Replace Conventional Practice
Even when planners avoid failed theories and models, they still must search for solutions. Usually planners rely on conventional practice. What did our planning department do the last time? What did our competitors do? What do the national planning organizations recommend? What can I find online? We always look for the fast (an usually easy) answer – especially when we have very little time or resources to investigate problems in depth. Following conventional practice also provides planners a plausible excuse for failure – we just did what was done before.
“Parking” has become the most conventional of all planning uses. Planners have struggled for decades to find good solutions. Perhaps one of the best solutions just uses good places, like renaissance and medieval plazas, as the best place to park cars (as opposed to organized spiral towers above boat parking).
While conventional solutions seem like “common sense” they often do not work well and may harm communities. Conventional solutions may embody wisdom from the past, but they likely contain actions that also fail or at least lead to new problems. Planners should engage in significant levels of skepticism and critical thinking before advocating “conventional” choices. What seems wise in one decade can change as the profession and communities evolve. In the last two decades:
Parking minimums became maximums.
Maximum densities have become minimum densities.
Minimum setbacks have become build-to lines.
Signalized intersections have become roundabouts
Freeways are problems as well as solutions
The following sections of this essay describe some conventional ideas and the need for their reconsideration.
Replace Practice #1: Siloing Land Use
Plans usually segregate incompatible land uses – that is, one land use presumably harms its neighboring land use. Planners often suggest land buffers between “incompatible” uses like housing and industry. Wide berms and buffers, however, usually do not remove or mitigate nuisances -- they simply emphasize their separation and reinforce the notion that land uses have been siloed for good reason.
Separating land uses occurs throughout human history. The issue is which uses should be separated, why, and for how long? Conversely which uses should be intertwined, overlapped, and fully integrated?
Emphasizing incompatibility among land uses seems analogous to ways in which we describe incompatibility amongst different groups of people. Frequently social critics references “xenophobia” or the fear of strangers in regard to separation amongst population groups: rich or poor, new and old, gender, skin color, intelligence, etc. In planning we separate ourselves using berms and buffers to send a clear message that two neighboring places “oppose” each other and embody adversarial features. Planners have reinforced, promulgated, and mistakenly validated such fears amongst different land users – housing fears industry; wealth fears poverty; big houses fear little houses. Garages in the front fear garages in the back. Tall buildings fear short ones. This practice goes on and on, sometimes needlessly and usually without mindful evaluation.
For decades planners have used different colors to represent a land uses on individual pieces of property as defined by lot lines. This practice actually misinforms other planners and the public. This practice hides useful information and forces us to think in one-dimensional terms – owners of land. The map shown here (compiled for a comprehensive plan in Glenview Illinois in the 1990s) also shows uses – not by property lines but by the form of buildings and the actual “use” that occurs on the land regardless of lot lines – a residential activity in a house (yellow) is a different use than a lawn (green) or parking lot (grey). When more than one use occupies the same building, the colors along the edges of the building show the ground level activity. Collectively this shows planners and the public a full range of knowledge that can be visually integrated. Why don’t more planners do this? It’s hard, requires multiple skills, and most importantly, this is unconventional.
“Xenophobic” land use makes bad cities and neighborhoods. Ironically, when tourists adore a quaint village or charming small town street it usually turns out that land uses have not been separated artificially but allowed to merge with each other, often with positive effect. In our dwelling units do we buffer the bedroom from the living room or just use a decorated wall? Sometimes activities require differentiation and sometimes they need integration. Many cities have gone overboard in separating people, places, activities, and ideas. Such separations are the opposite of community.
Land uses codes are not places. We do not live, work, and play in a land use. Does anyone say “I live in H3, work in C2, and then play in the right-of-way and I-2 districts?” Is it any wonder that many people do not appreciate land use planning? Our plans should not begin with jargon-based abstractions but with land uses defined as places of our everyday lives. Maybe land use plans would be understood if we described how people reside in real neighborhoods with real names. Do we live on the Lower Eastside, work in the Arts District, and play in Lakefront Park? Meaningful places and their activities must be defined and named from the bottom-up, not bureaucratized in incoherent codes from the top-down.
