This article is inspired by Everyday Urbanism, all the curious folks out there who wants to find their voice in the sea of people that make up a place, the high school seniors and college freshman who want to know what what the heck “urban planning” is, and those who are already familiar with the field and want to know how other fellow planning enthusiasts conceptualize the city.

One of the first questions we ask others upon meetings is, “Where are you from?” Our identities are rooted in place; where we live provides the context for how we learn about ourselves and what we value (Neill, 2004). There is great value in looking to the  field of urban planning for new ways of understanding a place and becoming a more engaged citizen, but from politics to advocacy groups, planning jargon to #trendythings, jumping right in can be overwhelming when starting from naught.

Whether you know absolutely nothing about cities and need a place to start or already know a lot about planning and are looking for a new perspective, I will guide you through a basic process that has worked for me, juxtaposed to a narrative of how I have come to apply what I’ve learned in school to what is important to be back home. Each section presents a question and a challenge that asks you to interact with your city in a way that you may not have before. Join me!

Where am I? Understanding history and why place matters

“Your history is your genesis. It explains to you how you came to be WHO you are, and WHY you are WHERE you are today. Proper historical reflection shows the reasons you developed your particular view of the world. It explains how you developed your outward physical characteristics. It allows you to appreciate your own views and the views of others that may seem different to yours.”—Rasta Speaks

The other day I received a text message from my mother. Neighbors next door. Serious landlord eviction. My mom is admittedly the nosy neighbor, but that does not change the very public scene of  trash bags stuffed full of belongings spilling onto the curb and mattresses strewn across the porch. The days passed and the neighbors were nowhere to be seen, unlike the new faces passing by who collected the forsaken belongings until they were gone.  “Nothing new”, I thought to myself. Trash, poverty, and urban foraging have been woven into my daily landscape for as long as I can remember.

Growing up living in the inner city and going to school in the suburbs, I wondered why violence and deteriorated buildings are normalized in my neighborhood, but not others. Individuals are not born inherently better or worse than one another, so what is it about the places they inhabit that lead to such vastly different life outcomes? The seemingly mundane factors in my environment prompted me to learn more about inequities in Greater Rochester.

With a clearer sense of what I wanted to understand about my city, my question became, “historically speaking, why do groups of people inhabit the spaces they do?” This question led me to learning about the reality of redlining (“to withhold home-loan funds or insurance from neighborhoods considered poor economic risks” (Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary, 2015)). In 1935, a map of Rochester was created based on loan prospect ratings. The city’s northeast and southwest quadrants were given red “D” ratings, meaning they were risky areas for loans. These two neighborhoods are also home to the worst schools, including my neighborhood school, and highest crime rates. Brighton, the suburb where I attended high school (one of the best high schools in the country, and a mere twenty minute drive away), was given a green “A” rating, to represent that it was safe for loan and insurance lending (Connolly, N. et al., 2013).

Eighty years later in 2015, discriminatory mortgage lending remains an issue in the City of Rochester. In January, the New York State Attorney General’s office “found that Five Star [Bank] excluded predominantly minority neighborhoods [in Rochester] from its lending area; deemed loans secured by property outside of the bank’s lending area to be “undesirable”; and imposed a minimum mortgage amount requirement that made many of the bank’s mortgage products effectively unavailable in predominantly minority neighborhoods.” (New York State, Office of the Attorney General, 2015: n.p.).

Barring minorities and the low income from access to better neighborhoods concentrates poverty in specific neighborhoods, lowers property value, and reduces the amount of tax revenue available to support school funding, which works to perpetuate the cycle of poverty. The concentration of poverty is also related to neighborhood appearance, homelessness, violence, and quality of life. (Cutrona, 2006). Some of the basic reasons connecting the eviction, bad schools, and run down neighborhood appearance were beginning to fit into one larger picture of concentrated poverty. With this new information, the next step is to see where it fits into more technical planning concepts, and dig deeper from there.

