tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4911854789833802604.post8309528228811272573..comments2023-03-26T02:27:10.319-07:00Comments on Surly Urbanism: Why Shouldn't Planners Go To Jail?Surly Urbanisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01801153194586886826noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4911854789833802604.post-22030249738505229032012-11-13T06:43:38.486-08:002012-11-13T06:43:38.486-08:00Cries of "racist" are not necessarily un...Cries of "racist" are not necessarily unfounded but are being applied so often that they have lost their effect. Please read the comments under the "St. Bernard Parish" article to which you link. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4911854789833802604.post-51892489500222335422012-11-12T10:05:01.942-08:002012-11-12T10:05:01.942-08:00Good points, all around. My argument is that plann...Good points, all around. My argument is that planners need to make an attempt to wrestle with actually "professionalizing" the field. We have "standards" but planning offices aren't required to recognize them, and we certainly don't formally challenge shitty planners or shitty planning outcomes. <br /><br />And the planner as gatekeeper is something that should be taken more seriously. I discuss this quite often with people and it's a well-worn track in planning theory courses...are we normative, visionary professionals or another form of beaurecrat who's primary purpose is to act as gatekeeper of clearly egregious projects. I'd be comfortable with either identity or a more nuanced recognition that we switch between the two and explore how we can better navigate with that understanding. <br /><br />Given power differentials I think focusing on a standard of care would be absolutely vital. We see lawyers and doctors have their advice ignored all the time and people die or go to jail. But those professionals are obligated to give the advice and defend themselves if something bad happens. It would make sense to me to extend such a professional burden onto planners. It's not like we don't have metrics we could start with. Clean water and Clean Air act already gives us metrics and we have a history of holding cities to account for them. I don't know, it's tricky, but planners absolutely must formalize their profession if they wish to be taken seriously and to attempt to better guide practice around the country.Surly Urbanisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01801153194586886826noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4911854789833802604.post-73632220222431138132012-11-12T09:21:49.616-08:002012-11-12T09:21:49.616-08:00While the jail idea is meant to be provocative it ...While the jail idea is meant to be provocative it raises a couple of questions. For criminality to make sense planners would need to: 1) have intentions that tie to actions; 2) have agency to act on those intentions; 3) have a clear standard of care to test negligence against.<br /><br />I think finding a definition for these three is a good exercise in general. And I think it would be problematic. In our form of government, the accountability rests with the elected officials. They can claim ignorance, but its not a great defense in elections. I am also more Lindblom-y in my outlook on the world, so I have a hard time believing that very deliberate visions are implemented by just planners. If it happens its in conjunction with others.<br /><br />The third idea, standard of care, is worth playing with. It exists for engineers, doctors, lawyers and others. But in all of these cases, the profession has more control over its product. Planners are gate keepers, regulators, but rarely constructive agents with a substantive product that the standard could be tested against. Fun thought experiment nonetheless.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11910892490364699875noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4911854789833802604.post-70820756897179090802012-11-12T08:51:48.013-08:002012-11-12T08:51:48.013-08:00Your points on markets are head on. There's an...Your points on markets are head on. There's an implicit challenge to our conception of property rights for those who advocate for strong planning. Many would argue we've already gone too far down the road of abridging those rights, but as long as we allow market forces to be the primary determinants of urban form, in combination with a politically fragmented landscape, then we'll continue to get segregated, sprawling cities.<br /><br />On your second point, it would be planners' duties to tell the public if something they are seeking is illegal. This is what happens quite often if a court declares a law a referendum constitutional. All this would do is de-volve some of that authority to a lower area. So, instead of waiting for HUD to draw suit in violation of FHA, planners would be obligated to inform the public of the potential illegality of those actions and say that they will not facilitate it. That doesn't mean it won't happen, but it does mean that planners would not willingly participate in such projects. This doesn't have to kill public participation.Surly Urbanisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01801153194586886826noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4911854789833802604.post-84845038130782634782012-11-11T17:37:16.942-08:002012-11-11T17:37:16.942-08:00I would like to see planners held responsible enou...I would like to see planners held responsible enough to be jailed. Just as engineers are held legally responsible if their building fails and harms people, planners are essentially the social, economic, and spatial engineers of cities. Their failures to uphold laws, especially related to civil rights and pollution, should make them legally responsible. While engineering follows a pretty exact science and planners are in a world of squishy science, there are still exact measures that planners continue to fail on and do not follow best practices recognized to correct those failures. <br />Unfortunately, I see this not only being roadblocked by the general lack of power that planners have in land use decisions, but also in their lack of control over the markets. Land markets are the biggest hindrance to this as private developers have the choice of whether to build in suburbs or inner cities, land owners have the right to sell to whomever they wish, and when that activity occurs outside of an incorporated area, it becomes even more difficult to control.<br />There's another question that pops up when thinking about this issue as well. In order for planners to enforce best practices in making cities comply with civil rights and pollution laws, it would likely result in many city planning agencies having to supersede outcomes of public participation processes and effectively returning us to the age of Robert Moses. Whether viewed as a good or bad thing (there's a mixture of both), we just have to be cautious in how we moved ahead should we find the legal justification for such practices.Stevenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10335173905746411976noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4911854789833802604.post-24553077147167694912012-11-09T15:31:39.816-08:002012-11-09T15:31:39.816-08:00It seems more heated than tepid...kudos for being ...It seems more heated than tepid...kudos for being the first troll on the thread. But to respond...maybe you should actually read the post or even Blakely's original piece before you decide to jump off in my threads. Thanks. Surly Urbanisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01801153194586886826noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4911854789833802604.post-19318027367295697542012-11-09T12:25:55.228-08:002012-11-09T12:25:55.228-08:00Ed Blakely is a quack, posing under the guise of a...Ed Blakely is a quack, posing under the guise of a so-called "disaster recovery expert." His track record in post-Katrina New Orleans invalidates any kind of legitmate claims he may make. Is that a tepid enough response for you?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com