09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0: Four Reasons Why AICP Needs an Open Data Ethic

Problem, research strategy, and ­findings: Computing and digital technologies have changed how data are created, analyzed, and communicated. The American Institute of Certified Planners (AICP) Code of Ethics has no guidelines for planners working with emerging urban informatics. Here we make a theoretical argument based on the premise of epistemic justice: The idea that how planners collect, manage, disseminate, and use data all bear on justice in democratic decision making about cities.

Four reasons exist for planners to prioritize open data in our formal code of ethics. First, emerging Big Data from urban informatics have a steep learning curve that potentially exacerbates the gaps in power and political voice between experts and nonexperts. Second, algorithms have come to govern an increasing portion of human life and cities, and planners should ideally be enabling residents in their ability to scrutinize, understand, and challenge managerial algorithms that have become prevalent in e-government. Third, urban informatics potentially alter the economic and community development of cities and the urban experience. Fourth and finally, ubiquitous data sensing, new consumer tracking capabilities, obscure and readily skipped terms of use agreements, and rapidly changing technologies make cities into potentially coercive data collection environments.

Takeaway for practice: Substantial barriers exist to open data ethics in an information economy where exclusive access to data can drive profits. Emerging data systems can consolidate power in the hands of experts and large private firms to the exclusion of citizens and small, independent firms. Open data and code vitiates those problems to a limited degree, and AICP could benefit practitioners by adopting an open data ethic.     

Planning Experience and Planners’ Ethics

Problem, research strategy, and ­findings: Ethical considerations are integral to most aspects of planning, but the bases of planners’ ethical decisions are not well understood. In fact, there has been no follow-up to Elizabeth Howe and Jerome Kaufman’s original 1979 survey of the ethics of American planners in this journal (45(3), 243–255). Our research evaluates the differences in planning roles and planners’ ethical perspectives since then. In their study, Howe and Kaufman use hypothetical scenarios to determine which of three roles planners play: technician, politician, or a hybrid. They also evaluate how the role that planners assume affects their ethical views. Our research uses similar scenarios to evaluate these relationships in contemporary planning practice while simultaneously evaluating the influence of professional experience on the ethical bases of those choices. We confirm many of Howe and Kaufman’s findings, but first we find that today’s planners assume different roles than they did in the mid-1970s, conforming more often to a technical role and less to a political or hybrid role. Second, today’s planners tend to make virtue-based choices when concerned with ideological and legal issues, but revert to rule-based or utilitarian choices when faced with the dissemination and quality of information and segments of the population receiving special advantages. Finally, we find that planners, at all stages in their careers, maintain a mixture of virtue- and rule-based ethical choices while affirming the profession’s core values (as represented in the 2009 AICP Code).

Takeaway for practice: The vast majority of practicing planners in our sample (80%) use the AICP Code of Ethics in response to our hypothetical scenarios. At the same time, self-interested responses were rarely made. These findings reaffirm the code’s value to the profession.     

Racial and Class Bias in Zoning: Rezonings Involving Heavy Commercial and Industrial Land Use in Durham (NC), 1945–2014

Problem, research strategy, and findings: In this study I investigate whether zoning has traditionally protected communities of color from the dangers of heavy commercial and industrial use to the extent that it has protected White communities. I evaluate whether upzonings—changes from less intensive uses to more intensive heavy commercial and industrial uses—disproportionately occurred in African-American and low-income neighborhoods in Durham (NC) from 1945 to 2014, and I evaluate the comparative impact of downzonings. I use the contemporary demographics of the census tracts where these rezonings occurred and qualitative evidence from public hearings, plans, and other relevant primary materials. I find that before 1985, the pattern of rezonings in Durham had negative implications for African-American areas in particular. Environmental justice efforts in the 1980s, followed by gentrification, caused the city’s planners and local elected officials to change course.

Takeaway for practice: Planners have an ethical obligation to promote equity, and their ability to do so depends on understanding sources of social injustice. In Durham, race historically played a role in upzonings and downzonings involving heavy commercial and industrial uses. The city also demonstrates that planners and local elected officials can successfully intervene to end disparities in zoning practice across communities of different racial characteristics. Assessing past zoning practices in other cities may reveal similar records of bias and help planners to present cases for corrective action.     

