research and pechacucha, the future of participatory planning, interview with SFC/SFPB

Conflict resolution - portland discussions on gentrification

Socrates Cafe and Exploration
Open Space technology and MV project review

Charrettes and thoughs on New Urbanism--you don't need to tell the people, you ask them the questions and they give you NU answers

we don't just come and shit on your town pigeon-style

a model that can be packed up and taken town-to-town? the ideal for participatory methods?

David Campt

David Campt's City Forum presentation and running into him at the bar.
How important is identity and representation/subjectivity for facilitators and consultants
Better to be like David or even Alan--develop a working model, adapt it and travel around and tweak your template
Or grounded in a community, conversation with Aretousa

class readings

Collaboration vs. Empowerment

Latin American Studies notes -- collab vs. empowerment, assumptions of homogeneity in "community"? Latin America, implications for this class/theUS? Arguments why empowerment shouldn't always be the goal, the relationship between "civil society" or the public and decision makers/the state is always contested/changing, always with LEARNING
AmericaSpeaks reading and Penns Landing case - learning is key

East Riverside workshop

Yesterday I (and most of the class) attended the East Riverside Corridor workshop at Parker Lane United Methodist Church. I thought I had arrived early, but the guy in charge (who I found out later to be Alan Holt, a senior planner with the city) was already giving barely-audible instructions to the group. Oops. It seemed straightforward enough--act as a scribe at the table we were assigned to. However, as the day went on I functioned more as the official map-roller-upper than anything.

The plenary sessions packed a ton of information into a short amount of time, but interspersed the technical and historical stuff with cutesy jokes, clipart, and even a film clip from Back to the Future. After each plenary session there was a breakout session where the table was to select from among the various scenarios relating to the extent of parcel inclusion in the TOD "hubs", and the density, maximum heights, and compatibility standards and so on for the hubs.

Throughout the day, in the transitions between plenary and breakout sessions, I would quickly walk around to check on the other students to see what and how they were doing. I wanted to see if other students were actually scribing for their tables and what they were writing, since I was having trouble figuring out what should go up on the poster paper. I had written a few things down under the heading of "concerns," but I was feeling insecure about what would be helpful to the table. After checking in with the other students, it looked like most of them were doing the same thing as me: helping the facilitator with rolling up and rolling out the very large maps onto the small tables that each breakout session required, with little time to scribe. Discussion at the table was moving pretty quickly and there was little conflict, given that my table was 100% property owners.

The most interesting thing about my table, however, was that the table facilitator--a relatively recent graduate of another Texas university's urban planning program--was a really nice guy, but seemed incredibly unprepared to facilitate, even with such a conflict-free table. He stammered and was unable to answer most questions, and admitted he was not familiar with the study area. Basically, he abdicated the table to a representative from AMLI, a large Chicago-based developer that owns one property in the Corridor and was interested in expanding and building more luxury apartments within the hubs. The rep was extremely knowledgeable about the area and claimed to have attended every relevant meeting prior to yesterday. It got to the point where other table members almost ignored the facilitator altogether and asked most of their questions to the developer.

I studied the facilitator because I know that were I asked to facilitate a table right now, I would probably not be much better! I think that so far, I've been able to read enough to identify what a facilitator generally should not do and in this case it was modeled nicely for me, which is actually really helpful. I'm just nervous that this is what my future looks like--it seems to me that facilitation requires a lot more than just reading about what skills you need, but also a lot of practice, which this facilitator admittedly did not have (he also did not take a participatory methods-type class within his program).

So, it was fascinating to witness this process, but as always, I'm never quite sure what to make of it until much later. As I think I have mentioned, I'm slow to form opinions or analyze, especially before I hear the opinions of others. I almost wish I had another student at my table for awhile so that we could deconstruct the events of the day from my table together. From talking to other students, it sounded like we had some very different experiences. Matt told me that his table had some participants that refused to reveal their names and held one solid position rather aggressively until they walked out!

I hope to go to the next meeting in a few weeks and continue to follow this process. I had no idea urban rail was planned for this area before today, and it will be really interesting to see what happens to the Riverside neighborhood and what final decisions are made, because even at my table, a few participants expressed that no matter what they picked, City Council will have the final say. It seems like a common theme in Austin.

Between theory & practice

For my elective, I'm taking Bjorn's Local Development in Latin America course, and it's a little different than I expected. For the most part, it is a course almost entirely grounded in theory. A lot of it I have encountered before and for the most part it's a good review and of course, fascinating reading, but some of the other students and I have begun to wonder aloud how useful this will be to our future practice, when we have to emerge from the safety of the classroom where we criticize other planners and actually be planners ourselves and make decisions that affect real communities. Some of us have been hoping for more concrete case studies, so that we can pick them apart and see what worked and what didn't, rather than have abstract debates about theory each class (which of course are useful, but hopefully you know what I mean).

