Planning for Place and Plexus: Metropolitan Land Use and Transport

Problem: Human and natural systems will probably have to adapt to climate change impacts, but this cannot be planned for using the traditional approach based on predictions because of the subject's great complexity, its planning horizon more than 50 years away, and uncertainty about the future climate and how effectively CO₂ emissions will be reduced.

Purpose: This article proposes a more appropriate basis for planning climate change adaptation. Anticipatory governance is a flexible decision framework that uses a wide range of possible futures to prepare for change and to guide current decisions toward maximizing future alternatives or minimizing future threats. Rather than trying to tame or ignore uncertainty, this approach explores uncertainty and its implications for current and future decision making.

Methods: I review and summarize the literature on anticipatory governance and provide three case studies to demonstrate its application to climate change planning.

Results and conclusions: Denver Water, New York City, and the City of Phoenix are all using scenarios to anticipate the range of global climate changes that may impact their communities and to develop adaptation strategies to address these impacts. Each is developing a decision framework for implementing adaptation strategies incrementally based on climate monitoring. An incremental approach minimizes the resources that must be allocated to address these risks and has allowed these cities to plan in spite of the high uncertainty associated with climate change science and social change.

Takeaway for practice: The complexity, uncertainty, and distant planning horizon associated with climate change cannot be managed sufficiently for the traditional predict-and-plan approach to yield good decisions about the significant social and capital investments likely to be required for adaptation. To be successful, social institutions must embrace new methods that explore uncertainty and that provide strategic guidance for current and future decisions.

Research support: None.     

Using Exploratory Scenarios in Planning Practice

Abstract

Problem, research strategy, and findings: Despite growing interest by practitioners in using exploratory scenarios within urban planning practice, there are few detailed guidelines for how to do this. Through the discussion of five case examples, we illustrate different approaches to linking exploratory scenarios to different planning contexts. We conclude by observing that to directly inform a plan, regardless of the specific approach taken, exploratory scenarios in urban planning must incorporate stakeholder values and not only rely on expert judgment and analysis.

Takeaway for practice: Exploratory scenarios are effective for analyzing uncertainty within a planning process. However, exploratory scenarios can be incorporated into planning practice in different ways, ranging from workshops among experts that aim to cultivate general learning to complex projects that result in highly detailed scenarios and recommendations for plans. Practitioners can draw on the cases we present to inspire planning methods for particular projects, taking into account specific contexts and goals.     

Dynamics of integrating landscape values in landscape character assessment: the hidden dominance of the objective outsider

Abstract

While there has been extensive research undertaken on the values which insiders attribute to landscape there is a lack of literature which looks at how planning professionals handle landscape values. In this article, I develop a framework for questioning how landscape values are taken up in landscape planning, with the aim of conceptualising what landscape values mean in practice. This is undertaken through addressing landscape assessment, more specifically analysing how landscape character assessment (LCA) represents a critical point in the framing of landscape values. Through a synthesis of research on landscape values I examine the underlying logic of the LCA documents. I conclude that the values communicated in these assessments tend to be those of ‘objective’ outside experts, predominantly based on aesthetics and focusing on the physicality of landscape. This I argue leads to a questioning the legitimacy of the LCA approach.     

Ecologically sustainable local area planning: A framework to enhance integration of community workers and environmental planners

Recent case study research in local government authorities in northern Australia illustrated that ecological sustainability in land use planning is difficult to address while community work and environmental planning, as central ecological sustainability components, are marginalised in the planning process. Emanating from that study, the framework proposed in this paper advocates a planning approach that is inclusive, participatory and discursive and recognises the diverse knowledge and skills of all local government practitioners.     

Adaptive Planning for Disaster Recovery and Resiliency: An Evaluation of 87 Local Recovery Plans in Eight States

Problem, research strategy and findings: A pre-disaster recovery plan that considers how a community should be redeveloped is a logical first step to support resiliency during high uncertainty and rapid change, yet limited attention has been given to recovery plans. In this study, we evaluate local disaster recovery planning in eight southeastern states and find that such planning receives limited public support: Less than one-third of vulnerable local jurisdictions had a recovery plan, and those plans received low plan quality scores. Unfunded state mandates produce weaker plans than plans in other states without mandates. We find that a collaborative network of stakeholders initially intent on reordering priorities results in stronger plans.

Takeaway for practice: Local recovery planning should be designed to operate under conditions of high uncertainty. Local jurisdictions can choose plan design options that reflect how they build capability for recovery planning: 1) standalone community-wide recovery plan; 2) comprehensive land use plan; 3) emergency management plan; and 4) small area recovery plan. Because recovery planning lacks a public constituency, and is new to most local jurisdictions, the stand-alone community-wide recovery plan design option is the most effective at building local commitment. This option involves a plan-making process that concentrates time, effort, and resources focused on a building a network of stakeholders who likely have the greatest responsibility in rebuilding efforts because they care most about the impacts of a disaster.     