Planners need to stop siloing land uses and start to leverage diversity. Different land uses, like different neighbors can coexist. A wide variety of actions can make uses compatible. These include landscapes that bind places together rather than repel each other – especially landscapes that have visual appeal as opposed to an inhospitable grass covered mound of dirt. In addition to using landscapes as attractive “seams” places can also use good fences – not as security devices but as attractive visual elements between two pieces of the urban fabric like an urban quilt. The phrase “good fences make good neighbors” can be interpreted by some as suggesting that two neighbors want to repel the sight of abutting property owners when, in practice, it can be more like a welcoming feature where one neighbor creates something attractive that both can share.
Replace Practice #2: Avoiding (And Mislabeling) Mixed Use
Land uses, historically, have been defined by highly bureaucratic codes (sometimes using four numerical digits). Imagine the conflicts we would have if we used four digit codes to describe neighboring people. You would no longer be a cultural group but a number code. Will Gen Z (already abstract and devoid of self-evident meaning) devolve into demographic code 24-3? Different land use codes do not represent genuine difference in the activities on the land. Instead, they represent differences in the economic intent of the property owners. For example, two parcels both may use land for large parking lots, large stormwater features and large one story buildings. One may be called “highway commercial” and another called “medium industrial” and still another called “public works”. These uses differ in economic intent but not terms of the actual activities/uses on the land and, therefore, not relevant to many key planning issues.
On today’s land use map, a convent, monastery or abbey would be shown with one color representing religious or institutional uses. The same is true for other institutions like colleges and universities. It occurred to me that many of these institutions were, in fact, self-contained sustainable communities that could serve as models for current land use practice. I asked a student to color code the uses for some religious places over the centuries (shown above). Today, for example, the university where I work (UWM) includes several housing facilities, cafeterias, grocery stores, a police force, a heating plant, theaters, recreational facilities, parks, parking, offices, and, of course, classrooms. It is a full community which at times supports 30,000 people. But it is just one color on a land use map because that is conventional.
Mixed uses can occur within a single room, in a single building, on a single lot, on a single street, or in a single neighborhood. From my perspective, truly mixed uses mean different categories of human activities in the same place – a live/work house; a parking lot used as a farmers’ market; a high school gym used for a theatrical performance; a front yard for a rummage sale; a public street used for a block party; a parking space used for outdoor dining. That is, truly mixed uses mean that multiple uses should occur in the same place.
The pushback against “mixed use” comes from a desire to control property economics because mixed uses can create uncertainties in land values which rarely helps property investors. Yet planners have learned that many places will become failures unless the uses are mixed, activated, integrated, unified and overlapped. To do this, we need to avoid conventional wisdom for segregating uses. The segregation of uses to provide overly zealous protection of property rights has hurt communities more than it has helped. Some uses need to be separated when there are clear dangers to human life — but they should not be separated to reinforce unproductive social biases.
Named places (which include different activities) are preferable to using the “mixed use” label. Different named places should include customized regulations for social and economic activities. Setbacks also can be customized to fit each neighborhood, rather than applied in cookie-cutter fashion to different residential areas. A place-based land use map can easily include customized regulations for visual character, circulation, environmental preservation, resilience, and so forth. A “uniform” code applied to an entire community can become a straitjacket, whereas a “tailored” code can more comfortably fit the unique local conditions within each sub-area. In our experience, we have managed to avoid major disagreements when we create plans that reflect a common understanding of the neighborhoods, districts and corridors that comprise the local community.
Guess the land use. Death By Coffee? Eternity Cafe? Graves & Grounds? Is it mixed use? Institutional and retail? Park and piety? Whatever way you categorize these uses they are much more than “mixed”. They probably violate most zoning codes. They might be “conditional uses” or “planned development” — but all of those naming conventions fail to communicate the idea in plain language. It is obviously a good place with good uses so why can’t planners find simple language that would make this use evident without overthinking the intent? (Oxford, 1994)
One way to encourage mixed uses and diversity requires avoiding concepts of exclusivity. For example, planners can:
Define urban neighborhoods as allowing mixed urban uses of moderate intensity on all lots and only call out a limited number of places where some uses must be excluded
Use form-based codes to increase the diversity of building uses
Create a long list of allowed and desirable uses for each place and a very short list of prohibited uses.