City Managers Have Ethics Too? Comparing Planning and City Management Codes of Ethics

Problem, research strategy, and ­findings: Planners and city and county managers regularly work together but often face ethical conundrums. We compare the codes of ethics from their two U.S. professional organizations—the American Institute of Certified Planners (AICP) and the International City/County Management Association (ICMA)—and then apply the AICP Code of Ethics to five published ICMA ethics scenarios to determine how the two professions might respond differently in each. We find common professional values in the codes: equality, creativity, and diligence. The AICP Code, however, emphasizes direct democracy and engaging citizens, while the ICMA Code emphasizes representative democracy and engaging elected officials. Code values and actual behaviors are not always related, but we believe our work shows the source of ethical challenges and power struggles between managers and planners.

Takeaway for practice: Planners can learn from ICMA’s Code to focus on elected officials. Managers can learn from AICP’s Code to focus on citizens. Planners and managers can overcome their professional biases and blind spots by understanding the ethical codes under which the other profession operates. Planners work from the outside in, managers from the inside out; working together, they can improve the communities they serve.     

Book reviews

Cities, Housing and Profits: Flat Break‐up and the Decline of Private Renting. by Chris Hamnett and Bill Randolph. London: Hutchin‐son. 1988. 297pp. £25.00.

A Property‐Owning Democracy? by M. J. Daunton. London: Faber and Faber. 1987. 148pp. $6.95 (£3.95).

Loft Living: Culture & Capital in Urban Change. by Sharon Zukin. London: Radius. 1988. £8.95 (paperback).

Housing Association Law. by J. Alder and C. R. Handy. Sweet and Maxwell. 1987. 330pp. £26.00 (paperback).

The Design Professions and the Built Environment. edited by Paul L. Knox. London: Croom Helm 1988. 313pp. £35.00.

The Local State and Uneven Development. by Simon Duncan and Mark Goodwin. Cambridge: Polity Press (in association with Basil Blackwell). 1988. £8.95 (paperback).

Rehumanizing Housing. Necdet Teymur, Thomas A Markus and Tom Woolley (eds). London: Butterworths. 1988. pp196. £30.00.

Housing Policy and Tenures in Sweden. Lennort J. Lundquist. Gower 1988. pp173. FXX.

Housing in Postwar Canada: Demographic Change, Household Formation, and Housing Demand. John R Miron. Kingston and Montreal: McGill‐Queen's University Press. 1988. pp320. $35.00 (paperback).     

Book reviews

The Housing and Living Environment for Retired people in Australia. edited by Ross Thorne. Sydney: Hale & Iremonger. 1986. pp348 $A 29.95.

The Modern Urban Landscape. by Edward Relph. London: Croom Helm, 1987 pp279. £10.95.

Housing the Homeless. edited by Jon Erickson and Charles Wilhelm New Brunswick, New Jersey: Center for Urban Policy Research, Rutgers University. 1986. pp459. $19.95.

Cities: Special Issue: Shelter and Homelessness. Vol 4 No 1, February 1987. London: Butterworth. pp104.     

Book reviews

Public Housing: Current Trends and Future Developments. edited by David Clapham and John English London: doom Helm, 1987.174pp. £22.50 cloth.

Shelter, Settlement and Development. edited by Lloyd Rodwin, Foreword by Dr Arcot Ramachandran, London: Allen & Unwin, 1987. 476 + xviipp. £30.

Building Communities the Co‐operative Way. by Johnston Birchall, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1988 223pp. £14.95.

The Weller Way. The Story of the Welter Street"s Housing Co‐operative. by Alan McDonald, London: Faber and Faber 1987 222pp. £2.95.

The Property Owing Democracy. edited by John Doling, Janet Ford and Bruce Stafford: Gower, 1988. 259pp. £25.     

Book reviews

Meadowell: The Biography of an ‘Estate with Problems‘. M. Barke and G. Turnbull. Aldershot: Avebury, 1992. pp xii and 159. £32.50 (hardback)

Beyond Self‐help Housing. Kosta Mathey (ed). Munich: Profil Verlag and London: Mansell Publishing 1992 pp xiv + 4.17. £40.000

Housing Demography. Dowell Myers (ed). Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1991 £14.50

Housing and Social Theory. J. Kemeny. London: Routledge, 1992. pp 192. £35.00 (hardback)

Property, Bureaucracy and Culture: Middle‐class Formation in Contemporary Britain. M. Savage, M. Barlow, P. Dickens and T. Fielding. London: Routledge, 1992, pp 224. £40.00 (hardback)

Staying Put Revisited. Sheila Mackintosh and Philip Leather. Anchor Housing Trust, 1992. pp 102. £7.50.

