“Not In My Back Yard” – Community Decisions, Technology, City Development

Abstract

Community decisions are more frequently on the agenda, than researchers of decision making processes should guess. Which methodology might be used, when background ex- perts have diverging opinion, when members of the community neglect „rational" arguments and processes, but ask for dernocratic voting? Leaders of ministries, self-governing bodies have limited time for certain decisions like building a new waste-collecting center, a huge radar antennae, a new airport in the neighborhood of a settlement. The problem area mentioned here is a telecommunication development of a new Israeli city, Modí'in, where decision makers used a special compromising method, the „muddling through" decision making process to have a satisfying (but, for sure, not optimal) solution, together with the regional community opinion leaders, expert groups, investors and authorities.