ABSTRACT
This chapter suggests an approach to connecting people with people and citizens with government agencies. 'Strategic communication' has been used by government and other interest groups to conceal the absence of sincere and meaningful public participation. This has led to a questioning of the legitimacy of transport planning. Soft policy measures have been seen as an effective tool to bring about a shift in communities from car dependency to using sustainable transport means. Using several case studies, the chapter elaborates the advantages and drawbacks of various approaches using collaborative stakeholder dialogue (CSD) that have been adopted in different parts. The chapter then explores various tools that can be used in public engagement exercises. While ethnographic engagement enables stakeholders to reach common understandings by connecting with each other, it also increases the pool of knowledge used by decision makers to design places for the users of the space.