The Politics and Pragmatism of Urban Containment. M. Murray. Aldershot: Avebury, 1991. pp viii + 280. £35.00 (hardback)

Building Capitalism: Historical Change and the Labour Process in the Production of the Built Environment. Linda Clarke. London: Routledge, 1992. pp 316. £65.00 (hardback) £19.99 paperback

The Visible Poor: Homelessness in America. J. Blau. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992. pp 235. £19.50

Urban Housing: Segregation of Minorities in Western Europe and the United States. Elizabeth D. Huttman (ed), Wim Blauw and Juliet Saltman (coeds). Durham and London: Duke University Press, 1991. pp 431. $59.95     

Book reviews

Housing in Scotland. Hector Currie & Alan Murie (Eds). Chartered Institute of Housing. Policy and Practice Series, £15.00 paperback. ISBN 0 901607 91 6.

The Home: Words, Interpretations, Meanings and Environments. D. Benjamin (Ed.). Avebury, Aldershot 1995, £37.00 hardback. ISBN 1 856628 8889.

Rethinking Local Democracy. Desmond King & Gerry Stoker (Eds). Macmillan, London, 1996, 233 pp, £13.95, paperback. ISBN 8039 8864 8.

An Introduction to Social Housing. Paul Reeves. Arnold, London, 1996, 273 pp, £13.99, paperback. ISBN 0 340 661976.

Representing the City: Ethnicity, Capital and Culture in the Twenty‐First Century Metropolis. Anthony D. King (Ed.). Macmillan Press, London, 1996, £13.99, paperback. ISBN 0 333601920.

Homeless. Gerald Daly. Routledge, London, 1996, 293 pp., £14.95. ISBN 0415 12029 2.

The Environmental Impact of Land and Property Management. Yvonne Rydin (Ed.). Wiley, Chichester, 1996, 196 pp., £45.00 hardback. ISBN 0 471966126.

Conservation and the City. Peter Larkham. Routledge, London, 1996, 329 pp., £17.99 paperback. ISBN 0 415 079478.     

The master plan

GARTENDENKMALPFLEGE, edited by Dieter Hennebo, 1985, Verlag Eugen Ulmer, Stuttgart 70, Postfach 70 05 61. 29 colour photographs and 126 black and white photos, drawings and prints. DM 198.00.

VICTORIAN GARDENS, Brent Elliott, London: Batsford, 1986, pp. 285, £30.00

ENVIRONMENTAL POLICIES: AN INTERNATIONAL REVIEW, Chris C. Park (Ed.), Croom Helm, 1986, 315 pp, £22.50.

URBS ET REGIO 34/1984, Jungst, P. (Ed.), Kasseler Schrift‐enreihe zur Geographic und Planung Innere und äußere Landschaften Zur Symbolbelegung und emotionale Besetzung von räumlicher Umwelt.

LANNING ROPER AND HIS GARDENS by Jane Brown, Weidenfeld &; Nicholson, 1987. (42 colour plates, 120 illustrations in black and white and 25 plans). Price £20.00.

A TASTE FOR TRAVEL. AN ANTHOLOGY by John Julius Norwich. Macmillan, 1985, pp 435, paperback, £7.95.     

Book reviews

Housing Systems in Europe Part I A Comparative Study of Housing Policy. Peter Boelhouwer & Harry van der Heijden 314 pp

Part II A Comparative Study of Housing Finance. Oscar Papa 207 pp Delft University Press, 1992

Time to put our House in Order. John Newton The Catholic Housing Aid Society, 1993, 88 pp., £9.50 paper

Repossessed. A Fresh Look at Mortgage Lending Practice. Sarah Jenkinson The Catholic Housing Aid Society, 1992, 73 pp., £7.50, paper

All in One Place. The British Housing Story 1971–1990. John Newton The Catholic Housing Aid Society, 1991, 109 pp., £7.99, paper

Housing for Life. Christine Davies E. & F. N. Spon, 1992, 168 pp., £14.95

Whatever Happened to Local Government?. Allan Cochrane Open University Press, 1993, 124 pp., £10.99

In Search of a Home: Rental and Shared Housing in Latin America. Alan Gilbert, in association with Oscar Olinto Camacho, Rene Coulomb and Andres Necochea. London, UCL Press, 1993, pp. 192, £35     

Book reviews

Selling the Welfare State: The Privatisation of Public Housing. Ray Forrest and Alan Murie. London: Routledge, 1988. 279pp. £35.00.

