"In cities and smaller local authorities, the public are better able to experience democratic decision processes and can play a more direct role in shaping them than at other levels in the state. Joint creation through public participation is a constituent element of living representative democracy and an essential precondition for sustainable, integrated urban development. It legitimates majority decisions by the city council as an expression of the public interest and improves the quality and acceptance of planning measures. At the same time, however, public participation also increases the complexity of planning and decision processes and the need for skills and resources. This presents special challenges for administration and politics.

The existing position paper "Culture of Participation in integrated Urban Development" does not focus primarily on individual methods and instruments of public participation. There are innumerable publications on this subject, some of which are documented in the Bibliography. An up-to-date cross-section of innovative model procedures is also provided by the awardwinning projects submitted by the Federal Ministry of Transport, Building and Urban Affairs (BMVBS) as part of the National Urban Development Policy (project appeal "Public Participation", "Civic Foundation Prize"). This position paper focuses largely on the framework of conditions and opportunities or further development of a comprehensive culture of participation at local authority level, regardless of individual model projects. It pursues the following central ideas:

• Participation as a central element in local authority democracy and integrated urban development.
• Further development of local authority participation culture in the interests of legitimation and broad acceptance of plans and decisions.
• Activation of all social groups, equal opportunity in participation.
• Quality standards for participation processes."