Infrastructure Planning: in a State of Panic?

Abstract

Infrastructure is routinely framed in contemporary urban policy as a vehicle to grow the economy through the creation of jobs. In periods of economic downturn and when ongoing fiscal uncertainty ensues, governments may look to the construction and maintenance of social and public infrastructure such as social housing and public transport. Cities and communities that have endured infrastructure deficits in the past may become the beneficiaries of adjusted national and state-level policy to support economic prosperity through expedient infrastructure implementation programs. Yet in the post-GFC policy environment urban infrastructure has recentred the role of infrastructure in driving urban economic recovery in terms of economic prosperity. Drawing from the state of exception literature, I call on the notion of urgency to explore infrastructure planning as it manifests at the juncture between strategic planning and implementation. This paper will contribute to the critical urban planning literature by examining how infrastructure prioritisation and implementation is shaped through a characterisation of urgency which subverts the relationship between urban infrastructure planning, implementation and planning process.     

From the design of green buildings to resilience management of building stocks

ABSTRACT

The green and the subsequent sustainable building movements have been framed by changing societal contexts. Their main focus has been on the design of new buildings. However, these movements have neglected the life span of existing buildings and the long-term management of building stocks. The reasons why are considered: the changing interpretations of sustainability, the evolution of different forms of tacit knowledge, lack of a metabolic framework covering the built environment and lack of a consistent multi-scale building information modelling (BIM). The transition toward a ‘risk society’, with an increasing diversity and frequency of threats, challenges the current optimistic definition of sustainability. Resilience addresses fast- and slow-moving threats that can lead to unknown consequences and new risks. Alternative planning approaches (e.g. scenario planning, adaptive change and resilience heuristics) are discussed. The differences between anticipation- and resilience-based strategies are considered. Possible heuristics can be found in social–ecological systems, in resilience engineering and in the historic evolution of the built environment. Resilient solutions generally lead to a higher level of complexity and carry additional environmental costs. In the creation of resilience capacity, new knowledge will be co-produced through transdisciplinary research, scenario planning and design experiments under conditions of uncertainty.     

Planning for road pricing: A multi‐rationality approach

Road pricing has climbed high on the political agenda in several countries during the last decade. This can be attributed to a growing concern regarding urban congestion problems, environmental impact of traffic growth, and difficulties in financing new transport infrastructure. Nevertheless, examples of actual implementation are few. This may to a large degree be due to a restricted comprehension of the planning challenges that road pricing actually poses. Literature on transport planning and transport economics gives the basis for a definition of road pricing and a clarification of some emerging planning issues. Furthermore, planning for road pricing is here linked to contemporary planning theory by exploiting a “compound rationale for planning” proposed by Tore Sager and coupling this to pro and con arguments. The communicative elements of road pricing planning are exemplified and discussed, drawing especially on John Forester's theories of planning as argumentation.     

Data co-synthesis in developing public product service systems

ABSTRACT

Design and research teams working on public product service systems (PPSS) are often confronted with large data sets, presented in a complex language. This paper presents a method for how designers may translate quantitative aggregated data with a toolkit that enables qualitative co-synthesis to generate novel PPSS proposals. The toolkit development and application is shown through a specific case study in Melbourne, Australia, that focused on reimagining a public transport bus service in light of emerging propulsion and information technologies. People affected by the service were able to assist in co-synthesising existing data from transport planning literature into emergent ideas for system upgrades or even complete overhauls. A variety of multi-faceted service interventions were developed through a series of workshops with different participant groups. Workshop outcome variations further support the notion of emergence in co-creation, and reinforce the importance of running multiple sessions due to their potential impact on project outcomes. This paper proposes that co-synthesising complex data with the help of a toolkit, which may be a powerful way to inform PPSS design. An application framework is presented to summarise this process and to generate discussion towards broader application and further refinement.     

Planning transport infrastructure: examining the politics of transport planning in Melbourne,Sydney and Perth

Abstract

Australian cities have observed a “consensus turn” expressed as broad public support of greater accessibility and public transport provision as revealed in metropolitan strategic plans. In contrast large-scale road projects proposed to traverse the inner-city of three major Australian cities reveals an ongoing and deep-seated attachment by some to car-based travel in Australian urban transport planning. Comparative case studies of these three road projects in Melbourne, Sydney and Perth explores the impact that an antagonistic relationship between the state and community has on the culture of transport planning. Through observational insights, policy and media analysis and interviews with community groups, we show that this antagonistic planning culture arises when there is a fracture between metropolitan strategic plan-making and project planning, and when clear channels of communication and deliberation are undermined.     

