Technology, Humans and Art that is Urbanity

19 April

Separating technology from cities or life as we know it is purely impossible. The discussion in this week's class put all the planning idea/observations bubbling around in my head into the simplest form. Technology and humans. Planning methods don’t have to be high-tech and innovative to serve their purpose, even though it seems high-tech solutions are the only way of the future. I remember studying natural resource management in undergrad and discussing carbon footprints. One can calculate the carbon footprint of an item such as a car over its lifespan but what is often left out is how much energy it takes to produce the car. This includes the energy used to produce the materials that go into the manufacturing of a car, the human energy assembling it, the energy used to run the factory the car is assembled in, etc, etc. Buildings are often designed with their lifespan energy needs in mind, but rarely consider the energy cost of the materials that comprise the building.

A classmate showed me photos of these massive cylinders in Singapore that catch rain water and are vertical gardens, they also light up at night! They sustain their own little garden in themselves – theoretically. But how much energy went into building these? What is the maintenance cycle on these? They’re constantly dependent on technology, and they are technology in themselves… It’s one of those philosophical questions that run your ideas around in circles until you’d rather not think about than get to the bottom of it! Haha.

Super Trees in Singapore's Botanical Gardens

Image retrieved from: http://www.cnn.com/2012/06/08/world/asia/singapore-supertrees-gardens-bay

The Soul of the Place: Significance of Heritage

17 April 2013

I thoroughly enjoyed Laurence Loh’s talk on the soul of a place. He was so right that planners do not invest enough time in understanding the intangible elements of place. During my time as a heritage planner the word “character” was used at least 50 times in a meeting. But that word is so powerful when addressing the cultural side of heritage planning. I just thought it was a catch all term, like how the term sustainable development is used these days. I am so so interested in Loh’s work with UNESCO Heritage Sites. I plan to look through the UNESCO Operational Guidelines that he said were so useful. Any good methodology is something I want to keep in my planner toolbox because I believe that the same care and attention that goes to restoring/readapting designated heritage areas need to go into all planning.

Although, I know in Edmonton the community elements of these heritage areas are often ignored as they are in new developments. The City of Edmonton is working on revitalizing the China Town area as well as what there refer to as “the Quarters” a rundown inner city area that was the first townsite of today’s Edmonton but is also a safe haven for the homeless where social services are in abundance. It will be incredibly tricky to protect that character of the area even though to an outsider it is the most undesirable community they want near their businesses and homes. Let's see how UNESCO handles things.

Thoughts on Inclusive Communities

15 April 2013

Can mixing affordable housing and exclusive housing work? Planners work hard to create inclusive spaces but as Jane Jacobs explains in her book The Death and Life of Great American Cities, forced inclusivity rarely works out. Interaction needs space to develop on its own – that is a scary idea to a planner. Our very purpose is to control development, we wouldn’t be doing our job if we didn’t plan for everything!

Book mentioned above:

Jacobs, Jane. 2000. The Death and Life of Great American Cities. London: Pimlico.

The Secret Life of a Sidewalk

8 April 2013

Sidewalks – they really are more than just the concrete domain for pedestrians. Jane Jacobs takes three chapters to talk about sidewalks as a means for safety, interaction and socializing children. The safety argument was the most interesting. Community safety is determined by the amount of human interaction going on in the street – people coming and going, people sitting on their stoop watching the comings and going, kids playing, etc, etc. Safety and this interaction make neighbourhoods attractive, makes people want to live there. As soon as areas are perceived as unsafe, people leave. It seems an easy concept: how do we make streets safe and appealing? The automatic response is keep people in them through retail, restaurants etc. What else can we do?

Chapters mentioned above from book:

Jacobs, Jane. 2000. The Death and Life of Great American Cities. London: Pimlico.

Sidewalk on Avoca Street, Randwick

Photo: by author

Where is the Merit in Merit-based Planning?

29 March

Okay okay the title is so cheesy! If you can think of another one, please let me know!

Imagine my relief during the Master of Planning orientation day back in February when the director of the program said Canada and Australia share very similar planning backgrounds. I was relieved that I wouldn’t hit a huge learning curve from the outset of the program, and my relief validated again in my law class. My law professor said that Canada and Australia also have a tendency to make plans and grant development decisions based first on its alignment with laws and policy, followed by judgment on the development’s merit.

I think that is a bad way to start, our city development is based on the interpretation of law and guidelines, not how well a development fits into its surroundings! Or how well it suits the community’s needs! Remembering this important point, I stumbled across a book in the UNSW Library about Vancouver. Conveniently, I never noticed the book while I was home in Canada or while I was in Vancouver! Vancouver is Canada’s only world city, and it regularly tops the lists of “most livable cities” along side Melbourne and Copenhagen, etc. The book titled The Vancouver Achievement studies the city’s achievements in urban design developed from its unique discretionary zoning system.

