Activating opinion survey

Activating opinion survey

Introduction

An activating opinion survey is one amongst several methods to determine risk, culture and ethics aspects of the public security culture identified to be relevant and useful to security related urban planning.

An activating opinion survey aims for gaining information on residents’ views and attitudes, and can be applied to issues on risks, ethics aspects and on cultural factors. The methods further allows for encouraging the citizens to stand up for their interests and to participate in developing plans and urban development.

Process

Key individuals and residents are interviewed, material is evaluated and observations are made. Residents are informed in writing about the actual survey in advance; trained interviewers use an interview skeleton with open questions to do one-to-one interviews. In contrast to most conventional surveys, an activating opinion survey is not a one-off event, but the kick-off to a fairly long-term process; so it involves a good deal of organization in advance and subsequent work.

The survey is evaluated and the results presented to the residents, with the aim of defining steps toward realization. Interest or action groups are formed with a view to this.

Help in addressing cultural/ethics aspects in planning of secure public spaces

The aim is to identify the residents’ fears, wishes and worries. They further are asked what solutions occur to them, and how interested they would be in taking part in implementing the ideas in question. The method is in particular suitable for finding out the interests and needs of people living in a particular area.

Further reading

• Working document for the natreg-handbook: Different participation methods and their use [last access: 2012-08-21];
• http://www.partizipation.at/fileadmin/media_data/Downloads/Standards_OeB/oebs_standards_engl_finale_web.pdf Standards of Public Participation - Recommendations for Good Practice]] [last access: 2012-08-21]

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