- Societal Paradigm Shift and Community   330 kb by    Karakiewicz, Justyna | justynak@unimelb.edu.au    Short Outline For years now, we have been responding to the discovery of the profoundly disturbing consequences of climate change with evolutionary responses. Collective behavioural change is needed. But how do we make dramatic changes that bring the larger public over to such change and result in a societal paradigm shift? Abstract For years now, we have been responding to the discovery of the profoundly disturbing consequences of climate change with evolutionary responses. It is clear that collective behavioural change is needed; yet little has changed in popular behaviours. All of us, in one way or another, have been trying to be more sustainable. Some of us have forgone our cars for bicycles, some installed photovoltaic panels, most now sort our waste for recycling; however, all of this together has a relatively small impact on our environment and we need to do something more substantive and soon. But how do we make dramatic changes that bring the larger public over to such change and result in a societal paradigm shift? Can this be still possible through community participation? Einstein once said: “ we cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them”. Unfortunately this is exactly what we do over and over again. Community participation is essential. The diverse perspectives and diverse range of group’s contribution to any project is inherently valuable. It is a mechanism for public to express opinions and to take ownership in decision-making process. Community participation is also often used to communicate knowledge, to educate. But do community consultations inspire community to change, inspire to reassess the set of values, which maybe outdated, and do they allow community to dream about alternatives? If we “cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them” shouldn’t we look for alternative to community participation meetings and come up with other ideas that involve community in more innovative way. This paper will look at recent history and trace some most dramatic transformational changes in our society in the past 100 years. How did we manage to change our set of values, our aspirations and our dreams? How was this achieved and what can we learn from these experiences? If we want to have sustainable cities, sustainable life styles, sustainable transport, etc., maybe community participation could help us with creating new ideas and the reason to dream about better quality of life, which is sustainable. Keywords Case Study presented on the ISOCARP Congress 2013: Frontiers of Planning - Evolving and declining models of city planning practice   Click to open the full paper as pdf document   Click to send an email to the author(s) of this paper