Language:
Search
 
Decision of future creation plan as common idea of the citizens formed by various conferences and D
Fujisawa City
Japan

The Problem

Fujisawa City has encountered various problems such as a decline in economic growth and a rapidly aging population against a falling birthrate with the change of the 21st.The Master Plan of Fujisawa city is formulated on the plan from various points of view facing the these issues, and showed the visions for the future that the local governments, the citizens and the companies to make considerably coordinated efforts. On the formulating the Master Plan of the municipality, there are various methods of the citizen's participation to repeatedly discuss and share their ideas and opinions with many citizens and authorities who offered.However, it is often seen as the case that the citizen's policy is reflected on the only citizen who has the high degree of the municipal interest. In addition, quite a few citizens regard the citizen's participation as the confronting with the government or complaining about the administrative decision, the expression of their ideology. The presence of a large number of the citizens, which is called “the silent majority”, is not involved in the citizen's participation. In general, the survey by questionnaire is taken as a public opinion research in order to gather the opinions of the silent majority, randomly selected from the eligible. However, through the survey, it is difficult to know whether the respondents of the questionnaire have enough knowledge of the quetions or not to make a judgmental decision about the citizen policy, so it is barely said that the opinions of the silent majority is gatered. That is, the public opinion of the silent majority is almost ignored on the reflecting the citizen's participation, against that of the vocal minority. If this goes on, the local government has infringed the civil rights to take the public service equally, what is more, prevented administrative costs from being invested appropriately.
The important issues of the city are discussed in the organizations and the representative council with only a few people engaging in politics of the city. The problem is that not everyone can have the chance to participate in the process of making the city decision. It is necessary to make a chance to let many people participate in the discussion of the plan, and let them express their opinions in many ways, before making the city decision by the election or by the vote in the city council.
There, Fujisawa city has adopted the progressive approach of the multiple policy program in order to formulate the visions of the city.That is the well-considered opinion of a number of the silent majority are incorporated in making the visions of the Master Plan as a wide range of views in this program,and more citizens can work with to share the common values and the visions toward solving the problem of the city.

Solution and Key Benefits

 What is the initiative about? (the solution)
The citizens have various intentions and interests. It is necessary to gather the opinions of the people from all walks of life in order to make the visions of the city to form their ideas and the thoughts that many people can share.
Fujisawa City tried out a new method to gather a wide range of opinions from the citizens of almost two types. First, the active citizens and the various organizations of the city made about 1,000 comments about the appealing culture and the customs, the characteristics of the city. Secondly, in the way of the deliberative poll, the citizens, so called the “silent majority”, discussed actively about their urban policy and their local community. Finally, in the process of formulating the Master Plan of the city, it was proved that the opinions of the citizens pointed in the same direction as both groups, “silent majority” and the active citizens. As a result, we formulated the three visions of the city, aiming the city future, after the agreement of the city council, and we published them as the basic of the Master Plan.
In addition, that has contributed to the effect, based on a long-term standpoint. We have gained the great effect that the citizens, the citizens’ organizations, NPO, the universities, the companies have promoted to approach their activities, aiming under the same visions, and enhanced their coordination with the city government, improving the system of cooperation between them. Moreover, in setting up the goal of their activities based on the vision, we have got more than 14,000 new comments, from the citizens on the various works and the back grounds, to promote their activities to achieve the Master Plan. The results of these activities have returned to the growth of the community in a long term, proposed from both a wide-area viewpoint and a local viewpoint.
Besides these, we organized a local management conference at the each district of the city to promote and enrich human and social capital at their local communities.The local management conference is a meeting to solve the problems of the daily life of the people of the district, trying to aim the achieving the Master Plan of Fujisawa City by social capital. It has been brought to realization, by not only “self-helping”, “mutual helping”, but also by “co-helping”, which is to be coactive with the people who live in the district. It has made the district productivity increase, and the value of the life raise, by acting effectively towards the same visions of the both the local district and the whole city.