Make it easier for local government to modify list of uses administratively rather than formal regulatory changes.
Encourage mixed and diverse activities explicitly by stating that all neighborhoods should encourage a mixture of social activities, families, businesses, income levels, and cultural facilities, and so forth.
Replace Practice #3: Standardizing Comprehensive Plans
Comprehensive planning has a robust history based on various ideologies and historical movements. Most planners in Wisconsin, where I work, have employed a singular approach for comprehensive plans based on a Smart Growth Law that outlines nine elements that must be included in all such plans. Almost universally, these nine elements have been treated as disjointed categories with separate chapters, goals, data, and recommendations. This approach has, in effect, made comprehensive planning piecemeal, overly bureaucratic and clearly noncomprehensive. The same template is used for rural towns (with low populations, little infrastructure, highly similar uses, and many square miles of farms) and urban cities (with no farms, high densities, lots of infrastructure, and mixed uses throughout). Planners may seek comfort in the reality of a plan template that others have used. As always, if the plan has a weakness planners can blame the standards. Why use the same template? The answer: “because someone so.”
Standards for plans make sense when applied to comparable systems or circumstances with strong similarities. However, Comprehensive Plans are far too complex with too many unique components to be subjected to strict standards in terms of content or process. In Wisconsin, statutes require that comprehensive plans include the same elements regardless of context and circumstances (elements which planners almost never promote for synergy with each other):
This image contains the precise language in the Wisconsin State Statutes for the contents required n a comprehensive plan. It reminds me of the little box we may on new software regarding that states “I agree” (sometimes without reading the full text). This way of regulating the contents of a comprehensive plan is the opposite of the process planners should use. The subjects listed in the statute are legitimate but there is something profoundly wrong with assuming these contents represent a valid “comprehensive” approach to a good comprehensive plan. The process should be flexible, fluid, contextualized, representative, and, without mandates. Above all, such plans should flow from the community for which they are intended. These regulations do not indicate priorities for resources, capital budgets, operating budgets, education, public health, aesthetics, place-making, diversity, social and economic justice, climate change, or any of the other major issues which have dominated planning practice for the first few years. If anything, these rules tend to institutionalize the irrelevance of planning.
This image of Camden, from 1968, probably derived from conventional planning practices that included the elimination of blight and implementation of urban renewal. It seems, however, that there has been little neighborhood renewal and the creation of blight. Today, definitions of blight and urban renewal procedures have become embedded in our laws and hence in planning practice. Urban renewal and blight renewal, as practiced conventionally should be prohibited.
This list did not come from years of practice or research. It came from the legitimate, valid, important, but clearly unintegrated, concerns of siloed public and private interest groups:
The Department of Transportation needed communities to commit to desired traffic roues
The private housing developers needed communities to state where homes should be built
The Department of Natural Resources needed broad plans that also addressed agriculture and cultural resources
The Department of Administration needed ways to reduce fights over border agreements and incorporations
Many years later, when plans were languishing and unused, a plan update was required every ten years (making a poor policy even worse)
Comprehensive plans should begin with an attempt to understand the unique characteristics and qualities for each city, town or village. The nine-element approach prejudges the issues with predetermined lenses that pretend to see a big picture. Instead, many critical problems remain on the sidelines (e.g. health, social justice, education, place-making, climate uncertainty, market trends, capital budgeting, resilience, etc.) In these circumstances conventional practice will not lead us to plans that respond to unique local needs, conditions, and opportunities.
Large, fully developed cities need comprehensive plans that vary profoundly from plans needed by rural farm townships. Some places need updates almost annually while others have no need for change in over decades. Key issues are still ignored in many places such as capital improvement budgets, urban design, public health, education, historic preservation, climate change, social injustice, sustainability, and so forth. Using an inflexible outline of archaic topics does not add clarity – it just obscures an understanding of planning, makes complex issues more incomprehensible, and undermines the real need for comprehensive planning.