Affordable Housing and the Homeless. Jurgen Friedrichs (ed). Walter de Gruyter: Berlin and New York.

The Homeless in Contemporary Society. Richard D. Bingham, Roy E. Green and Sammis B. White. £29.95 cloth, £12.95 paper.     

Book reviews

The New Housing Shortage: Housing Affordability in Europe and the USA. Graham Hallett (Ed) London, Routledge, 1993, 270pp., £45, hardback

House, Home and Community: Progress in Housing Canadians, 1945–1986. John R. Miron (Ed) with Larry S. Bourne, George Fallis, A. Skabursis, Marion Steele & Patricia A. Streich

Montreal and Kingston, McGill‐Queens University Press and the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, 1993, VIII + 456pp., £46.75

Cities, Poverty and Development: Urbanisation in the Third World. Alan Gilbert & Joseph Gugler Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1992, 2nd edition, 331pp., £13.95, paperback

Unhealthy Housing, Research, Remedies and Reform. R. Burridge & D. Ormandy (Eds) London, E&FN Spon, 1993, XXV + 443pp., £37.50 hardback

Housing Co‐operatives in Britain: Achievements and Prospects. David Clapham & Keith Kintrea, London, Longman, 1992, 219pp, £16.95, paperback

Urban and Regional Planning. Peter Hall London, Routledge, 1992, 3rd edition, 259pp., £40 hardback, £12.99 paperback

Slums and Redevelopment, Policy and Practice in England, 1918–45, with Particular Reference to London. J.A. Yelling UCL Press, 1992, 224pp., £35.00, hardback     

Book reviews

Women, Housing and Community. W. Van Vliet, (ed). Avebury: Aldershot. 1988. pp204. £30.00, cloth.

Accommodating Inequality: Gender and Housing. S. Watson, Allen and Unwin: London. pp157. £9.95 paper, £25.00 cloth.

Social Housing and the Social Services. by Paul Spicker. Harlow: Longman and the Institute of Housing, 1989. 143pp. £11.95 (paper).     

Book reviews

Housing in Europe. edited by Martin Wynn. London: Croom Helm. 1983. pp. 325. £19.95.

National Housing Finance Systems: a Comparative Study. by Mark Boleat. 1985. London: Croom Helm, in association with the International Union of Building Societies and Savings Associations, pp. 489. £30.00.

Private Rented Housing in the United States and Europe. by Michael Harloe. London: Croom Helm. 1985. pp. 366. £22.50.     

Book reviews

A Fourth Way? Privatization, Property and the Emergence of New Market Economies. Gregory S. Alexander & Grazyna Skapska (Eds). London, Routledge, 1994, xxiii + 336 pp., ISBN 0415906970 (HB), 0415906989 (PB)

From Public Housing to the Social Market. Rental Policy Strategies in Comparative Perspective. Jim Kemeny. London and New York, Routledge, 1995, 194 pp., £40.00

European Housing Finance. Single Market or Mosaic?. Will Bartlett & Glen Bramley (Eds). Oxford, The Alden Press, School for Advanced Urban Studies (SAUS) publication 12 (Bristol) 1994, 282 pp., £19.95, paperback, ISBN 1 873575 63 7

Housing, Financial Markets and the Wider Economy. David Miles. Chichester, John Wiley & Sons, 1994, 228 pp., £35.00

Women in the Housing Service. Marion Brion. London, Routledge, 1994, ISBN 0 415 08094 £45.00 Hardback

Slippery Customers: Estate Agents, The Public and Regulation. Michael Clarke, David Smith & Michael McConville. London, Blackstone Press, 1994, 295 pp., £19.95     

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.     

