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Tag Archives: urban planning

Urbanism Speakeasy: Urbanism for the non-urbanist

Earlier this month, I was honoured to be asked to be the first interviewee for ‘Urbanism Speakeasy” a great new urbanism podcast by Andy Boenau, an urbanist and transportation engineer from Richmond Virgina.

The audio podcast can be found on Chirb.it.

Here is an overview of what we talked about:

The influence of an unqualified urban planner

The Yurbanism brand is about 3 years old. In short, it is Yuri’s views on urbanism. What’s particularly interesting about Yuri’s views is that they are not bound to traditional schools of thought. His background is in public policy and administration, not urban planning or city planning.

Yuri’s strong online influence is probably rooted in his curation of articles and stories he picks up from around the globe. He has over 5,000 Twitter followers, and estimates he’s personally met 20% of those people at tweetups and conferences.

Turning community ideas into action

What inspiration or optimism can be shared with people who want to improve their hometown but don’t have any idea where to begin? Yuri talks about answering the question of who was responsible for urban decay, and who was now doing work to revitalize Phoenix? He also talks about encouraging people to get involved in the planning and development of projects early on – before bulldozers start moving dirt or demolishing buildings.

One way to get people more familiar with their community’s character and physical traits is organizing walking tours. To get to know a city, you have to get out and walk it. Yuri describes the Jane’s Walk initiative, how it was introduced in Phoenix, and the momentum that followed. Rather than simply having participants follow around an “expert” tour guide, Yuri describes the events as walking conversations. Politicians and professional planners have an opportunity to hear firsthand what the community observes and what they’d like to see change in their community. See things you might not normally see and hear stories you might not otherwise hear.

The Jane Jacobs factor

Jane Jacobs famously said design is people. Yuri agrees, and adds his own spin: design is dialogue. He talks about ways to defuse tensions from opposing parties. The first step can be as simple as inviting people over for a coffee or beer. Writing boisterous or nasty letters and emails grabs headlines, but sitting down and listening to all points of view can help build relationships that might otherwise not have existed. (Editor’s note: the Urbanism Speakeasy vouches for the neighborly empowerment of hops and barley.)

The one constant about urban planning is that nothing stays the same. Even when the physical structure and character of a neighborhood stays in place, the dynamics still change. People age, children move out of the house, new people move in, etc. This is both an exciting part of community evolution as well as a significant challenge for planners.

Social media in community planning

With the explosion of social media tools like Twitter and Facebook, the public involvement process is far different from just a decade ago. Yuri describes traditional, face-to-face engagement strategies and modern, high-tech strategies as part of the same continuum. Not only can both forms of engagement coexist—they need to coexist. He observes that the average age of people in a formal public hearing is about 60. Young people are often not interested in an evening meeting about a road project, for example. And parents with school-aged children often can’t get away from home for a 7 PM public meeting. Social media allows for information sharing without every person filling a physical meeting hall.

One of Yuri’s current ventures is PlaceSpeak, an online consultation platform. He talks about what makes it unique in today’s crowded technology world and why you should be interested in it. Find out how anonymity can breed contempt and how PlaceSpeak fosters productive dialogue among neighbors. Yuri talks in-depth about ways to convert a public process into an online process.

Translating technical jargon to regular people

Describing the technical process of a public works project is always challenging. Basic concepts are often lost amidst jargon like road deficiencies, design speeds, floor space ratios, density, and more. Yuri acknowledges that different people learn in different ways, and he describes how the average person can become better informed about public projects.

Connect with our guest

If you want to connect with Yuri or just watch him from a distance, check out his Yurbanism blog, his Facebook page, and follow him on Twitter. As far as we can tell, there is only one Yuri Artibise out there. So you can also track him down by just searching online for his name.