Replace Practice #4: Evaluating Density The Wrong Way
Density should be measured by people not property. Originally density was measured as people per acre – it still is measured that way in most of the world. In the USA however, density is measured in terms of residential units, not people acre and not even households per acre.
When the planning profession was formalized in the USA the big issue was “overcrowding” – too many people living in too small a space. Overcrowding is still a significant problem around the world and harms communities in terms of disease, comfort, survival and overall well-being.
At one time density was measured as “people per acre”. Then, as public health problems arose, planners focused on “overcrowding” as “people per household”. Later this planners used a measure of “unrelated people living in the same residential unit”. In the last decades, with suburbs, density became a matter of property metrics or “residential units per acre”. Today planning practices must develop a different lens to measures of density . Very low densities in the wrong place are just as bad as high densities in the wrong place. That is, conventional practice should be changed to measure “place-based” densities. To do this, we should begin by examining the physical form of cities we like and their effective densities. These pictures show Copenhagen, a city with thriving social and economic life in a four/five story form which, in turn, creates the right place-based density.
Too often communities, and the planners who work for the community, use density as a surrogate for wealth. In large cities some neighborhoods are wealthier than others. It does not make sense, however, to define wealth by density. The perimeter of Central Park in New York City is one of the wealthiest geographic areas with a high density – higher than most of the New York neighborhoods filled with poor families at lower densities. The same is the case with Chicago’s gold coast along Lake Michigan. Even with these clear contradictions many planners will still use “density” as a conventional tool to increase wealth rather than discussing wealth directly regardless of lot size.
Density measured as units per acre, however, is not actually a valid measure of welfare, not even wealth:
Twenty units per acre could mean twenty people per acre or eighty people per acre
During daytime it might mean five people per acre and eighty people per acre at night.
In downtown there may be two hundred people per acre during the day and only ten people per acre at night.
Many communities include, as one of their primary goals, economic development which, in turn, represents the idea of increasing economic wealth and value. Such communities are really looking for an increase in the local property tax base. Conventional planning practices often translate such intent into an idea that lower density means more wealth. This type of poor thinking often leads to harmful actions in cities.
Replace Practice #5: Failure To Embrace Place-Based Plans
To avoid the pitfalls of past conventional practice in Wisconsin, some new comprehensive plans (in which I have participated) use a different template based on the simple categorization of places. In their Charter, the Congress for the New Urbanism labels neighborhoods, districts, and corridors as the
“…essential elements of development and redevelopment in the metropolis. They form identifiable areas that encourage citizens to take responsibility for their maintenance and evolution.”
Many other critics and practitioners have used similar modes of thinking (Jane Jacobs, Kevin Lynch, Christopher Alexander, Jan Gehl, Gordon Cullen). All of these viewpoints begin with longstanding geographic places (or neighborhoods) with local names and histories. These theories avoid the abstract geometric jurisdictions of census tracts, political districts, big data. This approach is based on real places and involves very simple steps (this is just one variation):
Develop a geographic map of places called “neighborhoods, districts, and corridors”
Confirm the boundaries with local groups
Allow geographic overlaps and “fuzzy” boundaries as needed
Identify activities that are allowed, desired, or prohibited (not a zoning code)
Draw the plans where needed
Crafting place-based land use maps requires thoughtful analysis of cultural geography. Physical geography (soil, topography, natural ecology) are all influential, but not deterministic. Rural townships and dense urban areas all have different stories to tell, which means planners must define local places using that local knowledge, behavior, and history. In one community a neighborhood may be just four blocks of dense housing, while in another a neighborhood might be a square mile. Each place will have different opportunities and challenges to be defined using bottom-up inferences, not abstract categories or standards based on non-comparable communities. One size is convenient, but never fits all places.
Customized, bottom-up plans can unfold quickly from local observations:
What types of development really fit in each neighborhood, district, and corridor?
How much change or stability should be recommended in each subarea?
Which places need economic development, social change and/or environmental improvement?
Are our neighborhoods, districts, and corridors resilient? Can each withstand disasters?