Governance of Future Urban Mobility: A Research Agenda

ABSTRACT

Questions about how to plan and govern for future urban mobility are reaching a critical point as Australian cities are faced with disruption to transport and urban systems arising from new forms of shared mobility services and the rise of autonomous vehicles. An industry engagement workshop, drawing on the insights of participants from public and private sectors of the industry, articulated a large array of complex and interrelated questions highlighting the uncertainty and scarcity of knowledge. These questions are grouped into three key themes concerning how implementation may take place, what the impacts of the uptake of these emerging transport technologies may be and how to understand them. The resultant research agenda is vast and one of multi-complexity by space, time and institutionally.     

Uncertainty in developing supervisory demand-side controls in buildings: A framework and guidance

Successful demand-side control depends on the accuracy of the prediction of the power demand. This prediction should express margins of expected ranges of the power demand. Therefore, uncertainty is an unavoidable ingredient that has to be explicitly considered when evaluating performance of demand-side control. However, there is at present neither serious attention to system uncertainty nor to human-introduced uncertainty in developing the supervisory controls of building and HVAC&R systems. There is, in fact, neither a commonly shared terminology nor an agreement on a generic typology of uncertainty.Apart from introducing a common terminology and typology of uncertainty, this study provides a conceptual framework for systemic management of uncertainty, along with a process of developing the supervisory demand-side controls. This study reviews relevant uncertainty sources. Surveyed sources are classified according to the typology, and then encoded into the uncertainty matrix as part of the framework. The uncertainty matrix is used for a priori uncertainty assessment that enables model developers to identify, articulate, and prioritize critical uncertainty; it is a crucial step for gathering more adequate identification and for proper treatment of uncertainty before developing a significant model.The a priori uncertainty assessment identified that heuristic uncertainty and scenario uncertainty tend to introduce higher risks for the demand-side control in meeting its objectives. Upon this assessment, this study suggests a theoretical guide to manage and reduce risks due to uncertainty: heuristic uncertainty can be preventable if models are constructed through the formal modeling framework; physical uncertainty including both scenario uncertainty and statistical uncertainty can be compiled into model in order to render the model immune to uncertainty.     

Energy Conversion Goes Local: Implications for Planners

Problem: Emerging energy technologies are bringing planners a new set of issues. The supply-oriented framework from engineering economics within which energy planning has traditionally been conducted may be useful for siting large refineries, power plants, and transmission corridors, but it is not helpful for mitigating conflicts at the site level, encouraging new technology adoptions, managing the demand for energy, or, especially, coordinating the diverse users of smaller, local energy facilities.

Purpose: I provide an alternative conceptual framework for thinking about emerging energy planning tasks. I highlight factors not considered in the traditional model, and introduce terminology for characterizing key characteristics of the changing energy economy.

Methods: I draw on concepts from industrial ecology, urban metabolism, and ecological economics, and apply my new framework to a set of examples illustrating its advantages relative to the traditional approach to energy planning.

Results and conclusions: I propose that planners use network models to think about energy systems and focus especially on nodes where energy is converted from one form to another. Understanding the scale, scope, commodification, and agency of such nodes, and whether and when these attributes are open to change, can improve energy planning decisions for traditional energy investments such as power plants and for energy initiatives such as wind farms, rooftop solar systems, energy-efficient buildings, cogeneration, compact growth, and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles.

Takeaway for practice: Planners should do more than just mitigate energy facility siting conflicts. They should also identify points of governmental leverage on private decision makers, keep track of evolving technologies, bundle energy users with different temporal demand profiles, and help build smarter energy networks. Focusing on energy networks and their nodes should help planners see how they can be most effective.

Research support: This work was supported by the National Science Foundation and the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities.     

Navigating Statistical Uncertainty: How Urban and Regional Planners Understand and Work With American Community Survey (ACS) Data for Guiding Policy

Problem, research strategy, and findings: The American Community Survey (ACS) is a crucial source of socio­demographic data for planners. Since ACS data are estimates rather than actual counts, they contain a degree of statistical uncertainty—referred to as margin of error (MOE)—that planners must navigate when using these data. The statistical uncertainty is magnified when one is working with data for small areas or subgroups of the population or cross-tabulating demographic characteristics. We interviewed (n = 7) and surveyed (n = 200) planners and find that many do not understand the statistical uncertainty in ACS data, find it difficult to communicate statistical uncertainty to stakeholders, and avoid reporting MOEs altogether. These practices may conflict with planners’ ethical obligations under the AICP Code of Ethics to disclose information in a clear and direct way.

Takeaway for practice: We argue that the planning academy should change its curriculum requirements and that the profession should improve professional development training to ensure planners understand data uncertainty and convey it to users. We suggest planners follow 5 guidelines when using ACS data: Report MOEs, indicate when they are not reporting MOEs, provide context for the level of statistical reliability, consider alternatives for reducing statistical uncertainty, and always conduct statistical tests when comparing ACS estimates.     

