Showing papers in "Journal of Planning Education and Research in 2002"

Collaborative Planning: Building Consensus and Building a Distinct Model for Practice

Abstract: Collaborative planning is an interactive process of consensus building and implementation using stakeholder and public involvement. Based on research of twenty case studies in the United States and...

Network Power in Collaborative Planning

Abstract: This article makes a case that collaborative planning is becoming more important because it can result in network power. Collaborative policy processes are increasingly in use as ways of achieving results in an era distinguished by rapid change, social and political fragmentation, rapid high volume information flow, global interdependence, and conflicting values. Network power can be thought of as a flow of power in which participants all share. It comes into being most effectively when three conditions govern the relationship of agents in a collaborative network: diversity, interdependence, and authentic dialogue (DIAD). Like a complex adaptive system, the DIAD network as a whole is more capable of learning and adaptation in the face of fragmentation and rapid change than a set of disconnected agents. Planners have many roles in such networks, and planning education needs to incorporate new subject matter to better prepare planners for these roles.

Pedestrian Environments and Sense of Community

Abstract: A common claim made by New Urbanists is that a high-quality pedestrian environment will enhance sense of community by increasing opportunities for interaction among neighbors. This link between neighborhood design and community sentiment, however, has not been adequately researched. This study explores how objective and subjective qualities of the pedestrian environment influence residents’ sense of community, both directly and indirectly through their effects on pedestrian travel. Surveys conducted in one pedestrian-oriented neighborhood and one automobile-oriented neighborhood in Portland, Oregon, support the hypotheses that (1) sense of community will be greater in the traditional neighborhood and (2) pedestrian environment factors will significantly influence sense of community, controlling for various demographic influences.

Bringing Power to Planning Research: One Researcher’s Praxis Story

Abstract: This article provides an answer to what has been called the biggest problem in theorizing and understanding planning: the ambivalence about power found among planning researchers, theorists, and students. The author narrates how he came to work with issues of power and gives an example of how the methodology he developed for power studies—phronetic planning research—may be employed in practice. Phronetic planning research follows the tradition of power studies running from Machiavelli and Nietzsche to Michel Foucault and Pierre Bourdieu. It focuses on four value-rational questions: (1) Where are we going with planning? (2) Who gains and who loses, and by which mechanisms of power? (3) Is this development desirable? (4) What should be done? These questions are exemplified for a specific instance of Scandinavian urban planning. The author finds that the questions, and their answers, make a difference to planning in practice. They make planning research matter.

Transportation as a Stimulus of Welfare-to-Work Private versus Public Mobility

Abstract: Using a rich panel of data on welfare recipients in Alameda County, California, this article examines the importance of transportation policy variables in explaining the ability of some individuals to find gainful employment. A multinomial logit model predicts the probability that someone found a job as a function of car ownership, transit service quality, regional job accessibility by different transportation modes, human-capital factors, and various control variables. Results show that car ownership and educational attainment significantly increased the odds that someone switched from welfare to work, while transit service quality variables were largely insignificant. Nor was regional accessibility important in explaining employment outcomes, a finding that casts doubt on the spatial mismatch hypothesis. Concentration of housing near bus and rail routes appeared most important in stimulating employment. However, improved automobility had far stronger effects on employment outcomes than improvements in t...

The Geography of Transit Crime Documentation and Evaluation of Crime Incidence on and around the Green Line Stations in Los Angeles

Abstract: The link between the social and physical environment and transit crime is an important one, but it is not well understood or explored. This study explores the environmenttransit crime connection by...

Beyond Relativism: Reclaiming the Search for Good City Form

Abstract: This article argues that the search for a theory of good city form should be given a more prominent place in planning theory alongside theories of planning as a process. The professional practice o...

Do We Learn from Planning Practice?: The Contribution of the Practice Movement to Planning Theory

Abstract: This article examines a central assumption that underlies what has been termed the practice movement in planning theory. The term refers to the great diversity of recent writings that focus on the ...

