Lessons For Planners Research Articles

Queering the City: Understanding Gravitational Forces

This paper uses examples drawn from US cities (Midtown in Atlanta, Georgia, and Ybor City in Tampa, Florida) to develop a more generalizable framework within which to analyze the process of queering a neighborhood and identifying policy measures that might keep it queer. This kind of comparative approach enables a more careful reading of queer urban spaces based on the behaviors of LGBTQ people in and around those spaces. The strategic aim of these comparisons is to expand our understanding of queer spaces and to elaborate a more fluid model of queering cities. The paper uses a gravitational framework that identifies the centering (centripetal) and decentering (centrifugal) forces and the interplay between these forces. Each case provides different lessons for planners regarding the importance of either mitigating or exacerbating the centrifugal tendencies that so often threaten queer spaces. Because these forces are unique to each LGBTQ space, the analytic strategy provides for greater generalizability across different sizes of cities, across various cultural and ethnic areas, and a wider array of geographies.

Exploring Homeowners’ Openness to Building Accessory Dwelling Units in the Sacramento Metropolitan Area

Problem, research strategy, and findings Accessory dwelling units (ADUs) are once again a hot topic, as communities across the United States face housing shortages and rising housing costs. For planners and policymakers attempting to facilitate ADU development, it is important to understand the homeowners who do not yet have one. Yet there is remarkably limited research on whether those homeowners are open to building an ADU, what motivations and obstacles they perceive regarding adding one, and why some homeowners do not want to build one at all. We surveyed 502 single-family homeowners in the Sacramento (CA) metropolitan area to investigate those three questions. Our findings suggest that up to 47% of single-family detached homeowners in the city of Sacramento could be open to building an ADU. Homeowners’ top-ranked motivation for adding one was housing themselves, family, or friends in the future. Cost-related concerns ranked as the biggest perceived obstacles. Homeowners who did not want an ADU cited a mixture of logistical challenges and potentially more immutable personal preferences. Takeaway for practice Our findings suggest five lessons for planners. First, permissive regulation is an essential, but not sufficient, step toward addressing homeowners’ perceptions of regulatory obstacles. Second, local government regulations are not the only source of ADU restrictions. Third, even where ADUs are technically allowed, it can still be an arduous process to get one permitted. Fourth, cost remains a big obstacle to building ADUs. Fifth, homeowners—especially low-income households—need better financing options.

Spaces of Becoming: Lessons for Planners from the Square Movements

ABSTRACT The dilemma of openness reflects a long-standing ontological debate about public space. The dilemma is between creating boundless spaces that allow for an infinite diversity of uses but lack coherence, and bounding spaces to secure coherence at the cost of diversity. The implications for the theory and practice of public space planning, regulation, management and design are fundamentally different. By analyzing movement, occupation and identity in public spaces in the context of protest, I explore the concept of spaces of becoming: a fluid approach to public space interpretation and an alternative to the ‘dilemma of openness.’

The destruction of Juukan Gorge: lessons for planners and local governments

ABSTRACT In May 2020, Rio Tinto, one of Australia’s largest mining companies, destroyed two rock shelters in the Hammersley Ranges in the Pilbara. Juukan Gorge, evidence of 46,000 years of continual human occupation through the last ice age, was destroyed in seconds. ‘The caves that Rio Tinto destroyed had a fundamental religious significance to the Puutu Kunti Kurrama and Pinikura Peoples (PKKP), for whom these places constituted a part of their identity and central place in their social fabric’ (Langton, [2020]. The destruction of the Juukan Gorge caves: A cultural property crime in moral terms. The Saturday Paper, 19–25 September 2020, No. 319). They can never be restored or replaced.

The Concept and Measurement of Community Well-Being: Lessons for Planners

ABSTRACT Community well-being is considered a fundamental element of planning practice. However, it is not clear whether, and how explicitly, well-being is addressed in community (i.e. towns or cities) strategies or policy documents. If so, is theconcept used implicitly or explicitly? We reviewed policy documents from the 20 largest individual communities in Canada. Our findings suggest considerable difficulty with translation of data on well-being domains into actionable policy items. Canadian communities tend to focus on traditional, quantitative indicators of well-being. The more nuanced, subjective assessments of well-being are typically not reflected in Canadian communities’ strategies, plans, programs or policies.