“While the city can be studied, mapped, diagrammed, and probed from many professional perspectives; there is no substitute for the actual experience of a place.” – David Kaliski

Challenge: Find one aspect about your city that interests you and explore its history. Research it, talk to people about it, and go outside to try to observe it in action. Reflect on how your history has influenced your worldview.

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What are they talking about? Understanding key terms, topics, and issues

Planning, like almost every field of study, has a shared language.  A basic understanding of common planning terms not only helps to clarify what others are speaking about, but can also affirm the reality of your experiences. The confidence boost from the ability to join in and form opinions on more technical issues you find important doesn’t hurt either.

When I understood that my interests related to equity, I soon learned there were words to describe what I thought were just disjoint observations. As previously mentioned, redlining was an important word that led to my understanding of concentrated poverty, property taxes, and quality of life. Similarly, I noticed the under-utilization of abandoned storefronts in the inner city. There is an eerie sense of abandonment and incompleteness in the inner city that is not as prominent elsewhere, but I did not know what was the culprit.

The sense of abandonment turned out to be related to Rochester’s lack of infill development, which is  used to preserve and enhance community character (City of Portland, 2008). Despite the many benefits of infill development outside of enhancing character (e.g. cost savings, improved walkability, transportation efficiency, reducing sprawl), (United States Environmental Protection Agency, 1999) the City of Rochester has yet to create an incentive for businesses to utilize the buildings that already exist in the city.

Creating a list of vocabulary words for yourself– though it doesn’t have to be a literal vocabulary list– may seem unnecessary, but the power of reducing barriers to communication is unparalleled. In addition, by acknowledging that a shared language even exists in planning, we become more aware that those around us may not fully understand what we are talking about. Planning is so heavily involved in the lives of people who have likely never heard the word “infill development”. Considering how the application of a word affects end users is key when communicating.

Bridging language between professionals and the public even extends beyond definitions and visuals—words can be understood by examining their variations within vernacular, spatial variations, their perceived effects on emotions, and their related behaviors (Thomas, J., & McDonagh, D., 2013; Parfitt, B. 2012.). Equipped with these new words, I can now explore my interests in far greater detail as they pertain to planning, and communicate them more effectively. Now the only question is, to whom do I speak with about these issues?

Challenge: One of the hardest parts of figuring out what words explain what you see is not knowing how to find those words in the first place. Though it is by no means comprehensive, the brief list at the end of this article may help in getting started. If you see words or phrases that pique your interest, find out what they mean and how they appear in your surroundings, or how they are not present in your surroundings. Can you think of ways to bridge the difference between the definition of the words and how they function in daily life?

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Who are they and what are they doing? Getting familiar with your local government and community organizations

Civic engagement is facing a downward trend, particularly among young people. On one hand, historical data reveals that it typically takes each generation a few voting cycles to get into the groove of participation after turning eighteen (Flanagan, C. & Levine, P: 2010), but in spite of these patterns, engagement as a whole remains on the decline. Local government officials and community organizations play an integral role in shaping the values and trajectory of cities. Though it varies by state, local government “generally take responsibility for parks and recreation services, police and fire departments, housing services, emergency medical services, municipal courts, transportation services (including public transportation), and public works (streets, sewers, snow removal, signage, and so forth).” (The White House, United States Government, n.d.).  More specifically, the state grants municipalities varying degrees of power over the local law, tax rates, employment rules, and revenue sources (National League of Cities, 2013). Some scholars even theorize the existence of an urban “growth machine”, which rejects the idea that empty lots are just waiting to be used by someone and instead argues that the elite public/private interests control land-use and development patterns to benefit themselves, and not the collective. (Molotch, H., 1976). I wonder if this holds true for development in Rochester…

Whichever way you look at it, the local government’s role in the city cannot be overlooked, and understanding in whose hand the power resides is an important step in taking ownership in where you live. Becoming involved in your government does not mean showing up to every public meeting at City Hall and shaking an angry fist. Dipping your feet in political waters can be as simple as taking a moment to become familiar with the structure of your city’s government and who’s who. I’ll even do half of the work for you and give you two figures you should look out for depending on what city you live in: your mayor/council president/city manager, and your council representative.

