[UPDATED 3/19 with some more answers]
So how does TA’s exciting Planning Corps event help to transform how planners plan?
A few brief thoughts, in a mini-FAQ - please keep them coming and I’ll attempt answers… :
When? Where?
Wednesday, March 24, 6:30 in the TOPP Penthouse. RSVP + location details: http://bit.ly/ahZR2I
Why not start with an open call for potential projects?
Getting something like this started with minimal overhead is hard. As a kickstarter, TA are ideal - they bring a great track record and a wide variety of actual projects with needs, including mapping, street design, advocacy and new media - projects that can be worked on right away.
As TA’s Planning Corps projects develop, everyone involved will learn a lot, and hopefully we can apply this knowledge to smarter engagement in the future. Based on their announcement, it sounds like TA is going into the process with lots of flexibility and interest in building something sustainable — all good signs.
Longer term, it would be very cool to develop relationships with other groups - community boards, block associations, store owners, schools. Serving smaller groups without existing volunteer bases would be harder but potentially more transformative and disruptive.
Isn’t this just volunteering?
Yes, and no. Yes, giving your time to assist an organization isn’t a radical idea. But it’s exciting to be using planning skills and experiences, and the emphasis on limited involvement is different. And if you’re involved as an enabler of better planning ideas and tools, your time potentially has a higher multiplier than you might in other roles.
How can you be a useful planner but not be engaged long term?
Not completely resolved. Two thoughts:
1. Lots of projects aren’t going to be a good fit for the Planning Corps model. Not thinking about TA’s projects here, which will probably be nicely lined up, but more generally around other spin-offs. A tricky but essential part of getting Planning Corps to work will be matching people and projects, and knowing when to say that a project isn’t going to work.
2. Not all planning needs to be a long process. Loosely coupled networks might be better than rigid project teams. A focused and brief involvement might contribute maps, or lots of ideas, or six handbook pages, or interviews with members of a community. Just because you’re not in it for the long run doesn’t mean you can’t be useful.
Wait, I’m confused. Is Planning Corps an idea or an organization, or what?
Um. No firm answers, except: come to the kickoff meeting! There’s one active Corps right now, convened by TA. But there’s no reason why multiple groups can’t exist in parallel. Do Corps need a central exchange of projects and people, or is a disaggregated approach better? Does a loose network serve individual groups more effectively? Maybe. Hopefully this will become clearer as the first projects get underway.
Are you on twitter? Mailing list?
Yes, yes, yes:
5 Responses
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Another common question: why start a new group to do this? Why not work through existing planning professional organizations?
Shin-pei, a few thoughts –
There aren’t other organizations who do this (as far as I know, right?). There are lots of amazing groups out there, providing guidance on planning issues from complete streets to affordable housing, but nothing that brings planners into the mix on a voluntary and short-term basis. There’s no obvious outlet for action if you’re a young planner who wants to make a difference with your planning skills. If you were affiliated with a university there might be existing community engagement programs, but for professional planners these opportunities are harder to find.
Planning Corps is deliberately trying to be intensive and limited in scope. That’s different to most volunteer and planning opportunities. And there’s are some good reasons why planning takes a long time - so this attempt at working more intensively and with greater focus is not to suggest that all other methods are broken.
Frank, this is such a great idea. It’s great on several levels: connecting planners in different professional areas on real issues, making the idea of planning more relevant for those who are not in conventional planning jobs, and helping organizations that do not have the planning capacity or realize the benefits of planning that would further their goals.
I guess I was confused about what the first meeting would be like. It is definitely more interesting that participants will be tackling real questions and issues that face an actual organization, and in this case TA. In my mind, however, I thought the first meeting would entail talking about how to reach out to organizations that aren’t even in the planning radar. Organizations that do not have GIS capabilities, and other research skills that could improve what they do. Maybe I’m wrong about this, but I feel TA already has a very strong grassrootsy planning infrastructure in place. They’re at the community meetings talking about traffic and how streets should be designed for better safety… they’re definitely, I think, included in this city’s planning realm. So it seems a little bit like preaching to the choir. I’m not sure if that’s the right expression, but when you start with an organization like TA, then you’ll be setting a tone for future meetings, such that issues that you set out to work with are those that are only design, transportation and infrastructure related with organizations that already deal with those issues on a regular basis. Then this becomes almost like a blog about planning — which is fine, but the result is that it is made available mainly to planners and those interested in planning without providing much help to organizations/individuals who lack and would benefit from the skills of planners.
When you first talked about the idea, I envisioned a group of [overly confident] planners with tools on their backs, t-squares and all, and going into neighborhoods that really need the help. To work with communities and organizations that are never included in the planning process. TA has a very strong sense of what streets should look like and how they should be improved for pedestrians and cyclists. This would definitely add on to their mission and goal, and they might even get some great ideas out of it, but I don’t know how crucial it would be. An analogy to this: my cousin is volunteering his time to tutor minority kids, which is a very venerable thing to do. But they all go to Stuyvesant and want the extra “help” to get higher SAT scores so they can get into schools like Harvard and MIT. That is how my cousin chooses to spend his time, while there are kids in this city who do not even have college on their minds. At the end of the day though, he did put in his hours, contributed his expertise and there’s nothing wrong with that.
Here is an idea. Planning corps should be a group of planners that are familiar with the news. If not, you’ll arm yourselves with all the daily/weekly publications for when you convene. Then as a group you decide on one or two pressing issues where a planner’s expertise is absent but would be critical in moving ahead. An example is the new high school in sunset park. The community there fought for it for decades. Even though there were many in the neighborhood who supported the cause, they only had stories and examples of why building a new school in that district is necessary. If they only had someone with the GIS skills earlier to show that there is a huge growth in families with young children in the area, and an absence of educational facilities and that schools on the outskirts of the area are at or above capacity then their case would’ve been so much stronger. There has to be more instances like that out there.
Love the comments above. It’s true, planning skills should be applied to situations where it’s needed the most. A possible filter to use when deciding whether a project should be taken on is whether there is an existing advocacy or organizing engine that can take the planning product and use it to win the campaign. (So in the case of Sunset Park, it’s yes, would be a great project for Planning Corps.) The point is to try to channel planning skills/expertise to community groups, not for planners to go through an intellectual exercise from which the results just sit on a shelf.
I think another fundamental premise of Planning Corps is for planners to define what it is they’d like to work on or what skills they’d like to use. There are amazing existing organizations out there that deploy planning/design skills really well and pair those skills with community groups or other groups in need, but those organizations usually pre-define the project and roles, then solicit interest and fill the roles. We’re hoping to create space for planners to think about the best ways to use their skills and try out new things. The current paradigm of planning is very rigid, especially in its application. The processes by which planners engage with government and community is very rigid. Are we really getting the results we want to see? This is one small way of trying out new ways of planning.
Continuing the Discussion