Limitations of Technical Approaches to Transport Planning Practice in Two Cases: Social Issues as a Critical Component of Urban Projects

ABSTRACT

Technical transport models are commonly relied upon in planning practice for the development of urban rail infrastructure projects. By considering the assessment and management of social impacts in the planning and decision-making of two rail megaprojects (the North-South Metro line in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and the Parramatta Rail Link in Sydney, Australia), we found that technical approaches continued to overlook social impacts, and had an overemphasis on economic and engineering considerations. We conclude that good practice Social Impact Assessment (SIA) offers opportunities to better consider social issues as a critical component of transport projects.     

Seven Principles of Strong Climate Change Planning

Abstract

As greenhouse gas emissions and climate change impacts increase worldwide, there is an urgent need for communities, and thus urban planners, to simultaneously mitigate and adapt to climate change. We synthesize recent research to examine whether the field of planning is adequately addressing climate change. We conclude that although there has been progress in recent years, it is insufficient given the scope of the climate change challenge and the myriad ways climate impacts negatively affect communities. We argue for seven principles of strong climate change planning: 1) clear goals; 2) strong fact base; 3) diverse strategies; 4) public participation; 5) coordination across actors, sectors, and plans; 6) processes for implementation and monitoring; and 7) techniques to address uncertainty. For each of these principles we discuss the current state of research and practice.     

The concept and planning of public native housing estates in Nairobi/Kenya, 1918–1948

ABSTRACT

Interwar public housing estates for native citizens in Sub-Sahara African cities, represent hybrids of global and local urban concepts, housing typologies and dwelling habits.

The authors explain such hybrids via exploratory research note as a result of transmutation processes, marked by various (non)human actors. To categorize and compare them, Actor Network Theory (ANT) is applied and tested within an architecture historical framework. Nairobi/Kenya functions as pars pro toto with its Kariakor and Kaloleni estates as exemplary cases. Their different network-outcomes underpin the supposition that actor-oriented research can help to unravel a most essential, though neglected part of international town planning history.     

Defining resilience for the US building industry

ABSTRACT

Initiatives to operationalize the concept of resilience in the building industry are rapidly emerging. The concept of resilience has introduced a way to explore solutions to some important problems in the building industry. However, much of the work that has taken place to date represents activities generally assigned to risk management, which is discussed as being inherently insufficient for sustaining the functions of the built environment under stresses. This commentary considers the opportunities and limitations for mainstreaming resilience into building industry processes and actors. Barriers include indeterminate analytical meaning, event and performance uncertainty, immature regulatory standards setting, and untested enterprise economics. Further, the multiple outcomes of recovery and the relationship between building recovery and adaptation are discussed and, along with economics of resilience investments, a research need highlighted. A simple heuristic is presented to illustrate the complement of resilience to risk management and advance the integration of resilience into existing industry workflows.     

Tracking Our Footsteps

Abstract

Problem, research strategy, and findings: We conduct a systematic reading of all articles published in the past 30?years in three U.S.-based general planning journals, Journal of the American Planning Association (JAPA), Journal of Planning Education and Research (JPER), and Journal of Planning Literature (JPL), using latent Dirichlet allocation, a text mining technique. We find that certain research themes remain important in the past 3 decades, such as planning process, planning methods, and land use/growth management, whereas others have lost their prominent status, such as planning theory and planning education. New fields such as food systems have emerged during the study period. Editorial regimes appear to be associated with theme dynamics.

Takeaway for practice: In this study we demonstrate a text mining method to effectively summarize a large amount of text data and track planning researchers’ footsteps in the study of planning issues reflected from published research articles. We identify past and emerging research trends in the studied journals that can help scholars situate their work in the literature and practitioners find collaboration opportunities. It also helps professional associations such as the American Collegiate Schools of Planning (ACSP) and the APA open up new conference tracks and/or specialization groups/divisions so they can reflect the ever-changing interests of their memberships in a timely manner.     

Planning Particularities: Reinterpreting Urban Planning in China with the Case of Chengdu

ABSTRACT

The concept of neoliberalisation is increasingly applied to China to explain its unprecedented urban transformation. This paper argues against fitting China into a prototype neoliberal model. Instead it proposes a fresh interpretation of its urban planning particularities within a continuity-contestation framework, embodied in the context, governance and practice of planning. Chengdu, the gateway in West China, is chosen as a case study to illustrate this framework. Analysing the successive city Master Plans of Chengdu, it was found that there was a strong path dependency in Chengdu’s plan-making process. Yet contestations from the planning context and planning practice pressured for planning transformation. Interestingly, inconsistencies within its Master Plans sometimes worked in line with the market and mediated the conflicts between plan-led and market-led development logics.