ABSTRACT
Participation in innovation by communities, special interest groups, and users of facilities, services, and environments reflects a continuity demand for social change. This chapter deals with responses in the urban setting to a significant, societal-wide social movement—the Women's Movement. The central theme is the need for 'appropriate technology' that can be designed to meet multiple local needs in contrast with single-purpose 'super technology' currently applied to urban infrastructures: health-care delivery systems, nuclear energy, sewage disposal and crime control. Micro-innovation process is therefore a critical element when innovations are derived from social participative pressure. The Gothenburg downtown traffic restraint scheme is also an urban transit innovation that is best viewed in the meta-problem context. The set of strategies for change that women have adopted rely heavily on participative-style involvement in local social innovations. There is, however, doubt that such local innovations can, in themselves, spread substantial change among women generally.
