Comments on: I Think Our Environment is Crucial. Why Should I Care About City Planning?

By: Don Bradley, Ph.D., AICP

Don Bradley, Ph.D., AICP — Sun, 03 May 2009 04:11:32 +0000

Thank you George, Bruce, Robert, and Cindy, for all of your thoughtful contributions. I believe what we all can agree on
is that good planning and smart growth is so much beneficial
to no planning or as we used to call it “disjointed incrementalism”.
I,ve told students for decades that I believe that rural sprawl is
worse for the environment, people, and society than urban sprawl.
First, most civilized humans like to live fairly close to their families,
work, and other citizens who all contribute to the total culture.
We are learning now that is seems to be a necessity to get densities
higher to reduce travel distances to all of our activities which has
the intended benefit of being more efficient, saving time and resources as well as helping reduce global warming and resource
depletion. The unintended payoff is that we may just all become
more tolerant, diverse, and enjoy living together in a richer urban
atmosphere. If we and our allies can assist in making urban and
regional planning in this nation less political and economic and more social and physical we will truly serve the long range future interest
and the public welfare. Keep up the good work and fight. Don

By: Al

Al — Fri, 01 May 2009 02:59:08 +0000

Awesome…

Now how do we get the rest of the world to think like us?

By: George Osner

George Osner — Fri, 01 May 2009 02:45:49 +0000

Thank you all for some excellent comments that really extend the conversation.

It is so true that planning needs to encompass the whole realm, city and county alike. This post focuses on the city part of the equation. The countryside serves so many critical functions–three obvious ones–1) is is the place where most of our food supply comes from. Even with emerging urban agriculture and a return to food gardening, most food will continue to come from farms. 2) the countryside is the great bio-renewal area, where growing things take in CO2 and regenerate oxygen, and where our companion species on the planet can find a place to thrive. 3) the countryside is a landscape necessary for the renewal and regeneration of our spirits.

I live in a city surrounded by farmland, and with natural landscapes at a distance beyond the farmland. Both are vital parts of human life and survival. In regard to the farmland, this is very much a human shaped landscape, and planning is needed to maintain it as a productive element. This could be another whole column, but for now let me just say that a focus on population in the cities and densifying them, rather than sprawling around the edges and transplanting whole populations into ranchettes, is necessary to maintain our food supply, let alone the other vital purposes of the countryside.

Yes, good planning and good planners are all about adapting to change, and change is what we will be experiencing–in spades–in the coming decades. Planning as a means to address the coming changes–another great topic for a future post–thanks, Bob!

This is such a vital topic, hope you keep the conversation going, online and in your home communities. I invite you to join the dialog on Twitter–I’m @gosner there.

By: David

David — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 18:10:39 +0000

Great post, thanks for sharing it. I see some of these communities springing up, like Stapleton in Denver, which reuse “dead” land into great sustainable communities – and it gives me hope. I live in the country now, but sometimes I do wish I lived in a place where I could walk or ride my bike everywhere and that was designed to be self-sustaining. Maybe someday will leave the country…

By: Cindy van Empel

Cindy van Empel — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 17:14:21 +0000

It’s good to see a fellow New Urbanist (or two!) here.

As George does, I get a bit tired hearing the same old saw about developers building what the market wants. I’m not as nice as George. I say “nonsense”!

When population characteristics of buyers are shifting toward “empty nesters,” childless couples, and unmarried people, I simply do not buy the idea that what these people really want is a 3,500-square-foot house miles from the nearest store and nightlife.

No, what developers too often build is whatever is easy and cheap. People buy houses they don’t really want in order to gain a toehold in the housing market.

Furthermore, what the market “wants” is not the same as what it can afford or manage to maintain. I might want to live in Trump Tower, but if I can’t make the payments, then I have to live somewhere else. Witness the sickening rise in foreclosures, which are ruining the families who unwisely entered contracts they could not afford and are destroying the housing market for those who own houses, but who want to sell for some reason.

Almost everyone loses.

Better we should build a variety of housing types in transportation efficient locations, which will reduce residents’ transportation costs and allow people to live how they choose. The happy byproducts are improved living conditions for everyone, more stable finances for municipalities, and a more stable housing market.

By: Robert Borchard, AICP

Robert Borchard, AICP — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 14:29:30 +0000

As you know, I consider myself a “city builder” but city planning and design does not operate in a vacuum at the scale that it is necessary for us to make changes. We are at a point in our (humanity’s) evolution where the changes need to occur at a societal level. Our culture of consumption needs to change. The things we value, family, work, entertainment, our environment, need to be re-evaluated. As planners (city builders) we must also become educators; advocates for a new world that has arrived (like it or not GW and friends) and our window of opportunity is small! Climate change is upon us and we can plan for a smaller carbon footprint. There must be a willing consumer for our product though! More important, at least to me, we need to prepare society for the foreseeable consequences of the damage that we have already wrought on our planet. Rising sea levels, changing water/agricultural crop patterns; our forests, plant and animal life, everything around us is in a “shift mode” and we must start to make adjustments NOW. We need to begin the process of educating the public on what to expect and preparing for the necessary changes in our infrastructure. In the real world we are dealing with, the carbon footprint is the easy part of the challenge before us. Guess I’m on a rant, huh. Good day ole buddy; good job!

By: Bruce McClendon

Bruce McClendon — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 14:14:35 +0000

Outstanding article, clearly stated and yet very comprehensive. I what to reinforce the importance of public involvement and participation in all aspects of the development decision making process. The real change that President Obama has been calling for, is all about public empowerment. Planners should be at the front line and champions for citizen participation and co-ownership of the consequences of development and redevelopment decisions.

By: Pierrette Mimi Poinsett MD FAAP

Pierrette Mimi Poinsett MD FAAP — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 13:52:03 +0000

Great article. However I think it is important to expand the paradigm to consider regions rather than cities alone. How do we address city borders, urban-suburban-rural interfaces, people living on the edges? There is a place for people to live in well planned dense communities. However without our rural areas and the important agricultural products they produce, cities cannot function well.