The Size and Shape of Phoenix’s Urban Fringe:

Abstract: Annual changes in the amount and location of residential fringe development in metropolitan Phoenix are tracked from 1990 to 1998 using local records of housing completions. New development covered a wide geographic area in 1990 but became more geographically concentrated with time. Metropolitan Phoenix is organized into five belts: (1) an outer rural zone, (2) an area of pioneer settlement where the construction of single-family housing began in 1990, (3) a peak zone of intensive development, (4) a zone of infill, and (5) a built-up area where little new construction occurs. Multiple-family housing construction occurs primarily in the infill zone. Between 1995 and 1998, new home construction moved outward at the pace of almost one-half mile per year to an average distance of 18.94 miles from the metropolitan center. Planners can use information about the size, shape, type, and timing of urban fringe development to anticipate infrastructure and service needs.

Planning as a Heterosexist Project

Abstract: The author argues that a key to understanding interactions between urban planning and lesbian and gay communities is to recognize that urban planning developed as a heterosexist project. Based on works in lesbian and gay history, he notes how the development of modern planning arose at the same time as modern conceptions of sexual orientation. Early planners were cognizant of lesbians and gays. Analyzing key texts of urban planning, the author shows how the heterosexist project works through unquestioned acceptance of Katz’s key assumptions of heterosexuality. He builds the argument by examining three dualisms within planning discourse: order/disorder, family/household, and public/private. While much of the analysis is historical, the author finds that planning continues to reinforce repression of lesbians and gays through laws, ordinances, and regulations. Analysis of emerging lesbian and gay enclaves must start with this background of repression. He concludes by suggesting several starting points for in...

Evaluating the Effectiveness of Regulatory Growth Management Programs An Analytic Framework

Abstract: This article develops an analytic framework for evaluating the effectiveness of regulatory growth management programs. First, the literature review assembles a large body of recent research examining the evolution of growth management programs, the role of government institutions, and evidence of policies’ effectiveness. Second, working from the findings of the literature review, the article inductively develops a conceptual model identifying the relationships between program implementation, land market processes, and land use outcomes. Finally, the conceptual model is used to derive a set of principles that may be used to inform future research.

Beyond Labels Pragmatic Planning in Multistakeholder Tourism-Environmental Conflicts

Abstract: This article advocates a neopragmatic approach to collaborative planning in protected areas characterized by historical conflict among diverse stakeholders. Our example is a multisectoral process i...

Covert Planning for Social Transformation in Indonesia

Abstract: Since the Second World War, planning theory and practice has increasingly focused on how local people engage in the planning process. Indeed, this constitutes one of the most interesting theoretical and practical conundrums in planning. This focus is exemplified by work on citizen participation in synoptic planning, collaborative planning, and radical planning, which, taken together, can be understood as representing a continuum of varying degrees of citizen involvement, local power, and social and political consciousness. In broad terms, this continuum ranges from examining how local residents are incorporated into established planning processes to examining how they become empowered to plan for themselves within, outside of, and even in opposition to established planning and societal structures. At the same time, this continuum has expanded our understanding of what constitutes planning. This article is interested in a mode of planning that has not hereto been represented by this continuum—how local residents engage in planning for social transformation within the context of nonliberal, nondemocratic societies. It is argued that a theoretical gap exists regarding our understanding of how local residents engage in planning to achieve social transformation. This gap has occurred because of the close association between our understanding of social transformation and the political expectations created by Western liberal democracies. In other words, we have not begun to theorize about how local residents engage in social transformation in an environment where there are threats of violent repercussions for social activism. 1 This is not to suggest that community agency within limited social and political spaces has not been recognized. For instance, Douglass (1999) observes community agency in the form of “resilience” in the face of economic crisis; and Scheyvens (1998), along with other feminist scholars, documents the “subtle strategies” women use for self-empowerment. However, this work does not make the explicit connection between community agency, the character of social and political spaces for action, and how these activities represent an initial step in planning for broader social transformation. Within restrictive political environments, like those found in Indonesia, planning for social transformation does occur, but it occurs in ways that are not yet represented in our theorization of this process. In many restrictive social and political environments, overt challenges to dominant power configurations are an ineffective and even

Planning and Indigenous People: Human Rights and Environmental Protection in New Zealand

Abstract: This study examined the influence of a national planning mandate to redress human rights violations of the indigenous people of New Zealand. The mandate requires local governments to prepare environmental plans, achieve national goals, and support participation of indigenous people. A sample of thirty-four local governments was evaluated to determine how well local plans support indigenous rights and to examine the influence of factors that influence local plan support. Findings indicate that plans scored moderate to low in support of indigenous rights. In addition, indicators of citizen participation, quality of regional plans, and local organizational capability to plan had a positive influence on local plan support for indigenous rights.