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Moving Vancouver Forward Together

On November 28, 2011, City of Vancouver Planning Director, Brent Toderian, spoke to the members of the Urban Development Institute on issues relating to affordability, city planning, CACs, architecture and housing supply:

You can follow along with the slides below (or download them for future reference):

Brent Toderian’s Presentation UDI Final

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Friday Five: Articles for Urbanists [Nov 12th-18th]

This week’s round-up of articles for urbanists:

Satellite image of Dallas–Fort Worth. [Courtesy of NASA
Thinking of not voting? Think again: Casting your ballot for mayor, city council and trustees has a real effect on your daily life (Surrey Now)

Megapolitan America: Although they occupy only 17 percent of the contiguous 48 states’ land base, America’s megapolitan areas are more densely settled than Europe as a whole. (Design Observer Places Journal)

Jane Jacobs and the book that inspired a revolution: If cities are the greenest form of human settlement that we could possibly aspire to, Jane Jacobs left us the owner’s manual for how to build them. (Grist)

Why Food Policy is Urban Policy: Forward-looking urban policy must understand and incorporate food systems as a primary and foundational precondition to any and all growth. (CityLab)

Three Smart Ideas for Improving Our Urban World: The next breakthrough in architecture may not come from the likes of Frank Gehry, whose designs. It’s more likely to come from a chemist. (This Big City)

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Friday 5: Articles for Urbanists [Oct 29th-Nov4th]

This week’s collection of curated news and views for urbanists:

NBC Universal via Atlantic Cities

Making Local Government Funny in ‘Parks and Recreation’: Writer Dan Goor talks about turning bureaucracy into comedy (Atlantic Cities)
Better urban planning can reduce crime: How better urban planning decisions could dramatically break the cycle of crime in many neighbourhoods and help curb illegal activity on our streets. (Vancouver Sun)

Policies for a Shareable City: The Sharable website is about half way though a 20 part series that will cover 20 policy areas to inspire way to make the “common wealth” in cities accessible to all residents. (Sharable)

Anatomy of a Smart City [INFOGRAPHIC]: The 19th century was a century of empires, 20th century was a century of nation states and the 21st century will be a century of cities. (Urban Times)

Building Community: From Empty Spaces to Meeting Places: How will community be built in the 21st century? If you want to know the lie of the land, sometimes you must literally see how the land lies and what human beings have done to it. (Huffington Post UK)

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Transportation Planning and Climate Change [Weekend Watch]

If we built cities differently, would people drive less?

Marlon Boarnet, Professor of Planning, Policy and Design, asks this question and addresses the social issue of land use and transportation through his research. With the recent passage of California Senate Bill 375, the Southern California region is required to reduce 8% of greenhouse gas emissions from automobiles and light trucks through integrated transportation, land use, housing and environmental planning by 2020. Learn how the research in Social Ecology might help California reach this goal.

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Friday 5: Articles of Urbanists [August 6th-12th]

Here’s this week’s edition of news and news for urbanists:

Redefining Creative Space: Because it provides high-paying jobs and tends to recycle old commercial buildings for creative space, the entertainment industry is among the most desirable economic drivers for cities and states. The article features my friends at Co+Hoots in Phoenix! (pictured) (Urban Land)

Why Apple’s ascension to world’s largest company is great for cities: Mobile devices are uniquely suited to the urban environment. They are such powerful connectors of people that they are literally replacing their need and desire for cars. (SmartPlanet)

The Passionate Minority: As frustration mounts with government, there is a passionate minority aimed not at yelling or leaving, but rather at making change. (Code for America)

Universal Principles for Creating a Sustainable City: Freiburg, Germany has become a stunning model of sustainability, thanks in part to Wulf Daseking, the city’s Head of Urban Planning since 1984. Sven Eberlein visits Daseking in Freiberg for this interview. (Planetizen)

Planning for a Range of Housing Options in our Cities:The prolonged economic downturn has had many impacts, but the most jarring for many Americans is the realization they are not as affluent as once thought. The planning profession can play an important part in helping Americans adjust to an age of austerity. (This Big City)

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Friday 5: Articles for Urbanists (May 27th – June 3rd)

Here’s this week’s collection of articles for urbanists:

Are Championship runs good for a city’s urbanism? It’s not often that an entire city is focused on one thing. In Vancouver it happened during the 2010 Winter Olympics. A year and a half later here, it’s happening again. (Planetizen)

An Infusion of Commons Thinking Can Transform the Future of Our Communities: David Motzenbecker of the Minneapolis Planning Commission explores participatory planning. (On the Commons)

Peak car use: urban planning needs to change: Peak car use suggests that we are witnessing the end of building cities around cars – at least in the developed world. (The Fifth Estate)

Can Social Enterprise Create Better Cities? A look at the potential of social enterprise and community leadership to enhance the design, delivery and management of better places.

