Review of Related Literature:

The social acceptance of development projects is in everyones interest: the industry, our
government leaders, the business community and private citizens. It is a call for collaboration
and consensus, John Hanger, former Secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of
Environmental Protection and Special Counsel at Eckert Seamans.1
There are two ways to describe the end result of any project: whether it is successful and
whether it is accepted. A successful project, as indicated above, is one that accomplishes its
intended purpose or achieves a stated goal. A project that is accepted receives a favorable
reception and is met with approval by the various stakeholder groups. Ideally, a project will be
both highly successful and highly accepted.2
As (Beatley, 2004) mentions it is through ownership, commitment and the infusion of
local knowledge in project development, unique places, genuinely native to the culture and
environment, can be sustained. Still, designers have to be aware that different people have
different ideas, perspectives, needs, and concerns (table 2), reason why the participation process
as to be as inclusive as possible, considering the opinion of each and every single group related
directly or indirectly with the project.3
The social acceptability of results in a decision-making process is linked to the way the
different parts involved in the process perceive it: if they feel it is adequate and equal, they find it
legitimate. For this reason, improving the social acceptability of specific design options during
the process often results in higher legitimacy of the whole process, which in this way depends
largely on how much people affected by the plan have been involved in it (Steiner, 2000).3
One need only look at daily headlines to appreciate the extent to which adverse public
judgments can prevent or modify implementation of any management strategy. Rather than
accept unpopular decisions, citizens have access to a wide variety of options to influence policy
decisions. They can, for example, invoke the courts, lobby federal legislators, attract media
attention for their cause, or organize statewide ballot initiatives to change existing lawsall
activities that serve to circumvent traditional agency authority (Shindler, List & Steel, 1993).
There is abundant evidence from the last two decades that citizens are both willing and able to
employ such measures.4
The distinction between acceptability and social acceptability is important because
Western democracies tend to use sociopolitical processes rather than individual evaluations as a
basis for decisions about what should occur for a larger community of interest (Cialdini, Reno &
Kallgren, 1990; Ehrenhaldt, 1994). Sagoff (1988) reasoned that in the long-term society is better
off focusing on shared norms and values rather than on individual preferences. He argued that
values are organized beliefs held by a community about what is right to do, and preferences are
simply the desires of individual members and, as such, may not serve the larger society very
well. Thus natural resource managers seek consensus i.e., shared, organized beliefs to guide
many decisions.4

References:
1. http://www.national.ca/Newsroom/Social-Acceptance-of-Development-Projects-isEveryones-Business.aspx
2. http://www.werf.org/liveablecommunities/pdf/success.pdf