Processing the planning process workshop

Wednesday night last week was a follow-up session to TOPP’s tech for participatory planning workshop. 25 planners and tech enthusiasts came to the RPA office in Union Square and drew diagrams of planning processes.

Rob Lane got us started with an overview of visioning and urban design participation. Then we split into five smaller groups to focus on a particular topic, before reporting back - tackling participation and inclusiveness; ‘micro-planning’ for bike racks; the 2009 MTA funding crisis; land use data; and participation in urban design. Notes from the report back are on the Google group, and someone from each group is responsible for getting the diagrams online soon.

Here’s a few brief thoughts on follow up projects - these are all ripe for longer discussions here and on the mailing list.

• the benefits of little-and-often planning vs monolithic planning were summed up by the urban design participation team, and chewed over afterwards by the whole group. Nick Grossman posted some follow-up ideas for ‘living plans‘, where a plan evolves with its parent community. Exciting to think that a living plan could now be more feasible with better technology for participation, though it might be instructive to look at previous examples and try to pinpoint the weaknesses. Creating projects that survive over time requires a different sort of planner too - people who work more open source-ish.
• each group mentioned technology needs, some precisely defined (better tool for visual preference survey) and others broader (ways for transit agencies to establish a feel-good relationship with customers). Hopefully a list of tools or possible gaps where tools are needed will come out of each group.
• Scale varied between the different groups, but there was a definite NY focus with a NYC-specific bent (not surprisingly, given the location). Taking these discussions to other locations might produce different outcomes: while smaller municipalities may have fewer resources for innovation, residents may be more engaged with local taxation and spending. Is there a tipping point for certain collaboration approaches? Maybe open ideas are more likely to take hold in smaller towns?
• I was struck by the lumpy distribution of information - planners don’t always know about technology projects that provide amazing examples to learn from. In Wednesday’s case, it was OpenStreetMap, the prime example of a seemingly-impossible project that really works. If you know about OSM, other ideas seem more feasible.
• Follow the money. One diagram that didn’t get drawn on Wednesday, but discussed over beer afterwards is the flow of money within planning. Who pays for projects, how much, how does a for-profit or non-profit planning organization keep the lights on? If we’re talking about radically different approaches to applying planning ideas, maybe we need to look at the barriers and opportunities for new business models.

Looking forward to seeing the diagrams online, and in use as guides for both planners and tech people - though let’s face it, the distinction between those groups is increasingly (happily) blurred.