What makes a city lovable? Just because a city has phenomenal restaurants, leafy streets, or great trout fishing within an hour’s drive doesn’t make it livable, or even lovable. (MinnPost)

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Projecting Transportation Change in Vancouver

Originally posted on the Project Change Film Festival blog.

Easy and convenient transportation is key to Vancouver’s status as one of the world’s most livable and sustainable cities. However, as population and employment continue to grow, transportation needs and trips overall increase. To manage this growth, while maintaining livability and creating a more sustainable city, we need a robust transportation system.

A few weeks ago, I sat down and talked with Neal LaMontagne. Neal is a senior planner with the City of Vancouver, responsible for city-wide and regional planning. This means he’s part of the team responsible for the planning of the entire city. His division focuses on initiative like the Regional Growth strategy, eco-density, and the industrial land strategy.

Recently, Neal joined a team responsible for Vancouver’s Transportation Plan update. This team is made up of representatives from both the planning and engineering departments. This is in recognition that transportation is a city-building activity as much as it is a traffic-moving one.

Here is an overview of our discussion:

You’ve talked about the City’s Transportation Plan Update. Can you tell me a bit more about it?

Good transportation systems rely on strategic long-term planning. Vancouver’s Transportation Plan outlines an overall transportation strategy for the city. It sets out a direction consistent both with the regional transportation policy and the principles of the broader city plan. As Vancouver grows and changes, it is important that our transportation planning keeps up.

The existing Vancouver Transportation Plan was adopted in 1997. This plan put transit, pedestrians and cycling at the top of the city’s priorities. Overall, the plan have been successful. Both population and employment in Vancouver grew steadily between 1996 and 2006. This led to a 23% increase in trips to Vancouver. However, because of the re-prioritization, the number of vehicles entering and leaving the city has actually decreased by 10% over the same period! New trips have been by transit, cycling and walking.

We have completed almost all the 76 invitees outlined in the 1997 plan. In addition, we have met or exceeded most of the targets the 1997 plan set—many years ahead of schedule. As such, it is time to update the plan and look towards 2040.

Transportation 2040 is a two-phase consultation process:

The first phase runs from now until mid-July. We’re focusing on gathering ideas for Vancouver residents and commuters. This will offer a high-level view including our transportation successes and challenges to date, best practices and proposed goals. These consultations will form the basis of the draft 2040 Transportation Plan.
The second phase will be from January to March 2012. Then, residents can give feedback on the draft Transportation Plan.

To many residents, transportation planning seems dry and boring. Why should we care?

We all share the streets as commuters, residents and businesses. As such, transportation is something that effects everybody on a daily basis. Whether we are commuting to and from work, or school, going shopping, meeting friends or taking kids to hockey practice we are moving through the city. As a ‘complete city,’ Vancouver wants this movement to occur in a sustainable way.

In addition to impacting people on an individual basis (“am I stuck in traffic?”), transportation also impacts us on a city-wide level:

It is central to our economy. The ability to move goods and services; and connect people to share ideas is central to our economy growth.
It is closely linked to sustainability. If Vancouver is to be the greenest city by 2020, we are going to have to make some movement on how we move.
It has a big impact on our public health, especially in areas like air quality, accidents and obesity.
It matters in terms of community. Not only by connecting people within community, but ensuring that we keep public space for social interaction and celebrations.

As a general strategy, the City of Vancouver does not plan to expand road capacity. It will need to absorb growth without building new roads. Thus, the city needs to find other ways to absorb the demands of increased people, jobs, and trips without increasing the amount of traffic on our streets. The 1997 plan was able to do just that. The challenge for Transportation 2040 is how can we keep up with the trends of more people walking, more people cycling, and more people taking transit.