Rochester has a “Mayor-Council” form of government occurs when the mayor and city council are elected separately, and the mayor has a great deal of authority of the administration and budget in the city (National League of Cities, 2013). While city council still has legislative authority, the mayor has veto power over council and has the ability to appoint department heads. In other words, Mayor Lovely Warren has a lot of power, and her ideas and initiatives should not be taken lightly. Her power is evident in many instances, but most recently in her decision to reorganize the police department from two patrols (East side and West Side) to five (one for each of the four city quadrants, and one for downtown).
On the contrary, in a “Council-Manager” form of government, the mayor serves more as a figurehead, and city council is in charge of the administration, budget, and policies. Usually the council appoints a city manager to take care of daily administration duties, as opposed to the mayor carrying out said tasks (ibid). In this case, you may want to become more familiar with your city manager or council president, whose decision making power will hold significantly more weight than the mayor’s.

Your city council representative and community organizations are key to bringing neighborhood level concerns to the table. Every city council is different, so it is important to know what aspects of the city they do and do not oversee. But generally speaking, while your mayor or council president may not respond to an email about, for example, the number of vacant lots and housing in your neighborhood, your representative may be more receptive to the issue since it concerns their district’s needs and their own reelection. (University at Buffalo Regional Institute, 2009). Similarly, reaching out to local community organizations can connect you with a group of people who are also interested in helping the cause.

Challenge: Do some digging on your Mayor or City Manager, City Council president, and district representative, as well as some community organizations. Think of one issue you care about or are interested in and push yourself to engage with its political side, in whichever way you’re comfortable. Examples include attending or speaking at a public meeting, writing a letter to a representative, going to a neighborhood association meeting, and going to a community input workshop.

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Who am I? Thinking about yourself within the context of your city

The beauty of planning is that almost any issue imaginable relates back to the city. The beauty of the city is that it is ever changing, always adapting to the times. The beauty of people is that our issues are not always conducive to engineered solutions. Some may call all human concerns wicked, but the finding the inspiration in some of the challenges that weave into the fabric of our lives in but an exercise of the mind.

“When the designer begins with reality and defines it as beautiful, existing situations become a starting point rather than a stumbling point. Reality…provides inspiration.”— David Kaliski

Because of where I come from, I cannot help but see issues through a lens of inequitable opportunity. When local food activists eschew people’s consumption of cheap, unhealthy convenience foods, I still cannot erase the part of myself that feels a pang of sadness remembering the little girl who would give me hugs at my job, and confided in me when the only food her mom had left in the house was hot dog slices. I cannot erase the part of me that remembers the way her mother’s eyes averted my own, aware of the stigma when the only form of identification she could give me was her EBT card. I cannot erase the part of me that knows that easily could have been me.

But not everyone sees the world through my lens, and if everyone did, there would be no beautifully designed parks, no cohesive transportation systems, no architectural advances, no well-landscaped streets…. The world wouldn’t be the rich, interesting place that it is if we all saw it in the same way. Who are you within the context of your city? Many of our human issues may never be “solved”, but we all have a lens through which we interpret the city and can apply our unique touch in way that works for the benefit of issues we care about.

For me, education is huge: taking what I’ve learned and sharing those insights by meeting people where they are at. Freshman year, I wish someone gave me a guide that introduced me to the world of planning and told me it was okay if I hadn’t the slightest idea of the meaning of the word “zoning”. As mentioned previously, in many ways, this blog post is my first attempt at doing just that. I found a thinking process that works for me, and I am sharing it with others to encourage them to think about the way they think about their city (#thinkinginception). If this doesn’t work for you, my hope is that it at least prompts you to find what does.  No matter what issue you care about or are interested in, your experiences and insights matter. Sometimes we realize that our claims are unfounded or our ideas are faulty, but that is a normal process of learning and finding your voice within a subject.

