Craft & Customize Methods
The process of problem solving begins before we know it. When a planner is asked to make a public place (region, city, neighborhood, street, house or a bench) there is no blank slate – the mind of the planner or designer comes with talent, intellect, and a history of problem solving. It is not a fresh start. As soon as we hear a request, planners see answers. Planners should not suppress these early visions.
By the time a planning request occurs, a planner should have:
a good idea of the client group needs and values\
the planners’s own personal planning goals
the type of choices to be advocated, and
the start of some early visualizations and even some re-visualizations to be evaluated.
At the same time, when the clock starts ticking, planners must identify the types of methods they will use. Planning methods should be used in an ad hoc and responsive manner. During the problem solving process planners should constantly modify, combine and reinterpret methods so they are fully integrated with the overall mission and the tasks of other team members. By the end, the methods should be fully crafted and customized to fit the desired visualizations.
Plan Surrounded By Ignorance
Planners cannot avoid ignorance – it’s universal and part of our being. But we can avoid, or at least minimize, the results of ignorance that infused and diminished the value of outcomes in past plans. Most planners can identify so-called foolish things that have happened to us: neighborhoods destroyed by urban renewal; traffic jams created by more freeways; sprawl created by reducing density; requiring parking when it was not needed; property tax revenue decreasing; on and on.
In the folk stories I noted previously, the foolishness of the plans made by Chelm’s leaders stem from both profound ignorance a lack of critical thinking, oversimplification and undeserved arrogance. When I read that the planners of Chelm proposed a water mill with no water, I imagined today’s planners proposing a main street with no businesses or an industrial park located too far from needed transportation (unfortunately these are not fictional anecdotes).
Imagine that a contemporary plan commission wanted a highly active main street with lots of people. If the planners noticed that some busy main streets in other cities had no cars would they recommend eliminating all the cars? Would that solve their problem? Would they just think “build it without cars and the pedestrians will come”? Yes, to both! And yes, this is actually what happened, not in fictional Chelm, but in our own communities!
This type of ignorance created many abandoned, dormant, dead streets, thereby proving that removing cars does not add pedestrians – it just removes cars (as well as the pedestrians who were the drivers, passengers, and shoppers in the cars). Did the planners know how many pedestrians lived and worked within walking distance of main streets, by season, by the hour, by the day of the week? We can guess at these numbers but that is usually too unreliable.
We could know more if we aimed our methods in the direction of pragmatic answers. We can find useful data, imbued with some wisdom, by avoiding data that is too general, abstract, or simply invalid. In the story in Chelm, the water in the river must precede the water mill and so too must pedestrians precede the activated street. Preceding the pedestrian there must be desired activities for goods and services which, in turn, must be preceded by buildings which, in turn must be preceded by highly accessible building entries which, in turn, are often preceded by a combination of parking and enough pedestrians living and working nearby.
As planners then, how can we avoid the problems created by the ignorance that underlies so many bad planning decisions? How can we avoid making measurements that are overly general approximations and not really useful? How can think it through and uncover what really is happening in our streets and cities in order to base our actions on valid observations?
These four plans were crated in a context of political ignorance that could not be avoided. The top two illustrations show land use and urban design plans for part of Glenview Illinois that were created without knowing the specific political opinions of local leaders regarding their underlying, unstated objectives for a traditional main street. The bottom two images show traffic and land use options created for Hales Corners Wisconsin that were prepared for a local citizen’s group which did not represent the objectives of the village leaders. In both cases, good plans failed, not because the planning and design decisions were weak but because the client group was unwilling to involve the planners in the key issues.
Gamble On Doing Nothing
Making plans, like plans for an activated main street, inevitably involves risks as well as rewards. If a plan commission chooses to avoid risk, they are also avoiding possibilities. Risk/reward management and planning go hand in hand. Just minimizing risk does not represent wise planning. Unfortunately, many planning officials only equate planning with political risk. Avoiding political risks may also entail avoiding the very planning concepts that have the greatest value.
Doing nothing is often the most defensible political risk. Unfortunately, doing nothing may also be the option with the least reward. When faced with an environment that is satisfactory, boring, unchanging, and traditional, the concept of ‘doing nothing’ may seem the wisest plan. In other circumstances planners face environments that are unsatisfactory, highly complex, changing constantly, and filled with many unfamiliar circumstances. In such cases, “doing nothing” – the sin of omission – often seems like a wise choice.