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Image from TalkVancouver.com

Projecting Change focuses on individual efforts. How can residents of Vancouver get involved in the process?

The City of Vancouver is encouraging all city residents, commuters, businesses, neighborhoods and industry groups to comment during the Transportation 2040 consultation process. We want to hear people’s approaches, ideas, concerns and where they see opportunities for improvement. The more people involved, the better sense we will have of what Vancouverites want . this will help us realize our collective goals.

We are at the beginning of this process. Public consultations sessions start this week. There will be one on June 7 at Killarney Community Centre (6260 Killarney St.) from 7 to 8:30 pm. there will be another at the Hastings Community Centre (3096 Hastings St.) on May 26 from 7 to 8:30pm. Hockey fans need not worry, we’ll keep participants updated on games. You can find other public meetings on the Transportation 2040 events calendar.

But you never know where great ideas will come from. So not only do we want a collective discussion, we also want collective brainstorming to come up with unexpected ideas. A great examples of an unexpected idea implemented because of public advice was the Laneway Housing initiative that came out of the EcoDensity consultations.

A lot of the city’s transportation initiatives will be small-scale, incremental and at the neighborhood level. One existing example of this is the city’s Greenways program. This is a project that has really relied on local participation, including neighbors planning their roundabouts and boulevards.

On a larger scale, the more people thinking and talking about transportation—even completely outside of the city’s process—the better. Additionally, the city would like people to try the different ways of getting around the city. If you normally drive, try out one of our bike lanes. If you normally take the bus, try walking along Main St, 4th Ave or Commercial Drive. Ride a skateboard, paddle a kayak, use a scooter. Taking a step outside your normal routine is a great way to get you thinking about transportation in our city.

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Image from TalkVancouver.com

Projecting Change is also about embracing new technologies. How is Vancouver embracing social media?

The home base for public engagement is our interactive website, TalkVancouver.com. We will also be setting up a Twitter account, hosting discussion forums and a Facebook pilot project. Our social media strategy will be dynamic and adapt over time. We are really interests to see how people respond, communicate and interact. We learned a lot from Greenest City and hope to build on that.

For the less technologically inclined, we are still conducting public meetings and getting out to hear from people face to face.

“If you can get 15 people in a room together we’ll come out and have a meeting with you.”

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Image from TalkVancouver.com

What role does an event like the Projecting Change Film Festival play in the City’s efforts?

We need people talking among themselves. An event such as the Projecting Change Film Festival is phenomenal for getting people talking and for people representing their ideas to each other. The more you are talking, the more you are thinking. The more you are thinking the more you’re being creative and coming up with really interesting and provocative ways for us to move the discussion forward. That is a phenomenal benefit.

“Even if were are no in the room, we want people talking transportation. And then we want people talking transportation with us.”

A big part of what the city does is communicate with the public; listening and telling our stores and ideas. We also want to promote a broader city-wide discussion. We want people talking not just about transportation, but about transportation in the context of the type of city we want to live in.

More Information

For more information on the public consultation efforts for the Transportation 2040 update, check out this video below or visit TalkVancouver.com.

Talking Transit in Vancouver – online, in the news, and in person… (vancouverpublicspace.wordpress.com)
14 years later, planners still struggle to push pedal power in Vancouver (theprovince.com)
City of Vancouver turns to Facebook app for public input on transportation plans (straght.com)

Projecting Transportation Change in Vancouver

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How to Date an Urban Planner [Sunday Fun]

Urban planners are not in the same league and rock starts or athletes when it comes to groupies. However, the recent media attention on cities and urban planning has raised their desirability quotient up a few notches. Indeed ‘urban planner’ has been named one of the hottest careers around these days.

For all you single girls and guys out there who can’t get enough pillow talk about zoning, here are some pick-up lines to use when you cruise the next adjustment hearing:
How to Date an Urban Planner [Sunday Fun]