Planners can frame the details for each area using typical methodological tools like matrices, diagrams, lists, and simple narrative descriptions. This method allows the internal aspirations of the community to be revealed for each subarea, allows comparative planning, and helps minimize conflicts. In addition, each subarea can be linked to zoning categories using terms like “desirable,” “allowable,” and “undesirable.” These terms resonate intuitively with citizens and avoid use of jargon (such as “permitted” or “conditional” uses, “variances”, etc.). One neighborhood, for example, might like retail uses but not large format stores, while a nearby business district might have the opposite view. These different views need not conflict with each other – planners can easily show how one place-based land use subarea can vary dramatically with another.
Make it stand out
Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
When drawing plans to depict “neighborhoods” it may be useful to portray “fuzzy” boundaries without the precision of following lot and parcel likes. The map above was used to describe the boundaries o different areas in Caledonia, Wisconsin containing rural, suburban and urban areas. The boundaries, and their “loose” fit were useful in preparing policies for each area (1990s) The photographs below were also useful in defining neighborhoods in terms of the general character of the housing (from a comprehensive plan for Glenview, Illinois (1980s)
Place-based plans can easily identify the actions needed for implementation within each subarea. One neighborhood, for example, might need a change in traffic patterns while another district may need a change in zoning; a business corridor might need a TID district and an innovation district might need staff support. Without down-to-earth, geographically located, and community-vetted actions, the comprehensive plan quickly becomes a “conventional” plan that sits on the shelf, only to be replaced on the shelf with an update several years later.
The “Stroget” in Copenhagen , like(2002 many examples of highly walkable streets derives its activity not from the provision of pavement upon which pedestrians can move, but from the provision of activities along the entire street and the density/intensity of uses in the surrounding buildings. Conventional planning measures “walkability” using technical specification for pavement and circulation. Walkability should be measured with non-technical attributes providing high intensity social and economic activities. T(See below for other key attributes of an effective pedestrian street)
Replace Practice #6: Measuring Walkability Instead Of Activating Places
Most planners, including myself, love highly active pedestrian streets. Unsurprisingly, however, many projects intended to make great pedestrian streets fail when communities “overregulate” and prohibit vehicular traffic in order to “encourage” pedestrians. These good intentions actually cut off the flow of vehicles and business visibility – the economic oxygen – needed to maintain business. “Pedestrian only” streets can work, but not everywhere. They work well when there is a high density of surrounding residents and workers. They usually fail when the density is insufficient. Planners rarely measure the contextual density of streets when planning for a street proposed for high activation.
Moreover planners often misuse the language of traffic engineering with regard to “complete streets”. From a traffic perspective “complete” streets do, in fact, include all modes of circulation but they do not include the features that make an “activated street” – streets with buildings, activities, lots of entries and street level windows, porches, and a variety of other features that provide the reasons why pedestrians actually occupy the street. Perhaps we need signs posted on some streets that say “high pedestrian activation ahead” to warn those who wish to avoid other people. Or perhaps we need the opposite type of sign that says, “dormant street ahead’ or “watch out for empty places”.
The “Stroget” in Copenhagen is well maintained, in a constant state of repair and improvement. It is sustainable because managing the infrastructure is a routine process. Sustainability is conventional here, unlike many so-called active pedestrian streets in the upper Midwest. The Stroget accommodate vehicles and service during times when pedestrian use is low and service access is high.
When planners intend to design more walkable streets they need to evaluate a full range of variables that contextualize rather than standardize variables. So-called “walkability” scores provide a point of departure for a discussion, not as a conclusion that measures the success or failure of a proposed street. Each street is a type of place, and each type of place varies in social, economic, physical and cultural context.
Walkability for a narrow residential lane in colonial Boston should not be compared to walkability in Manhattan’s Times Square.
Walkability where houses along Manhattan’s streets that tend to be six to ten stories should be expected to be much higher than a midwestern street in Milwaukee where houses average only a few stories.
Walkability on a street with an entry to a building that offers a use with public accommodations located every 30 feet is much greater than the same type of street with entries to public activities occur only one on each block.
Walkability in a city with year round temperatures around 70 degrees Fahrenheit is much different than a climate zone with major difference in average temperature between summer and winter.