Transit Availability and Automobile Ownership: Some Policy Implications

Abstract: The recent increases in auto ownership among low-income households make one wonder whether public transit continues to provide adequate services to this group of transportation disadvantaged. With this question in mind, the study examines the relationship between transit availability and auto ownership with travel survey data from Los Angeles. Although the relationship is statistically significant, it is rather weak, indicating that significant improvements will be needed in transit services to bring forth a slight decrease in auto ownership among the general population. Empirical evidence also shows that auto ownership is relatively low among the poorest households. Due to the difficulties in attracting the general population from automobile use to transit use, it has been suggested that instead of trying to achieve its many objectives, transit may benefit by rigorously pursuing provision of services to those incapable of owning and operating an automobile.

Clear Signals: Moving on to Planning’s Promise

Abstract: Results from an earlier study indicated that senior planners in Oregon and Southwest Washington expect planning graduates to be equipped with strong communicative competencies built on a base of br...

Deliberative Planning and Decision Making An Impossibility Result

Abstract: Much communicative planning is consensus oriented and rests on ideas of deliberative democracy. Planning recommendations made by dialogue are based on the intellectual force of arguments giving rea...

From Racial Zoning to Community Empowerment The Interstate Highway System and the African American Community in Birmingham, Alabama

Abstract: This article shows how Birminghams interstate highway system attempted to maintain the racial boundaries that had been established by the citys 1926 racial zoning law. It shows how the construction of interstate highways through black neighborhoods in the city led to significant population loss in those neighborhoods and is associated with an increase in neighborhood racial change. Finally, the article shows how the citys black community moved from a position of quietly protesting the interstate highway system to one in which a black neighborhood forced government to alter plans that would have destroyed a section of a predominantly black public housing project. In so doing, the article shows how black neighborhoods, over time, moved from a position of adapting to the racial aspects of various planning tools to one in which they sought to modify these tools so that they would benefit, or at least not harm, the black community.

Naturalized Epistemology and Dilemmas of Planning Practice

Abstract: This article proposes that a feminist interpretation of naturalized epistemology provides a sound basis for a deliberative planning approach. It preserves the grounds for making reasoned choices be...

Challenges Facing Chinese Planners in Transitional China

Abstract: The Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning (ACSP) joined planning organizations in Asia (APSA), Europe (AESOP), and Australia and New Zealand (ANZAPS) to organize the Global Planning School Congress (WPSC 2001) in China in 2001. While there have been a number of reports about transitions in China, the host country, rarely can we find information about Chinese urban planners, the hosts. Rapid economic and social changes left Chinese planners unprepared to confront new issues from day-to-day work to more fundamental problems such as the value of planning in a market economy. This article analyzes challenges facing Chinese planners in the transitional period and provides up-dated information about the planning profession in China. It also adds new materials in a comprehensive sense to the much broader topic, “What do planners do?”

Evolving institutions: an international exploration into planning and law

Abstract: This article explores the interrelationship between planning and law from an institutional point of view. Interest in institutions and general norms in the social and behavioral sciences has led to interdisciplinary cross-pollination. Theories of planning and law occupy a special position because they are rooted in practice. In practice, the main concerns are how institutions are validated in daily policies and how the meaning of institutional norms may change in the course of action. This article addresses how institutions evolve in the practice of planning and law. General norms are evoked, and may be given new meanings, when problems and social conflicts arise. The author investigates how this process plays out in various systems of planning and law. He contrasts the induction of norms in Anglo-Saxon systems to the deductive reasoning behind the German system and discusses the pattern of political "self-limitation" in the Dutch system.

Teaching for Practice Implementing a Process to Integrate Work Experience in an MCRP Curriculum

Abstract: Planning educators endeavor to prepare students for professional practice. Recent literature describes approaches that enhance this mission, including alternative pedagogies and teaching practice. Important to practice is relating knowledge and experience to new situations, a skill developed through reflecting on practice experiences. This article addresses efforts to integrate reflection into planning internship. The authors discuss the internship with reference to their masters of city and regional planning program as well as internship issues and expectations. They present thought questions developed to implement reflection in the internship and present student responses to them.

