Open and transparent decision-making processes
Looking to the future and the desired governance model requires new guarantees and instruments. Opening democratic information and decision-making channels to a wider port community is one of the most important guarantees for good management and sustainable development.
As previously remarked, the intense diversification that the port of the future is aiming for and the densification of links with the host environment both require rethinking the governance and management model of the infrastructure. One of the fundamental objectives of this model must be to create a framework for action that is coordinated with all the actors of the city-port ecosystem. This community must be understood as extending not only to port activities but also to the general public and stakeholders of the local and regional area in order to increase the representativeness of the infrastructure and the recognition of the various interests.
We should not try to avoid public discussions about these points, but rather go deeper into them. We need to open [the conversations about infrastructure] up to public discussion and form equally active layers of experts and citizens to understand what the weak, tenuous, and even dangerous points are, and what we can do to work around them and develop other alternatives.
Gabriella Gómez-Mont
Founder, Experimentalista
You have to have civic groups that are involved with the port itself so that they can decide, for example, in which direction do the roads go? What sorts of amenities are provided to the drivers or not? What sort of rules are there around these big trucks that are going to go through town, or the trains that are going to go through town?
Laleh Khalili
Professor of International Politics at Queen Mary University of London
This approach is a commitment to the inclusion of social innovation processes as a complement to the expected technological innovations. Creativity and co-creation of responses deepens the resilience of the port of the future by incorporating scientific, technical and local knowledge into the decision-making process and thus the ability to respond to the uncertain and complex changes associated with climate change.
I would instantly change the process from kind of this single-focus, single-disciplinary kind of engineering, a hard approach to something that is multidisciplinary, multistakeholder, a collaborative approach that looks at the opportunity holistically. [...] It pays off to improve the process and to get various viewpoints, and see how this infrastructure could have more than one benefit, rather than this very single focus, this narrow-minded way of building infrastructure.
Stefan Al
Architect, urbanist and professor at Columbia University
To ensure the success of this change, it is essential to create an environment of trust and legitimacy in deliberative and decision-making processes. Ensure transparency, access to information and accountability as democratic principles and good governance. Finally, ensure that the design, implementation and evaluation processes that enable these interactions are defined in a way that allows creativity and innovation to flow into them.
[The success of the participatory process] depends on what your setting is and on the sensibilities of the people in that setting, and how the government and the community construct a dialog that shares desires and meets the realities of fulfilling those desires and values. And that you [as a port] are on the ground floor of the discussions, so that you can build some trust and shared motivation to try and implement something that reflects what those shared values are.
Diane Oshima
Director of Planning & Environment, Port Of San Francisco (2017-2021)
Key Actions
- Complement the modification and administrative updating with the design and formalisation of the various advisory and consultative bodies involved in the design of the infrastructure.
- Ensure the principle of transparency and open data in port management.
- Provide the necessary resources for the participation and consultation processes and ensure that they are sustainable in relation to the economic activities carried out.
- Integrate monitoring and evaluation mechanisms to produce citizen audits that ensure continued interest in meeting the general interest.
Experts
Diane Oshima
Director of Planning & Environment, Port Of San Francisco (2017-2021)
Gabriella Gómez-Mont
Founder, Experimentalista
Laleh Khalili
Professor of International Politics at Queen Mary University of London
Stefan Al
Architect, urbanist and professor at Columbia University