Metropolitan Transportation Planning: Lessons From the Past,Institutions for the Future

Problem, research strategy, and findings: There are more than 400 U.S. metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) overseeing multiple transportation projects totaling billions of dollars, yet these crucial organizations and their history and current role are generally unknown or confusing to many planning practitioners and scholars. MPOs face major challenges in developing meaningful long-range regional transportation plans, challenges rooted in their history that planners should understand as they grapple with metropolitan planning efforts. MPOs may approve projects and their funding, but disparate agencies and often competitive local governments control budgets and actually build projects. MPOs, moreover, do not fully represent all regional interests and have no control over the local land use decisions that would support less autocentric communities and human-powered modes. I provide a metareview of the history of regional transportation planning and the MPOs responsible for it, describing U.S. metropolitan transportation planning from the early 20th century. Federal legislation in the 1960s first suggested a regional forum for conversations about metropolitan transportation. Federal legislation in subsequent decades made incremental if incomplete progress toward creating a meaningful regional forum, adapting institutions and practices to increase stakeholder involvement as well as the scope of transport planning, yet MPOs have multiple limitations that planners can address.

Takeaway for practice: History suggests that MPOs can be a force for regional change. Planners and policymakers could anchor future reforms to MPOs’ existing legal and administrative frameworks. Planners should revisit the membership and voting structures of MPO boards to ensure better stakeholder representation and permit some MPOs to generate and direct transportation funds at the local level.     

Incentivize It and They Will Come? How Some of the Busiest U.S. Airports Are Building Air Service With Incentive Programs

Problem, research strategy, and findings: In the 1990s, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) prohibited airport sponsors (local authorities managing airports) from diverting airport revenue to general municipal budgets and allowed the busiest airports to create air service incentive programs (ASIPs) to induce airlines to launch new air service. These incentive programs have not been evaluated, although planners need information on their long-term effectiveness. Few data, however, are available on ASIP programs; I created a database to identify which airports have ASIPs, which new airline services received incentives, and the services that continued after incentives ended. I find that 26 of 44 airports with ASIPs that recruited new routes spent $171.5 million combined between 2012 and the first quarter of 2015, 40% on routes that were not retained when the incentive ended. The busiest airports in the largest cities with growing populations, relatively independent of local economic status, were most able to recruit and retain new airline services. Small and medium airports, particularly in stagnant areas, were not able to recruit and retain new air services.

Takeaway for practice: The FAA should require airport sponsors to submit comprehensive information on their ASIP programs—the routes recruited and retained, as well as detailed estimates of the costs and benefits of each route—to provide planners with needed information. The FAA also should loosen the constraints on the use of non-aeronautical airport revenues so that communities can choose between spending on incentives to increase air service and other programs to increase local economic development.     

Book reviews

Edge of Empire: Postcolonialism and the City. Jane M. Jacobs. London and New York, Routledge, 1996, 193 pp., £12.99 pb, ISBN 0–415–12007–1

Land for Industrial Development. David Adams, Lynne Russell & Clare Taylor‐Russell. London, E.&F.N. Spon, 1994, 289 pp., £37.50 hb, ISBN 0–419–19180–1

Urban Policy in Practice. Tim Blackman. London, Routledge, 1994, 320 pp., £14.99 pb, ISBN 0–415–09300–7

Planning, the Market and Private House‐building. G. Bramley, W. Bartlett & C. Lambert London, UCL Press, 1995, 192 pp., £11.95 pb, ISBN 1–85728–163–2

Retail Planning Policies in Western Europe. Ross Davies. London, Routledge, 1995, 304 pp., £45.00 hb, ISBN 0–415–10997–3

Transport Concepts in European Cities. Tim Pharoah & Dieter Apel. Aldershot, Avebury, 1995, 291 pp., £42.50 hb, ISBN 1–859–72094–3

Building a New Heritage: Tourism, Culture and Identity in the New Europe. G.J. Ashworth & P.J. Larkham (Eds). London, Routledge, 1994, 278 pp., hb (out of print), ISBN 0–415–07931–4

Fractal Cities: A Geometry of Form and Function. Michael Batty & Paul Longley. London, Academic Press, 1994, 394 pp., £38.00 hb, ISBN 0–124–55570–5