Doing nothing, however, still results in a wide range of actions — just not actions that result from the planning issues at hand. While planners, and their communities, do nothing, the community keeps changing. Housing continues to be built, occupied, and deteriorate. Infrastructures wears out. Climate changes. Commercial markets churn constantly. Doing nothing, is no more or less than a political choice that is easily defended. It is hard to blame elected officials for not taking a risk. It is only after years of hindsight that we can look back and state with clarity that planners and their bosses should have done something sooner, not later.
The so-called “do-nothing” option really means “pause with no plan”. When planners propose a “pause” and advocate for more study they are, in fact, acting to continue all current conditions, and the associated consequences, in place. Sometimes a planning “pause” is used (hopefully in a legitimate way) to allow political discussion to proceed because past solutions have caused harm. Some critics would say that planners and urban designers always get it wrong, and they should pause permanently. But even Jane Jacobs, one of the best critics of the planning profession, actually recommended alternative modes of action to be followed by planners when conventional planning solutions did not work.
Planners have come to recognize that we always need to tell community clients they have the choice of doing nothing. The problem is that we fail to fully explicate the nature of that option. The challenge, then, is to recognize the circumstances of today that require us to take risky actions and do something, albeit something less risky than doing nothing. One way to defend this approach is to clearly document the negative aspects of doing nothing while maximizing the potential positive outcomes.
These image illustrate the choice of “doing nothing” as a way to “pause”. The top three images were discussed in a project intended to improve the cross section and activation of Old University Avenue in Madison, Wisconsin. At the end of the planning work, the community decided to do nothing, pause, and then develop policies after a much longer period of discussion. The lower three images, were created to revive a shopping mall built in Milwaukee’s central city. The city and the client group ultimately decided to do nothing and pause because the local market conditions were unfavorable. Later decisions made minor improvements but avoided major demolitions.
Block Threats, Emphasize Opportunities
Sometimes planners give communities false choices such as “you can do nothing but then your main street will get much worse”. We often include poison pills in options without even realizing it “you can approve a new development but it will block a view of the lake”. A simple rule of thumb for planners would be: “don’t suggest any option as planner that you cannot support if selected by the client.”
At the simplest level planners should clearly distinguish between “keeping things the same “and “do nothing”. Keeping things the same requires interventions and actions to stop conditions from worsening. We often fail to talk about the long-term consequences of minimal change. Can avoid negative consequences quickly or over the long term? Many communities want to kick the can down the road: “we can let the infrastructure deteriorate but we will need to pay more later in order to keep it sustainable.”
This type of “do nothing” action becomes appealing to elected officials concerned with budgets and taxes. Doing nothing now raises budgets and taxes later. It will be the problem of the next council (or the next generation). In these circumstances planners should make sure that their visualizations include both positive and negative impacts. Leaders may legitimately choose to impose burdens on future generations, but they should do so with a full understanding of those costs. Unfortunately many community leaders try to ignore future costs, pretend they do not exist, and/or propose remedies that are more of a mirage.
This photograph depicts a series of land use decisions which I have always considered impossible: a river, marina, one story steak house, 15 levels of spiraled parking, and housing on top, in two towers, in front of a major music venue. This represents a highly memorable opposite of “do nothing”.
Avoid Placebos
A mirage of future success, from my view, is the planner’s placebo. When used improperly a planning placebo is not better than “snake oil” -- a plan that looks good (lots of pretty pictures), oversimplified, disconnected from reality, including a promised cure-all for what ails your community. Snake oil plans make communities feel good but leave the community, the next year, wondering why nothing has changed. If some good outcomes did happen (or if some bad stuff did not happen) it must be the plan. With pharmaceutical placebos used in research, the outcomes are compared with different treatments that presumably offer an effective solution to the problem. In planning, however, “placebo” plans are no more than a way to avoid consideration of genuine change. The illustration below is my outline of a plan that works like a placeb0 — helping communities think they have taken steps towards improvement when, in fact, they have deluded themselves into thinking they are moving in the right direction. Such plans can easily be avoided if planners included critical actions in the plan, even if they may be “avoided” by the local community.
Many Hollywood movies repeat the trope that in the best “con” games the victim does not know they have been fooled. While it is not the intent of planners to fool clients, it is often the case that plans cost time and money and ultimately have little value. Traditionally these have been called “shelf” plans. Today they just sit on digital shelves.