Disability, Terror and Safety in the City: Charting Individuals’ Spatio-temporal Encounters with Counter-terrorism Measures in Birmingham, UK

ABSTRACTThis paper responds to recent calls for further work on vulnerable people’s experiences of official planned attempts to create safe cities that are based on ableist assumptions. Go-along interviews elicited from people with cognitive, physical or motor impairments, together with interviews taken from built environment professionals are used to highlight the diverse ways in which differently disabled individuals encounter official efforts to create safe, secure urban spaces and suppress terrorist threats in one UK city centre (Birmingham). Focusing on individuals’ embodied spatio-temporal experiences provide wider lessons for planners and urban stakeholders about the decision-making processes people adopt during urban crises.

Clientelism and Planning in the Informal Settlements of Developing Democracies

The informal provision of benefits to the poor in exchange for political support, known as clientelism, often provides access to land and services for the urban poor in informal settlements in developing democracies. This review of multidisciplinary literature finds that while clientelism provides the urban poor with some access to the state, its benefits are often inadequate and inequitable. This kind of informal provision also disincentivizes or interferes with the implementation of formal plans. The literature provides some examples of transitions away from clientelism, but lessons for planners in facilitating such transitions are elusive.

Towards Achieving Resilience at the Rural–Urban Fringe: the Case of Jamestown, South Africa

The “rural–urban fringe” is under assault worldwide, as cities expand in seemingly unstoppable growth, commonly known as “urban sprawl.” As cities grow, this “transition zone” becomes a contested area as various actors fight for space, with varying opinions on land use. This paper describes the decision-making dynamics governing land use in Jamestown, located in the rural–urban fringe, in Stellenbosch Municipality, South Africa. A fundamental lesson that emerged out of the research is that local outcomes are highly vulnerable to economic and political realities that may exist far from the area itself, resulting in clear winners, and “losers,” often depending on the ideological perspective of the individuals involved. The paper aims to draw out several lessons for planners and advocates of sustainable urban design: given the complex pressures governing land use in present day South Africa, what is there to be learned from this particular case in terms of “best practice” and best/better ways forward?

Climate change adaptation in British Columbia communities: lessons for planners

The purpose of this paper is to explore community adaptation to climate change. We illustrate how a workshop format can be used to raise awareness about the need for adaptation in communities and to engage planners in finding solutions. Professionals can no longer rely on the past as a proxy for the future. Communities will have to become more resilient to an uncertain future, and planners must take the lead in advocating for this resiliency. Planners will play an integral role in assisting communities as they adapt to climate change due to their ability to think in a long-term context and communicate effectively with stakeholders. The results of a climate change workshop focusing on the case study community of Prince George, British Columbia, Canada are summarised.

Social learning and sustainable tourism development; local quality conventions in tourism: a Greek case study

This paper presents the trajectory of an innovative organisational scheme, the Local Quality Convention (LQC), concerning sustainable tourism development in the Lake Plastiras area, a less favoured area in Central Greece. It outlines the development issues of the area, the main actors, their views and practices and describes the creation, progress and emerging problems of the LQC scheme. Research reveals contradicting approaches to sustainable tourism development which, in turn, influenced the LQC's evolution. The findings are critically discussed in the light of the Social Learning (SL) approach to social change and sustainable development. According to SL it is only through interactive (participative), concerted action that stakeholders are able to co-construct an issue and its solutions. Given the dominance of “conventional” tourism in Greece as well as the top-down formation and implementation of policies, the importance of the long term facilitation of local stakeholders to achieve sustainable tourism development is demonstrated, along with other related lessons for planners and managers.

Contemporary Public Involvement: Toward a strategic approach

Many planning agencies and stakeholder groups experimented with innovative forms of public involvement in the 1990s. British Columbia is one such jurisdiction which embraced the concept of public involvement in a broad range of land and resource management planning scales - to the degree of collaborative planning with communities, using consensus. The purpose of this paper is to present lessons for planners, supported by literature and by research in British Columbia, Canada from 1995-97, on these public involvement processes. Building on earlier 'typologies' for public involvement in planning, it proposes a strategic approach for identifying and analysing stakeholders, for setting objectives and for subsequently choosing the most appropriate level of public involvement.