Well, the other day was different. Bjorn brought in a few students who had been participated in the Santo Domingo planning studio and we watched the video about their experience and then got to pick their brains about it afterwards. It was really a fantastic class day. We got to ask them specific questions about how they went about gathering the information, how they felt they were perceived, how they conducted themselves, and how they arrived at decisions about what to say or do in different situations.

The most fascinating example of this was when a group of government and NGO representatives were coming to the community and wanted a presentation of the community's challenges. Most community members wanted to pick amongst themselves who should represent them, but according to Bjorn and the students, there was one woman who was more articulate, confident, and would be the "perfect" candidate to make the presentation. However, this woman was not very popular in the community. Bjorn explained the turmoil they felt when it was time to make the decision about what they were going to do, saying that they truly believed it would be best for the community if the unpopular woman presented, but that was a hard solution to swallow after coming from an approach that was "non-interventionist" or otherwise respectful of community agency. Ultimately, they decided to select the well-spoken woman over the community's wishes.

I wasn't sure how to feel about the story, but I found it incredibly interesting. Finally we had a real case study to chew on and think through the moral, ethical, theoretical, and ground-level implications of our actions as planners. I brought this case up to Alan over a beer to see what he had to say about it. He had a great way of looking at it, and said I should read about the American Pragmatists, whose approach began from an action that is then tied back to a guiding principle (or theory, I guess), rather than trying to make the difficult transition from theory to practice.

This makes sense to me in the context of general frustration I've felt coming from a critical theory background, in which almost any practice by non-community actors, or even intra-community actors can be deconstructed/criticized. Again, it's incredibly useful to have a theoretical background and the actions of practitioners absolutely need to be critiqued, but critique for the sake of critique can stifle creativity and be almost paralyzing at times. Planners cannot be non-interventionist, I think, because planning is intervention by design. Bjorn and the students realized that community agency and wisdom is not the only value in planning; planners also have wisdom. That's not to say that planners always have the answer, as we know all too well, but I think it's more helpful to future practitioners to grapple with the most difficult decisions we must make and how we'll make them. Grounded in theory, but nuanced and pragmatic.

Flexing the meeting muscles

Yesterday was a loooong day. After a full day of class, Alan and I headed to the Citizens Advisory Task Force meeting at One Texas Center, and squeezed out with just enough time to get to our late night soccer game.

When we got there, I looked immediately towards locating a seat. Then I looked for Alan and saw that he was taking in the room, looking at who was there, and had begun sauntering over to a young-looking staffer. Note to self: I should slow down a bit when I come into a meeting. I followed him over and learned that she was recently hired by the Planning & Development Review Department, and had graduated from the CRP/LAS dual-degree program a few years back. She said that she was still getting her feet wet in the department, and so was going to as many meetings as possible to observe.

We took our seats as the meeting started and I saw that Matt Dugan was more or less running the initial part of the meeting. The first three people to sign in and request a time slot were allowed to speak for a few minutes to the Task Force. Three people spoke, and Matt moved to transfer the meeting over to the Task Force, but not before neighborhood activist Jeff Jack insisted on also giving a comment. Matt agreed to let him speak, and Jeff immediately donated his time to another ANC member, who spoke for several minutes about rising property taxes.

Finally the meeting kicked off, and there was a series of presentations by a developer and two city representatives, including Kelly Nichols, the senior planner for the City's Neighborhood Housing & Community Development Department. The presenters talked about current challenges and the impending crisis in affordable housing here in Austin. It was interesting to hear the developer's perspective and a reminder that the private sector needs to be engaged just as much as the public to avoid crisis-type scenarios, and they need to be engaged in a certain way, i.e. looking to a long-term scenario instead of short-term profit. Planners also need to be attentive to what's workable to developers--the developer in this case discussed some affordability standards that would discourage building altogether, for instance. This reminds me that I need to get caught up on "developer-ese"...something I first noticed at my last job in meetings with contractors. My supervisor, who was also a woman, was really knowledgeable and good at holding her own in these boys' club meetings we would go to, and that's something I should and do aspire to.

Kelly Nichols talked about some proposed interesting strategies to mitigate the housing crisis that I definitely want to look more into, such as tax-base sharing, shared-appreciation mortgages, and permanent supportive housing. At the end of her presentation a Task Force member insisted that sprawl was inevitable, and said that trying to implement programs like the ones Nichols suggested would be a waste of time. Another Task Force member interjected and said that she came from the Bay Area--where I'm from--and said that in watching that region transform from relative affordability to an extreme uptick in housing costs and sprawl, that she learned that in situations like this, it's crucial to take "extreme measures" BEFORE the next wave of growth surges into Austin, and that leadership must muscle these ordinances and programs through as fast as possible to avoid diluting them to the point of ineffectiveness, which is something she claims to have witnessed in the Bay Area.

This got me thinking about my concurrent interests in affordable housing and public participation, especially since I do plan to return to the Bay Area after graduating from UT. I'm wondering to what extent efforts to ensure affordable housing provision in a tight or vulnerable market should be participatory and how or what that would look like. I looked up Kelly Nichols and I'm hoping to run into her again to hear her thoughts on that, since judging by her past experience, she comes from a low-income-serving/progressive background.