Shelf plans, or today’s digital plans are not harmless. They consume time and money, and they often lead communities away from meaningful solutions — in the same way that a bottle of snake oil will lead persons away from addressing real problems. On the other hand, building confidence in a community to take action in the face of uncertainty is a worthy planning goal.
So what is the difference between legitimate confidence building and a confidence game. It is the difference between false hope based on a mirage and realistic hope based on expertise, experience, and ability. Planners must become better at communicating these ideas to the public – showing how an end-state visualization can actually occur through a specific series of steps that start with the current state of affairs and, with realistic use of time, talent, and resources, to an achievable outcome.
Choose Know-How Over Principles
Using “know-how” as a basis for effective planning action is hard to achieve. As noted previously, sometimes a key component of this behavior involves decisions called “muddling through” or “disjointed incrementalism”. In a slightly less academic way this type of action is called “bricolage” – or the learned ability to make things happen effectively by using that which is at hand. “Bricolage” involves a tacit skill, that evolves among wise/talented experts. The ability to effectively engage in practice based on know-how may be more important than basing action solely on established principles.
For planners the ability to follow principles exclusively is relatively easy – it is the same argument we always encounter when it comes to following standards and routines. Essentially, the moment a new planning trend is codified into standards, upheld by principles, and documented through online videos, it becomes widespread – even more so with online communications. Widespread principles and standards, however, do not expand the ability to respond to critical contextual conditions. In fact, the idea of contextualism has actually been watered down by reducing it to principles which do not apply to many contextual conditions.
We lack an effective way of separating the talented and skillful expert form those with less expertise. If the approach of “bricolage” is legitimate, then the methodology can only be the selection of practitioners with “know-how.” In art, this would be called “talent” but in any discipline that involves functionality it is harder to define, let alone consider valuable. There is no test or license for talent and “know-how”. The relentless practice of requiring continuing education to keep professionals up to date can actually mask the need for engaging those with “know-how.” This is not simply a “talent” for getting things done – anyone can get something done with enough force – it is about getting something done that is effective with the broadest range of high value outcomes – aesthetic, political, financial, economic, social, short and long term.
All of these images are components of a larger scale project we dubbed “Rivercrest” housing. Implementing this project required significant talent from architects, engineers, developers, and planners. For example, the housing components are actually 5 story building with parking locate at the lowest level along the River Road as well as parking on the third floor which is actually at the same level as the top the bluff. It is a solution that relies heavily on “bricolage” using contextual conditions, market economics, and several landscape concepts – not based on stand alone principles – but based on the talents of each of the individual decision makers.
Choose Innovation Over Novelty
Within the process of planning actions, clients often seek out innovation. Many designers, use this attitude as the basis for proposing unfamiliar — even something that disorientates the audience momentarily. If the viewers, especially the client group, asks “what is that” or states “that seems different” then we know they are experiencing something unfamiliar or traditional. But making something unfamiliar does not make it innovative. If it did, three-year-olds would be the most celebrated artists.
It is easy for a designer to create a place that only seems apart or unfamiliar. This is not a type of place that is innovative, just incoherent. This problem emanates from a continued experience of incoherent places. The idea of ignoring context is confused constantly with the idea of creating something new.
Sometimes designers make something “new” by using natural features as the rationale – that is, by adding shapes and forms that re non-contextual but made with plants and vegetation, planners mistakenly claim an innovative approach. In practice, the use of natural materials has been used for millennia as a coherent component of cities, neighborhoods, streets and plazas – it is traditional, high value, but not necessarily innovative.
When we do not recognize something – if we are unable to place it within a framework of understanding of either the natural or built environment– it is necessarily new. It may be incoherent and meaningless. The best designers – the ones with talent -- actually propose ideas that are both innovative and traditional, new and old at the same time.
This project – entitled Riverhomes – required a combination of non-standard decisions by the architects, developers and planners that reoriented townhomes in a way that did not follow common urban design housing principles. Instead this solution crafted a traditional double-sided block that was much narrower than conventional blocks using principles found in such urban patterns.
Topic Summary
Plan Surrounded By Ignorance
Gamble On Doing Nothing
Block Threats, Emphasize Opportunities
Avoid Placebos
Choose Know-How Over Principles
Choose Innovation Over Novelty