes, for example, through blueprint planning, the framework rules seek to make space for unplanned and spontaneous urban development or hinder undesirable consequences, for example in the case of tourism, gentrification, etc. [46].

As the relationship between planning and self-organisation is co-evolutionary and occurs on different levels, planners need a mix of rules and instruments to navigate self-organisation [45]. The authors suggest moving from a normative prescriptive approach, which focuses on specific goals or designs, to a proscriptive approach. Proscriptive rules set out simple guidelines or codes that shape endeavours and prevent negative outcomes [43,47,48]. For example, Cozzolino [27] suggests, besides proscriptive rules, to also adopt a moderate scale of design involving multiple designers/architects, promoting multifunctionality, incorporating temporal factors, and diversifying ownership systems. Thus, the means of enhancement are not only spatial, and the scope is multilevel.

Nevertheless, only a few articles deal with civic engagement and urban development, according to our Scopus search. One of them [49] describes how diverse citizen engagement in spatial planning is in terms of actors (individuals, collectives, forms of self-organisation), types and scales of spaces (neighbourhoods, districts of cities, from micro to macro levels), intentions (numerous), interventions (spatial adjustments, alternative uses of space, alternative plans, agenda setting), and roles (between market and social economy; political, critical). Yet the article is written from the governance perspective, ignoring the meaning of self-organisation and everyday life.

However, the landscape of civic engagement is changing in urban development, with new forms of action emerging through social media, digital methods, and web-based initiatives. People can now raise funds, design their spaces, and create new public and semi-public areas. The role of co-governance and the co-production of space and service facilities is becoming increasingly important [12].

Influential authors, such as Beitske Boonstra and Luc Boolens [1], recommend that planners actively engage with the issues at hand by immersing themselves in the field as participants. Similar advice can be found in the literature on community development, place-making, and tactical urbanism [50,51,52].

For example, the self-organising actions during the Roihuvuori Hanami event not only improved the neighbourhood’s image in the short term but also had long-term effects on re-creating everyday life practices. Therefore, civic engagement supports and creates the so called “third space,” where both physical and conceptual spaces are transformed through shared experiences [53]. Through self-organisation, space acquires both novel meanings and resources, even new events, services, and customers, which statutory urban planning cannot foresee. Thus, by supporting local space- and place-making, statutory planning can accelerate urban development.

6. Conclusions and Recommendations

The perspective of civic engagement in its expanded form is based on critical planning research which seeks to study urban development initiatives in practice, outside the formal planning procedures and administration. Our study in Herttoniemi revealed the diverse and multifaceted nature of civic engagement, which played a role in patching up statutory planning and urban development. Civic engagement is inherently dispersed, but it also fosters connections to the local, meso, and macro levels when necessary [49,50].

Theoretical approaches such as actor-based urban planning are relevant for explaining urban development [1,11]. However, traditional urban planning often fails to acknowledge the self-organisation of local actors or the significance of short-term developments [24,54]. Therefore, we draw the following conclusions:

Conclusion 1: Urban planning should be conceptualised as actor-based planning, such as expanded urban planning, which recognises and incorporates various forms of civic engagement, from public participation to self-organising initiatives and everyday life practices.

Recommendation 1: While public participation has acquired a legitimate role in urban planning processes, it is time to enhance the other forms of civic engagement that immediately connect the development process to the local realm and might co-produce supportive urban settings.

Conclusion 2: There are multiple approaches to enhancing civic engagement in urban planning and development.

Recommendation 2: The choice of methods to support civic engagement depends on the adopted theoretical, practical, and contextual perspectives. Methods such as place-making, tactical urbanism, and fieldwork (action research) can support local identity-building and the coordination of different socio-spatial phenomena that may not otherwise be incorporated into statutory planning processes. Therefore, expanded urban planning has the potential to provide an “architecture of hope”.

However, this case study does not allow us to explain the mechanism between civic engagement and urban development in detail. That will certainly be one of the foci of future research.