Social participation vs rating voting as part of decision making to create a comfortable urban environment

We continue to study trends and attempts to reform territorial-settlement objects in the style of a “breakthrough”, namely, on the basis of highlighting national goals and a new project approach to the development of territories. The article raises the question of the significance, pros and cons of those mechanisms that are currently involved in the implementation of the tasks of urban planning and city regulation policy. Projects and programs implemented by the state for systemic changes in the urban environment are considered. In particular, sensitive topics are touched upon, which today concern both various departments, so is the population, namely in the context of the implementation of the federal project “Formation of a comfortable urban environment” of the national project “Housing and Urban Environment”, which is a continuation of the priority project “Formation of a comfortable urban environment” and was implemented in the period 2017-2018, and from May 7, 2024 it will be transformed into a new one – “Infrastructure for Life”. Since 2018, the project has been implemented by a rating voting mechanism based on mass participation of the population, the functionality of which is to organize the selection of territories for improvement and create a comfortable urban environment. In this regard, the article raises the following questions: can rating voting really be attributed to the mechanisms of socially-based urban development, considered an important element in managing the development of territories, an element of social participation technology? Or based on the practice of project management of the development of territories, the proposed mechanisms are only manipulative practices and new forms of imitation of management in the context of the development and implementation of urban planning solutions? Taking into account the fact that there is still no adequate resettlement system in the country, and new urban planning approaches that have not been tested in practice are being launched from above, such as integrated territorial development, we come to the conclusion that the principles of technocratic management remain dominant, the framework of which is the policy of urban planning and city regulation. As a result, the question is raised about the transition to a socially justified city system based on the principles of social participation.