Actors and Stakeholders

 Who proposed the solution, who implemented it and who were the stakeholders?
This policy program was planned together by the division of Fujisawa City and Faculty of Policy Management of Keio University SFC ,located at the Fujisawa city, contracting an agreement on the partnership. The citizens, the citizens’ organization, NPO, the companies were involved in planning the Master Plan of Fujisawa City. In order to carry out the program, we made a system to let everyone individually involved within the area of Fujisawa City and many citizens were getting involved with this.
For example, one of the NPO made the citizens pay attention to the Master Plan, and made the Master Plan spread out to whole city. Also, at a local management conference of the district, in order to create the value of the district and solve the problems of the area, they were planning special projects with many citizens of the different back grounds, considering their resources and the costs. Furthermore, the students of the university were acting positively in planning and running the policy program based the Master Plan. These citizens concerned in the Master Plan played mostly as the main role of the stakeholder. By acting by themselves, and connecting with the other citizens, it was concluded to produce the social profit of them.

(a) Strategies

 Describe how and when the initiative was implemented by answering these questions
 a.      What were the strategies used to implement the initiative? In no more than 500 words, provide a summary of the main objectives and strategies of the initiative, how they were established and by whom.
There were two strategies in the policy program, to settle Master Plan of Fujisawa City, to promote the citizen participation , involved with the many citizens.
One strategy was to gather the opinions of the active citizens in the way of the various meetings directly. Some groups were established to gather the opinion based on their daily life, the opinions of the volunteers in the district and the opinions of the people in the organizations of the city. One group was consisted of the active citizens selected from among applicants. The other group was consisted of the city executives, and the other of the young city employees. Also, by taliking with the families, the friends, the colleagues,what those who were really thinking about thier daily life around themselves and what kinds of the policy they were interested in were gathered as the opinion of the citizens by these groups. These opinions gathered in this policy program were discussed in the meeting consisted of the academic experts of learning and experience of the city. They made the visions of the city and formulated the Master Plan, reflecting these opinions of the citizens.
The other strategy was based on the way of the deliberative poll. This method made it possible to gather the well-considered opinions of “silent majority”. It was often said that citizens couldn’t decide whether agree or disagree on the problems of the public policy because citizens were under the rational ignorance, but the silent majority was given enough information and the time to consider before the discussion of the problems of the city in the process of this program. The deliberative poll was an innovative method of developing the citizens’ political knowledge. The method of the deliberative poll was originally established by Stanford University Professor James S.Fishkin and The University of Texas at Austin Professor Robert C.Luskin. It was prepared under the supervision of leading the two. This opinions gathered in this way was reflected in making the visions of the city.
These methods were planned by Keio University and Fujisawa City, but by connecting with the citizens, and expanding the networks of the participants of the city, this policy program was much improved and matured.

(b) Implementation

 b.      What were the key development and implementation steps and the chronology? No more than 500 words
At the first step of this policy program, the groups of the active citizens and the city employees gathered more than 1000 comments of the characteristics and the appealing points of Fujisawa City, and analyzed them. Based on these good points, the academic experts, the activists of learning and experience at the city and people familiar with the municipal government formulated the future visions, considering carefully about the prediction of the future and the trend of the stream of the times. It took about two months.
Secondly, targeted the citizens who were “the silent majority”, the deliberative poll was executed. The way of the deliberative poll was that about 300 citizens randomly selected in the whole city made a debate space of “microcosm”. The peculiarity of this poll is to watch the change of the opinion and the attitudes of the participants through the deep discussion there. In the process of the debate, it was most important in this poll to give the participants the information and dates to learn and develop the political knowledge enough to discuss about the theme. On the day of the deliberative poll, what the participants had thought about the trend of the policy was checked by handing out a questionnaire beforehand, and then they got the information of the trend of the policy. After that, they debated the topics in small groups for one day. At last, they answered the questionnaire again to be compared the results before-and-after survey. It was seen that they changed their thoughts about the political trends, caused by the deep discussion.
Through the process of the policy program, it was found out the outcome of the opinions of the active citizens denoted the same tendency of the outcome of the deliberative poll. That is, it showed, with the same direction, we promoted to make the visions of the city. Having the agreement of the city council, we settled them as the basic plan of the Master Plan. It totally took about half year in amount.

