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Lecture details
Creating Conversations about Planning
21 September 2017
3.30pm – 5.00pm. Registration from 3.00pm, seated by 3.30pm
CLC Piazza Level 7, URA Building
Lecture video
Synopsis
What makes a place "great"? How do we learn and possibly replicate the characteristics of a "great" place? Since 2007, the American Planning Association launched its flagship program, Great Places in America (GP in A) to enable people all over America to have conversations about planning. Hear from Paul Farmer on how GP in A designated over 400 streets, neighbourhoods and public spaces as great places in America.
Lecture report
What makes a place “great”? How do we learn and possibly replicate the characteristics of a “great” place? Since 2007, the American Planning Association launched its flagship program, Great Places in America (GP in A) to enable people all over America to have conversations about planning. Hear from Paul Farmer on how GP in A designated over 400 streets, neighbourhoods and public spaces as great places in America.
“Telling stories to engage the public in urban planning is key in the making of cities”, said W. Paul Farmer, former chief executive of the American Planning Association (APA). At his CLC Lecture on 21 September 2017, the practitioner and academic of over five decades reminded audiences of the importance of having conversations with diverse groups of people and getting them involved in the urban planning process.
“I would say that first, we need to never forget: plans are stories and planning is a conversation. We are a storytelling profession, and we need to get better and better at that,” he said.
“When we have conversations, we don’t talk in jargon. We don’t talk in bullet points…we constantly interrupt each other, we go back and forth,” explained Farmer. “You get gut reactions, honest reactions. [If you use technical jargon in engagement], soon the discussion gets dominated by those few who are comfortable with the jargon.”
It is important that planners engage the public on their outcomes because while people appreciate the need to think ahead, they may have other concerns about their present. “I don’t want a hurricane to ruin my house, but I may not want to move or even elevate my house. I may just play the odds, or count on societal help should disaster strike. We see this all over the world. That’s human behaviour, that’s what we’re all dealing with as planners.”
Another way Farmer made planning more accessible to the public was with the Great Places in America programme he implemented during his over one decade-long tenure at the APA. Beginning from 2007, the APA designated great neighbourhoods, streets and public spaces in the country every year to make people “stop, think, engage, argue, learn, and hopefully act”.
Said Farmer, “we wanted people to be talking about what makes a place great. We wanted arguments, [like] how we could have picked one neighbourhood in a city and not pick another neighbourhood. We wanted discussions, between academics, neighbourhood groups, politicians, whomever.”
Farmer concentrated on creating conversations that were of general interest wherever he could, and extended them into earned media. “We wanted the mayors to be proud, and boy were they. We wanted the planners to be proud, to give them a shot in the arm, and they too would boast, argue and good-naturedly kid each other. We wanted people to understand the roles played by planners, as well as the qualities [of a space] that emerged as great, even if the planners weren’t directly involved.”
The results of the programme generated a lot of media interest without the need to pay for advertisements. According to Farmer, Great Places in America reached about 22 million people every October, and this brought a focus to the work of planners, showcased the qualities of a good place, and transferred knowledge to improve other places.
When asked about the priorities for planners today during a question-and-answer session, Farmer said global acceptance of climate change and public engagement in city planning is here to stay. “People are not going to react well to things they have no involvement in. There’s also no doubt in my mind that economies are going to change much more rapidly, and a lot of planners aren’t used to dealing with that,” he said.
Moderator Lincoln Lewis, CLC’s senior assistant director of research, added that the question of inequality and equity is very much on the table too. “Planners once again have to deal with the problems of inequality, and the constant awareness of gentrification is precisely this struggle,” he said.
This close link between planning and the well-being of a community is why Farmer believes planning is a noble profession and that all planners need to have the trait of empathy in their DNA.
“I urge planners to keep pushing the boundaries, and to keep thinking ahead for our communities and our ever-evolving profession. Keep having conversations about what people really care about, and planning’s role in delivering what they need and want,” concluded Farmer.
Written by Alvin Chua. This report first appeared in the Oct 2017 Better Cities newsletter.
About the Speakers
SPEAKER
Paul Farmer
Former CEO of the American Planning Association (APA)
Paul Farmer served as CEO of APA from 2001 to 2014; Executive Director of Planning and Development, Eugene from 1999 to 2001; Director of City Planning Minneapolis, 1994-1998; Deputy Planning Director, Pittsburgh, 1980-1994; and a founding professor of the Department of Urban Planning, University of Winconsin-Milwaukee, 1972-1980. His awards include a Progressive Architecture Award for Design Excellence, a National Endowment for the Arts Research Award, the Dale Prize for Excellence in Urban and Regional Planning, and the NYU-Poly Spirit of Innovation Award. He was honored as a Life Member in the Royal Town Planning Institute, HON Membership in the American Society of Landscape Architects and HON Fellow of the Planning Institute of Australia.
MODERATOR
Prof Lee Kah Wee
Ph.D. Berkeley (Designated Emphasis in Global Metropolitan Studies)
Assistant Professor
National University of Singapore (NUS)
Prof Lee Kah-Wee is Deputy Director of the Masters of Urban Planning programme in NUS. His general field of expertise includes the politics of urban planning in Singapore, particularly in relation to land reform, public housing and bureaucratization, and his specific research is on the urban transformation of casino cities in Asia-Pacific. In 2017, Kah-Wee received the Social Sciences Research Council Transregional Junior Scholar Fellowship as well as the Humanities and Social Sciences Fellowship in support of his research. Prior to entering academia, he was an executive architect in the URA.