Imagining Austin

This week we are having two guest speakers come in and talk to us about the Imagine Austin comp plan. I've been interested in this topic, particularly in the challenges and dysfunction involved with the plan's development, so it was great to hear two different perspectives on the process; one coming from a longtime, deeply committed activist and the other from a consultant hired by the city late in the planning process.

Mark Yznaga's presentation  today was extremely informative. I really appreciated having an insider's perspective on the history of planning in Austin and I was struggling to write down pretty much everything he was saying. For instance, he revealed some of the pivotal challenges the process has faced thus far, including the consultant selection process and how the Citizens Advisory Task Force was able to reclaim the process and make it somewhat participatory, and also how the poor communication and information sharing among city staff has translated into ineffective and disjointed communication with the public at times. It amazes me to think about how many structural elements have to be aligned in order to have a successful planning process. At the same time, I think one of the themes of this class is the ability of an organization or team to learn through the process, and I'm curious to learn more about if and how the City of Austin has learned or adapted as Imagine Austin has moved forward. In fact, I wish I would have found a way to formulate that thought into some questions for Mark when we went out to lunch after class. Instead, I asked some questions about affordable housing and activism and the creative arts community and spent most of the time observing the highly fascinating exchange between Mark and Alan about the deeper issues within Austin and planning in complex cities in general.

One of the things Mark said was pretty interesting to me. When I asked him what should be done about the poor relationship between neighborhood activists/the Austin Neighborhoods Council and the City, he responded that he was disappointed about the tenor of the conversation and the approach of some of the activists, but that the most important priority was to "get a plan on the ground" that we can revise later. As for ANC's threat to try to kill the plan, he said "I won't let that happen," revealing a deep personal commitment to getting the comp plan implemented at any cost. The questions this raises in my mind is:
1) while some discontent is to be expected during any politicized process like planning, I wonder how much discontent is necessary (what is the threshold) to really derail or significantly disrupt or distort a plan, 
2) to what extent should the discontented be engaged and how? Is there some sort of process design to really heal those divisions or at some point, should staff and other stakeholders just make the decision to "muscle in" what they believe is best for the city at any cost?

Scattered thoughts

As this course is getting going, I'm realizing that I definitely have some apprehension about facilitation skills. As in, I don't have any yet. However, these are skills I need to develop and I need to start thinking about how I should strategically go about achieving them. For now, my gameplan is to go to as many meetings as a I can, critique what I can observe, learn from people I respect, and do outside or extra reading when possible. So far from skimming the class readings, I've got plenty to work with already, though.

I'm also thinking about how reflective listening can help with my relationship. Too often I'm responding to the content of what my partner is telling me, and I need to respond to the emotion. She is an emotional person, whereas I have trained myself, after some things in my past, to suppress emotions and thoughts when really I need to let them emerge in a healthy way, and of course she tells me this. As we touched on in Deep Democracy, I need to "let go" in order to find myself and be happier. I think that learning to listen deeply and reflectively at home will definitely help at school and in my future career, etc.

I also need to figure out how to have better conversations in general. I find that I am the kind of person that becomes a vault for the problems and secrets of others. I tend to have friends that are talkative, and my girlfriend is no exception. She is the kind of person that will come home and spend ten or fifteen minutes debriefing about her day. I am the kind of person that rarely speaks for longer than ten seconds at a time. If I speak for a long time, I get nervous and lost in my sentence. I worry all the time if I am really being understood, or if I'm even close to conveying what I mean. Needless to say this is also an issue in my relationship! It doesn't seem to be as much of a problem in friendships, especially with men, who also speak in shorter sentences and are more likely to ask simple questions or exchange stories rather than my female friends, who will share difficult secrets or ask for complex advice.

In school, I find it difficult to participate in academic conversations at times because I feel like I can't form an opinion on a topic unless I have enough information, and I rarely feel that I have enough information. (My girlfriend, on the other hand, is a textbook example of someone who makes hard and fast instinctual judgments--opposites attract, right?) Even on subjects I am fairly knowledgeable about,  I am reluctant to take one position or another. Maybe this has something to do with how I was raised by a white atheist Republican and a Mexican Catholic Democrat. However, I also think it's useful to be so in-between. I often find myself acting as a bridge, intentionally or unintentionally, whether between my parents, my mixed-ethnicity heritages, rural and urban friends and acquaintances and sensibilities (I used to live in an isolated rural area), leftist and conservative sensibilities, hip hop and indie and mainstream sensibilities, etc. Elisabeth and I often talk about how we can move comfortably in a lot of contexts, in a LOT of different situations, and how that can be sort of lonely (not having one grounded community) but also important. I think that relates to where I'm going professionally as well.

So, this post wasn't really so much about participatory methods, but I think it's important to establish where I'm coming from when I walk in the door each morning, and lay out where I want to go, and that I really do believe that learning participatory methods and tools is a great way to get there.