(c) Overcoming Obstacles

 c.      What were the main obstacles encountered? How were they overcome? No more than 500 words
The main obstacle faced at first was the gap in perception between the citizens and the actors involved in, to understand the policy program as the participants. The citizens were accustomed to the way of making comments and criticism against the proposal of the municipality, that was, the role of the citizens was like a commentator or a critic. This new policy program had a different process of making the visions of the city, so, it was difficult for them to understand their important role as a creative force behind making the visions of the city, and the Master Plan. By talking over and carrying on many forms of dialogue about this new policy program with the citizens, the number of the active citizens cooperated with gradually increased, and they promoted to involve other people around them.
In the process of carrying on the policy program, another problem was caused. The case of two types of the citizens had been seen before, citizen participating in the whole process, and citizen not participating at all. Those who had participated in the whole process lacked in the feeling of the accomplishment this time. On the other hand, those who hadn’t participated at all couldn’t understand what they were for, even if they started to get interested in the policy through the deliberative poll.
It was pointed to get them to understand that it was a management model, aiming to let more citizens participate willingly for making the visions of the future to enrich human and social capital at the city in the long term, not aiming to settle the Master Plan. The best way to overcome the program was to develop an understanding of the whole picture of this policy programs.

(d) Use of Resources

 d.      What resources were used for the initiative and what were its key benefits? In no more than 500 words, specify what were the financial, technical and human resources’ costs associated with this initiative. Describe how resources were mobilized
The policy program was executed by using irreplaceable resources.
One is human resource, such as citizen, the organizations of the citizens, NPO, the university. The number of the people involved in this program was totally about 700. They were got engaged in the groups organized to gather and sum up the opinions. And 300 of them participated in the deliberative poll.
The financial support was given by the city division which supported to make the local society. The amount was 10,000,000 yen. It was mainly used for the costs of the questionnaire and the meetings.
And this policy program was supported by the fields of the education on the technical level. The technical support was given from Professor Masatoshi Tamamura Keio University and Professor Yasunori Sone Keio University, Professor James S.Fishkin Stanford University and Professor Mr. Robert C.Luskin of The University of Texas at Austin.
A proposal from the city government led these resources spouted out just like a spring from the citizens playing their role as an activist of the local community, a member of the organization of the citizens, and an employee of the city government and so on.

Sustainability and Transferability

  Is the initiative sustainable and transferable?
This policy program has been implemented continuously in the future, by the law, with stimulating the participation of the citizens by the complement of self-helping, mutual helping, and co-helping. This policy program has been made up of many important fields in the economy, the culture, the environment, the education, and the welfare in the society. That is, this program would go on because this program has been consisted of these fields.
This program is constructed with the package of citizens’ participation and the deliberative poll. The former of the package of citizens’ participation has been often adopted at the municipality in Japan, and the latter of the deliberative poll has been done in many countries of the world. On this case of Fujisawa City, this program would be combined in the two aspects, moreover, systemized organically, and the optimized totally. Therefore, it has the high general versatility for many other public services.

Lessons Learned

 What are the impact of your initiative and the lessons learned?
There are two main factors of the success of this program. One is the community relationships developed over the years of Fujisawa City. The other is the cooperation with the university located at the Fujisawa city.
Fujisawa City has been working to make the community relationships with the citizens for 40 years. Since 1970, for 30 years, Fujisawa city had religiously held a meeting with the citizens to talk over about the policy of the city each other. After 1999, this meeting had grown to an organization investigating and analyzing on the policy of the city, and making the proposal to the city government. Also, Fujisawa City made a system that on the internet the citizens proposed their ideas and plans to the city government. Since 2009, the system of the local management conference with self-helping, mutual helping, and co-helping has been established, and it has promoted the society much more reconstructed and matured.
In that process, the level of the citizen’s life and the value of the society have been raised, and making the visions and the Master Plan on this policy program has been leading more cooperation with many citizens at the city.

Contact Information

Institution Name:   Fujisawa City
Institution Type:   Government Agency  
Contact Person:   Kenchi Usui
Title:   Senior chief examiner  
Telephone/ Fax:   +81-466-50-3502
Institution's / Project's Website:   +81-466-50-8402
E-mail:   kikaku@city.fujisawa.kanagawa.jp  
Address:   1-1 Asahicho
Postal Code:   251-8601
City:   Fujisawa-shi
State/Province:   Kanagawa Prefecture
Country:   Japan

          Go Back
Print friendly Page