Challenge: Think about what experiences you have had (or would like to have) that guide your interests in the field. Why is your perspective needed, and what other perspectives are you not considering? Come up with a way in which you can apply your voice to a current event in the city, and go do it!

Schools can confine learning to four walls, but an education in urban studies demonstrates that any place can become your classroom.

Explore your voice in planning. Use it.

Peace & Good Plans

Works Cited

Chase, J., Crawford, M., & Kaliski, J. (1999). Everyday urbanism : featuring John Chase … New York: Monacelli Press.

City of Portland. Portland Bureau of Planning. (2008). The Infill Design Toolkit: Medium-Density Residential Development. Portland, OR: City of Portland.

Connolly, N., Marciano, R., Nelson, R., & Winling, L. (2013). Mapping Inequality: Redlining in New Deal America.. [Richmond, Va.] :University of Richmond Digital Scholarship Lab.

Cutrona, C. E., Wallace, G., & Wesner, K. A. (2006). Neighborhood Characteristics and Depression: An Examination of Stress Processes. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 15(4), 188–192. http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8721.2006.00433.x

Flanagan, C., & Levine, P.. (2010). Civic Engagement and the Transition to Adulthood. The Future of Children, 20(1), 159–179.

Infill Development: Completing the Community Fabric. (2015, May 18). Retrieved November 14, 2015, from http://mrsc.org/Home/Explore-Topics/Planning/Development-Types-and-Land-Uses/Infill-Development-Completing-the-Community-Fabric.aspx

Meck, S. (Ed.). (2002). Policy, Advocacy, and Laws: Definitions. American Planning Association Growing Smart Legislative Guidebook. Retrieved November 14, 2015, from https://www.planning.org/growingsmart/guidebook/three.htm

Molotch, H.. (1976). The City as a Growth Machine: Toward a Political Economy of Place. American Journal of Sociology, 82(2), 309–332.

National League of Cities. (2013). Cities 101. Retrieved from http://www.nlc.org/build-skills-and-networks/resources/cities-101/

Neill, W. J.V. (2004). Urban Planning and Cultural Identity. C. Hague, T. Richardson, & R. Upton (Eds.). London, UK: Routledge.

New York State, Office of the Attorney General. (2015). A.G. Schneiderman Secures Agreement With Five Star Bank To End Racially Discriminatory Mortgage Lending Practices In Rochester [Press release]. Retrieved from http://www.ag.ny.gov/press-release/ag-schneiderman-secures-agreement-five-star-bank-end-racially-discriminatory-mortgage

Packard, V. (1972). A Nation of Strangers. New York, New York: David McKay Company.

Parfitt, B. (2012, April). Putting yourself on the map: the first free and open map of the world is empowering previously ignored communities in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. Geographical, 84(4), 26+. Retrieved from http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA292086526&v=2.1&u=nysl_sc_cornl&it=r&p=AONE&asid=af2a697c9d2b7f66e0a7c608fdc79b04

Rasta Speaks. (2007). Rasta Guidance: The Importance of History. Retrieved from http://www.rastaspeaks.com/Rasta/history.html

redline. 2015. In Merriam-Webster.com.

Retrieved November 22, 2015, from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/redline

University at Buffalo Regional Institute. “Sizing Up Local Legislatures.” Buffalo, NY: University at Buffalo Regional Institute, September 2009.

Thomas, J., & McDonagh, D. (2013). Shared language:Towards more effective communication. The Australasian Medical Journal, 6(1), 46–54. http://doi.org/10.4066/AMJ.2013.1596

United States Environmental Protection Agency, Urban and Economic Development Division. (1999). The Transportation and Environmental Impacts of Infill versus Greenfield Development: A Comparative Case Study Analysis. Washington, D.C.: EPA.

The White House, United States Government. (n.d.). State & Local Government. Retrieved  from http://www.whitehouse.gov/1600/state-and-local-government