Right to the City, street public works and citizen participation

Abstract

After exposing the link between Public interest, democratic participation and the Right to the City, the paper analyzes whether the legal regime for the design and execution of public works at the local level guarantees the participation of citizens. To this end, in the first place, are exposed the different types of existing public works according to the legal framework. Subsequently, the research deeps in the impediments of the so-called ordinary local public work; finally, it descends to a specific example of local regulation to show that –in the absence of a general legal statute– participation is guaranteed when it approaches to the urban planning works legal regime. The paper concludes referring the hopeful example
of the Catalan public works Law, which guarantees public participation even in the Public Procurement procedure.