society planning

This week reading had brought some interesting view of how public interest and society portrays planning. Planning gets a bad reputation because of the history of dirty money being handled and pet projects that often happened in the policy planning sector, that often blame planners. What fails for me is, why the public policy sector does not want to admit that they really do need planners.

Because without them, often public meetings do not go smooth as there are no guideline or smooth transition that the public wants to see instead of thousands of tax dollars being swallowed without any proof done. Charlotte is an example of this when it came to low income housing in Noda neighborhood, Johnston Mill was geared to the artist population. Unfortunately the Mill had to close down and all the money funneled into the project is gone and now the city is trying to sell for 600,000 dollars to redeem some of the money back. It is almost pointless to even gather focus into it because it is all Public Policy trying to fix their mistakes.

If we could compare planning into a game, lets say Monopoly? We understand it is a property tax game, yet if we can change it to planning game. The community chest would change into how the public views the planning object by providing examples of real life planning scenarios. The ups and downs of public policy taking over the board, losing money as they forget about zoning. The private sector will lose as the politics gets in the way; changes the zoning like eminent domain where the government can come in and take your property at a lowest market price.  The planners of the game would help things flow better and less money from public and private sectors would lose instead of tug of war. Planners do have a role, which is mediating and being a social worker in a way to bring solutions into the problem as well listening to interested parties. This displays fully on page 55 talking about Vilfredo Pareto critics on money examples.

Another point that was plastered in the reading was, how are planners now being viewed as a progressive? Is there another word that better describe them as I feel the term progressive is dirty almost like activist that the public tends to scoff and laugh at those kind of folks? I remember when I was in high school, I protested the Iraq war that almost got me suspended from school because I walked out of the classroom.  My reputation was changed from there as I became the person who didn't follow the trend of the river. The point is that why does planners have to be revolutionist? Why cant the public policy and government do that? We, especially as a country have fought in wars with other countries on revolution. My concern is when did the shift happen that the government slowed down and started following private sector in leading the country. 

I always fear that public policy as it seems to be a scheming thing where the city or government officials have their own pet projects that really can destroy planners and their position. Even in the Theory book (page 41) a professional suicide would be the case for planners if they were to have their own agenda.  

What Aaron Wildavsky fails to mention is to parallel planning with policy. The policy makers may make a law or a zoning regulation but they need someone to help plan the ruling or give them guidance otherwise it will not be as effective. A good example of this would be North Carolina Global transpark in Kinston, NC. The county has a zoning control of 5 mile radius around the airport to drive economic development. However without proper zoning and advisement from planners, the usage of the area planning can foil and the money spent would be wasted.

It all relates to each other and to argue that one does not need another will throw off the ecological system of planning.   The public would never have their voice heard, causing resentment with the public sector. The purpose is to bring all parties to the table instead of one lecture on how things will be done. The dark side of not having planners, as critics want can potentially harm the future globally, so respectively instead of being progressive, lets become innovative.

Come find out....

Planning Theory: Public vs. Private politics

This week’s reading focused on the politics of private and public sector of planning. The goal was to understand how rationality is applied to planning or the opposite of how planning theory should be. My interpretation of the reading was: Politics of the planning system really affects how planners do their jobs. Especially in last 100 years, planning has changed in ways of thinking about the future by employing the today’s skills. 

The only thing complicates me is the argument of public and private sector. I had a recent discussion with a classmate from last semester as we worked together on our project, I had revealed my desire to work in public sector and perhaps nonprofit organization and her response was, “Rethink that in two years because you will see the struggles of government getting involved and nothing ever gets done.” I asked her “but isn't that the challenge?”  The response was "how much of a challenge do you want when it is already a challenging career.”

It did made me think for some time but in my spirit of inquiry is if we are doing this for a profession, we are supposed to take many of the negatives with the positives in the field. On page 15 and 16 of “Planning Theory,” they mentioned of planners types and how they function. I would like to think myself as a hybrid as I want to understand the politics along the public sector but also be behind the desk drafting ideas to bring both sectors to work together. I understand that itself is a challenging idea but isn't the goal of being rational to express a relationship between both sectors. 

In my previous classes, there were discussions of how planning needs to have others participation in the process, within the reading of “Terrain of Planning Theory,” and other previous readings. The goal is to have public involvement that can help fulfill better outcomes by bringing knowledge to the public needs and preferences. In good circumstances, the collaboration can become more meaningful and more creative response will help with the continuous problems.  The intention of it is bring a closure community and in result of it, planners have to stray from the traditional planning but become more creative in pushing further in politics as well bringing more ideas to the table.

Chapter two’s mention of Theory gap is something really perplexing as they mentioned planning is not like what we will learn in school system. Take the Law school for an example and change it to planning.  The theory we will discuss in the classroom but how often will we apply it and is it really a dread topic between the profession?

How much knowledge will we really get in the classroom, as in for me, I have some background in Non profit organization and other fields but at this point I am not working as I am focusing my studies. I wonder how much will I contribute to the classroom. In the mean time, searching for internship and part time employment to ensure my thoughts will be meaningful in classroom, I may feel humble. I hope the knowledge of others will push some thought provoking ideas into the classroom

New Year

In 2010, I wanted to do something different for 2011 as this was going to be a new year, a new start and a refresh for myself. Last year, while bumpy was an educational experience for me. I have learned a lot about myself and the people surrounding me, close by or far. This had lead me to critically evaluate my life, progressive career, and how I see the world. The thought process I have decided was:

Since now I am in graduate school, I want to improve my English proficiency as I never  challenged myself to fully understand the root of the language. This sounds odd but my GRE scores were on the low side; that was the first realization of how I never got the feedback while growing up, often letting others edit my papers and write for me.

The disclaimer for this blog is to help myself write better and to critically evaluate as I have mentioned before, I would like feedback and input on how i word things, please be constructive if I make a mistake, give me examples so I can use this as a learning experiencee. 

The other goal is to see how Urban/Community planning fits in my life, I will educate myself by seeing community planning as well global planning can be an impact. I have a huge fascination on Disability rights and how it applies to planning. I will not be an advocate but a person with insight in community planning regards to the disabled population. I do not see myself as disabled but a person with one limitation, my hearing. I have a severe profound loss, that is continuous as I am getting older. People will find talking to me as that I only have an accent but my  speech is good with some mishaps such as stuttering and mispronunciation. 

This will be another push for myself to pronounce things better and to sound more on professional level. 

I also have another resolution but it is for personal, which is to walk and exercise with my dog everyday. I want to utilize my bike as a main form of transportation as the weather starts clearing. This will help push my urban ideals of using my own feet than automobile transportation.  I fully want to push on this while I am going to school. 

More thoughts to come, especially with first week of school evaluation of my classes this semester.