Planning for the Transportation Needs of Welfare Participants: Institutional Challenges to Collaborative Planning

Abstract: The responsibility for developing transportation programs for welfare participants spans multiple public agencies. Consequently, federal funding programs require that agencies work together to develop a coordinated response to addressing the transportation needs of welfare participants. Based on a survey of transportation, welfare and employment agencies in 19 California counties, this study examines the potential institutional obstacles to successful local collaboration and coordination among public agencies. The research shows that new sources of federal funds have encouraged interagency efforts to address the transportation needs of welfare participants. However, the divergent organizational goals, methods, and approaches of the participating agencies heavily influence these collaborative efforts. As a consequence, stakeholders may have difficulty moving beyond the narrow interests of their individual institutions to identify and plan for the transportation needs of welfare participants.

Rethinking Planning Theory for a Master’s-Level Curriculum:

Abstract: This article is dedicated to all those faculty members of master’s planning programs who, despite the fact that they are not planning theorists, find themselves teaching planning theory to students who see no benefit in learning planning theory. The article explores objectives and content of planning theory courses through the published literature and a limited sample of planning theory syllabi. In general, the results replicate earlier findings by Klosterman that planning theory courses are widely diverse. In addition, the article calls for a new literature of planning theory aimed at students—rather than other academics—and consistent with the objective of developing students’ capacity for reflective practice.

A Critical Look at the Use of Computing Technologies in Planning Education: The Case of the Spreadsheet in Introductory Methods

Abstract: Using John Forester’s elaboration of Habermas’s theory of communicative action, technological biases that result in the distortion of ordinary communication are explored. Planning instruction related to computing technologies should include critical appraisal of their potential for distortion of communication. The findings from an assessment reveal that students’ naive use of spreadsheet technologies increases the likelihood that analytic reports will be marred by distortions of communication. Planning students should be taught to anticipate systematic communication distortions that may arise as inevitable consequences of technological dimensions of everyday decisions. Further investigation is needed into the roles of computing technology in planning classrooms.

Active and Dormant Neighborhoods A Look at the Geographical Response to School-Based Care

Abstract: The purpose of this article is to construct a locality-based model of collective action useful for planners in understanding why collective action of any kind arises within the geographical boundaries of a residential terrain and how this in turn affects discretionary components of public service provision. The model is based on the premise that collective action is the cause and consequence of the local externality itself, the perceived needs of the residents, and the underlying power structure or the capacity to organize. The model is then tested in a case study that explores the conditions that led to locally initiated school-based care in 114 public elementary schools in Scarborough, Ontario, Canada. Policy implications and recommendations for action are presented.

Student Recruitment and the World Wide Web: An Analysis of the Supply of and Demand for Online Information in Planning

Abstract: Despite consensus that a World Wide Web (WWW) presence is crucial for any academic program, there has been very little investigation into the supply of information by Web sites and the demand for information by prospective students. This is a gap in the literature that this article attempts to fill. Two data sets lie at the heart of this work: (1) a census of the WWW sites of Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning (ACSP)-accredited planning programs and (2) a student survey of online information preferences. Findings indicate that the supply of information reflects demand rather well, with only a few existing gaps in online information. Despite this, a number of shortcomings remain concerning online information provision by planning programs. Web sites should emphasize content, but organization, connectivity, and style all play important roles in effective recruitment as well.

Planning Supported Housing A New Orientation in Housing for People with Serious Mental Illness

Abstract: There is a new role for planning in housing for people with serious mental illness. It involves the development of partnerships and protocols between mental health agencies and housing providers. This new role is not concerned with zoning and mitigating not-in-my-backyard responses. Supported housing is the newest and most popular model of housing and support for people with serious mental illness. It involves affordable integrated housing paired with flexible individualized mental health support services. Focusing on the Canadian experience, the authors review where past research on housing for people with serious mental illness has taken us. Supported housing and the new roles that planners can play in implementing this model are discussed.

Keys to Engaging Faculty in Service Lessons from West Virginia’s Community Design Team

Abstract: Fostering faculty participation in scholarly public service activities requires more attention to developing appropriate structures to motivate action. This article highlights several methods of stimulating and maintaining faculty interest in service using an extended example: a university-based planning assistance program for small communities. Creating the necessary preconditions for scholarly public service requires creativity, time, and administrative commitment.

Precolonial Towns of Southern Africa Integrating the Teaching of Planning History and Urban Morphology

Abstract: As South Africa underwent a period of fundamental change in the early 1990s, staff at the University of the Witwatersrand sought to make the planning curriculum relevant to the changing needs of th...