From what I understand of discretionary zoning, it is a form of merit based planning. Zoning is adjusted to the plan according to the needs of the project, should the project be that valuable to its community. This book addresses how Vancouver broke out of regulation-based planning that limits development in Canada and Australia. I excitedly borrowed the book planning to read it for pure interest rather than any use to my papers… However reading one-third of the book already, I see this book being an anchor in most of my papers this semester. I intend to read all 400 pages before I have to return the book in 3 weeks time. Very interesting!

Let’s see if it can offer an incite into how NSW and its current planning reforms stack up to the Vancouver Achievement. I will report back once I’ve read more on this.

Reference:

John Punter. (2003). The Vancouver Achievement: urban planning and design. Vancouver: UBC Press.

Any Good City Plan has a Narrative

28 March

I attended a talk from Paul Farmer the CEO of the American Planning Association. It was a short talk on planning in the United States and how the current environmental-sustainability movement presents numerous opportunities for planners today and in the future. It was easy to see that he truly believed in planning and the service it provides to community building. He left us with six things to remember:

1. Hard Science – keep up-to-date with the latest information coming out on Climate Change and other science based research that will affect cities.
2. Political Rhetoric – understand it! If you know how it works, you will know how to get around it and get things done!
3. Empathy – be perceptive of communities and their emotional state when redevelopment is happening around them. Successful planning only happens when the community is ready to have the planning conversation.
4. Understand the public – understand how they perceive the project you have set in front of them. Planning is a conversation, not a monologue!
5. Communication – a good plan is a narrative; it is a good story! Good stories aren’t easily forgotten, and neither will a good plan.
6. Passion – be passionate about planning.

As silly as it sounds, I wanted to stand up and fist pump a little after the talk. Mr. Farmer was very inspirational. Two of the six points have stuck with me ever since: empathy and story telling.

Understanding the emotional state of a community is key to working towards a plan. One could argue that emotions are primitive aspect of human relationships, but a very important aspect when trying to communicate in any situation! Emotions drive everything, whether we want to admit it or not, and they stand between a successful conversation and a confrontation. As Mr. Farmer said, planning is a conversation in its simplest form thus emotions, the simplest way of communicating must be understood.

Likening a plan to a story makes the process of policy-making much more fun! I enjoy a good story, as does the next person and a good story can resonate with everyone young and old! Who doesn’t remember their favorite fairy tale?

The Image of the City

25 March

This week’s class answered a question I have been struggling with for two years now. The answer was so simple too, don’t you just hate when that happens?!

During the time I spent working at the City of Edmonton I felt like I was banging my head against a wall. Every planner/designer employed at the City all knew that Edmonton was not a sustainable city and they tried everyday in their job to help Edmonton change its ways. New fancy plans came out to manage growth, and make the city more compact but as always, the fancy plans turned into more hot air by the time council was finished reviewing the plans. And so, Edmonton continues to spread out farther and farther across the prairie, and I joked if you drove to the far south of the city you’d be in Calgary! Haha. (For those who aren’t familiar with Alberta’s geography, Calgary is another large city approximately 300 kilometers south of Edmonton.)

So why can’t we change council’s mind? After all City officials only advise council on planning issues, council has the final say. The public elects council; if you have a council who supports suburban development, the majority of the city’s residents who support suburban development voted them in. So how do you change the public’s mind, change their behavior? If they demand more suburban homes than high-rise apartment homes then the market will move to accommodate them (in theory). How do you make people want something else? How do you make them want to live in a high-rise apartment and take the train to work instead of their own car?

Originally, I thought the answer was a major marketing campaign to educate the public on what sustainable living really meant. No city could afford that, and how effective would that really be? People are bombarded my advertising everywhere, all day long. People may not even get the message, or they may even refuse it!

…That’s where I’ve been stuck in my internal debate. “How can you inform the public and change their minds?” I even considered changing directions and going into advertising for this reason alone… That idea didn’t last long.

My prof, Michael Neuman, answered my big question in three words: “Change the image.” Change the image of the city and make it so visually engaging that people want to live there! The answer lies in the planning department, not in the fancy world of Mad Men style advertising! Good urban design can change the image of a city; urban design is the key to changing people’s behaviors! It was one of those light bulb moments. Now I’m onto something here! I want to explore this more.

Funny enough as I was wandering through the UNSW Library shelves in search of the last remaining Jane Jacobs book I stumbled onto The Image of the City by Kevin Lynch. This book addresses urban design and provides strategies of understanding and designing urban space piece by piece. Even better, this is exactly what I was looking for! Don’t worry Mrs. Jacobs I’ll get to you shortly!

Books mentioned:

Jacobs, J. (2000). The death and life of great American cities. London: Pimlico.

Lynch, K. (1960). The image of the city. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.