The use of monitoring systems: an evaluation of the SETIA project monitoring system

The use of the SETIA project monitoring system that has been developed by the Federal Government of Malaysia is analysed with a view to identifying some general lessons for planners and policymakers involved in the development of decision support systems in both more developed and less developed countries. An important feature of the SETIA system is the wide range of users in central planning agencies, spending ministries, and state-level agencies that is involved and the extent to which the system makes use of well-established monitoring and evaluation procedures.

Early Attempts at Aquaculture in Malawi and Implications for Future Projects

This article discusses the evolution of the policy governing the initial introduction of fish farming in Malawi. It evaluates the implementation of the policy, paying particular attention to the response of the rural farmers, their expectations and frustrations. The article, based on interviews of farmers and on archival sources, demonstrates that lack of practical support such as the provision of extension workers contributed to the failure of the project. The study has lessons for planners and implementers of similar projects in Malawi and elsewhere in Africa.

Early Attempts at Aquaculture in Malawi and Implications for Future Projects

This article discusses the evolution of the policy governing the initial introduction of fish farming in Malawi. It evaluates the implementation of the policy, paying particular attention to the response of the rural farmers, their expectations and frustrations. The article, based on interviews of farmers and on archival sources, demonstrates that lack of practical support such as the provision of extension workers contributed to the failure of the project. The study has lessons for planners and implementers of similar projects in Malawi and elsewhere in Africa.

Book Review: Community Mental Health Teams: Lessons for Planners and Managers

Book Review: Community Mental Health Teams: Lessons for Planners and Managers

Drought in Bangladesh: Lessons for planners and administrators

The 1978–1979 drought in Bangladesh affected three crop seasons, reducing rice production by an estimated two million tons. Rainfall deficiency varied regionally and locally, and drought effects varied with soils, crops and management. Farmers used new practices such as irrigation of crops normally grown rainfed, cultivation of famine millets, and – when rain eventually fell – transplanting crops that normally are direct seeded (including replanting to fill gaps in drought‐affected fields). Crop rotations also were adjusted to compensate for crop losses or late planting and to take advantage of reduced flood‐levels or changed market prices. The various and location‐specific responses by farmers provide useful lessons for planners and administrators in a disaster‐prone country: production plans and programmes must be flexible; relevant environmental factors, crop areas sown and crop condition must be closely monitored and the implications promptly assessed; and the farmers' repertoire of disaster‐mitigating practices should be recorded so as to provide a basis for more pragmatic research, extension and development programmes. A method for monitoring and assessing rainfall is described.

Lessons from the New Jersey Coastal Management Program

Abstract This review of the New Jersey experience at protecting and managing coastal resources identifies five lessons for planners. First, strengthen the enforcement of existing laws by aggressively adopting implementation rules. Second, take risks and be innovative to advance the long-term public interest. Third, consult widely with diverse segments of the public and interest groups, but avoid raising unrealistic expectations. Fourth, create and use opportunities for negotiation to resolve conflicts. Fifth, publish sound planning documents, for both present and unanticipated future uses.

Planification et sous-développement régional en Papouasie — Nouvelle-Guinée

Planning for less developed areas in Papua New Guinea. — Planning in Papua New Guinea is becoming an increasingly specialised function of experts in the central government. While the public rhetoric of politicians, bureaucrats and academics is about decentralisation and rural development, the reality is that economic planners and international aid and lending agencies insist on obtaining a reasonable return on investment. Thus planners in Port Moresby favour development of those areas already advantaged and capable of giving rapid returns. The isolated and less developed areas therefore become increasingly disadvantaged and underdeveloped. Recent planning exercices carried out in Papua New Guinea for isolated and less developed areas have been very varied. Some of these plans and their impacts are analysed so that useful lessons for planners can be learnt. One obvious outcome is that there exists a need for geographers in the development planning process. First there is a divergence between macro -national planning and the real needs of rural and isolated communities. What may be good for the nation is often very bad for small communities so questions of scale and space are critatically important. Further, the generalist, field work and regional skills of a geographer are required to get an understanding of areas where statistical data are lacking and the nuances of people and place cannot always be understood by using sophisticated methods of regional analysis.