Finally, few planning studies discuss hybrid activity streets where actual walking (and implied pedestrian) prioritization) makes sense for limited time periods based on the hour, day of the week, season, and other temporal factors. Such hybrid walking places are not simple to manage but do suggest that blindly following conventional definitions for “walkability” is more likely to lead us on a path to bad streets and neighborhoods.
Replace Practice #7: Ignoring The Aesthetics Of Cities
The City Beautiful movement championed the idea of creating monumental public places – many of which remain and still carry an aesthetic appeal. Leaders of this movement convinced the general public that our cities can be beautified. At the same time, the City Beautiful movement also led to the creation of many architectural landmarks. While many of these landmarks are still valued, not all commentators on the City Beautiful hold a positive opinion of its aesthetic impact.
In addition the high volume social and economic activities, and ongoing 24/7 sustainable maintence, the Stroget also emphasizes visual appeal. Conventional practice for planners will often mention the need for visual appeal and maybe reference public art. Public art, however, fulfills a different cultural necessity – it is not the same as the everyday as the everyday art and graphics on the Stroget. Everyday visual amenities are not conventional and not often specific by planners, but they are essential to the long-term effective street life in denser neighborhoods and districts.
In the last few decades many proponents of urban aesthetics and the design of public places have arisen including The Congress for the New Urbanism, Projects for Public Places, Strong Towns, the American Planning Association, and many new online news sources. All of these organizations and their supporters have helped rekindle a need for improving the aesthetics of cities. Notwithstanding these new initiatives, many smaller cities and communities (especially suburban areas) still shy away from addressing questions of the visual appeal of communities.
Lasts, but not least, the Stroget not only contains the ingredients for activities, sustainability, and visual appeal, but it also “spreads” these attributes to the various side streets and buildings that make up the overall experience – beyond the Stroget, and into its context. How many main streets have you seen that impact the context and spread high value design and planning? Is that conventional and, if not, how can we make it part of conventional practice?
Within the planning profession the only area in which this type of aesthetic value is still appreciated is within the discipline of urban design. Many projects today reflect urban design talent and expertise as a reluctant component of planning. Conventional practice, however, continues to push the practice of urban design away from questions of talent and art, and move it toward standardized metrics and checklists.
Another misguided conventional practice in planning includes the use of “design” committees and aesthetic review boards. These practices are often coupled with regulations emphasizing stylistic decisions (like the use of specific building materials). These practices seem to have added little to the aesthetic appeal of cities. One exception is, however, the use of form-based codes which has greatly influenced the aesthetics of urban character and urban pattern to be maintained in neighborhoods. Planners need to carefully distinguish between effective form-based codes and ineffective, even harmful, use of design committees.
The Future Of Bad Cities - “Fix It”
As we practice, we learn. I have no doubt that the conventional practice of today will yield to improve practices tomorrow. At the same time there will be new conventional practices to be avoided. If we accept cities as imperfect places, if we apply multiple theories and models that fit the context, if we challenge conventional practice, and if we use critical thinking to create our mission, then maybe we can make better cities and avoid the bad ones.
These illustrations come from the multi-year process need to fix the problems created by the construction of the Park East freeway — they are all necessary and they do not occur in a neat, definable, predetermined sequence. As stated earlier, this process included constant reiteration ideation, implementation, and utilization (as well as a pause for the Great Recession and the Covid Pandemic). If you look closely at these photos you will find regulatory diagrams, first concepts designs, public presentations, demolitions, reconstruction of infrastructure, new buildings, all of which overlapped each other. Even today, new plans are being prepared for parts of this district along with new policies and concepts. The twenty years needed to reach this point is actually quite fast.
Topic Summary
Replace Practice #1: Siloing Land Use
Replace Practice #2: Avoiding (And Mislabeling) Mixed Use
Replace Practice #3: Standardizing Comprehensive Plans
Replace Practice #4: Evaluating Density The Wrong Way
Replace Practice #5: Failure To Embrace Place-Based Plans
Replace Practice #6: Measuring Walkability Instead Of Activating Places
Replace Practice #7: Ignoring The Aesthetics Of Cities
The Future Of Bad Cities - “Fix It”