Carolyn G. Loh

Four Potential Disconnects in the Community Planning Process

Although participatory planning has become a well-established emphasis in the planning field, planners often find that land-use outcomes conflict with community goals, resulting in a dissatisfied citizenry. I argue that these conflicts often result from disconnects between steps in the planning process, which tend to occur in instances where the “baton” of implementation passes from one document or one agency to the next. I identify four common areas of disconnect within the planning process, propose explanations for each of the disconnects, and suggest ways to overcome this tendency for the planning process to break down.

Planning Consultants’ Influence on Local Comprehensive Plans

Many planners work at private consulting firms, and many local governments use their services, but we have little idea of how consultant involvement affects plans. Analyzing data from a survey of local officials who engage planning consultants, we find that while engaging consultants does not appear to nudge local officials in a policy direction different from their preferences, it does appear to yield plans with a policy focus more oriented toward smart growth. This raises questions about the kind and degree of consultants’ impact on the legitimacy of the planning process.

The Everyday Emergency: Planning and Democracy Under Austerity Regimes

In the last several years, the governor of Michigan has placed seven cities under the control of emergency managers (EMs), who have the authority to make drastic cuts and rearrangements of public processes and services. I investigate what happens to planning processes under these circumstances, and how EMs use planning to accomplish their goals. I find that many of the cities devote renewed attention to planning, and that the planning process may function as an alternative public participation process, given that the normal democratic process had been disrupted. I also find that the implementation of the plans is likely to be problematic because of staffing cuts, and that planning in itself cannot solve the structural problems that led to these cities’ financial distress.

Planning Consultants and Local Planning

Problem, research strategy, and findings: Planning consultants are a vital part of the local government planning process. We explore who hires consultants, the types of tasks that they typically perform, and differences in the values of planning consultants and their clients. We conduct parallel surveys of planning consultants and local government officials, and find that the use of consultants is widespread: They are hired primarily to reduce the costs of maintaining in-house planning staff and to provide as-needed technical expertise. Both planning officials and consultants agree on the priority given to well–accepted planning principles, even though each group thinks they hold planning principles in higher esteem than the other. Yet, we find that the actual differences between the self-professed values of the two groups are negligible. Takeaway for practice: This study suggests that both consultants and their clients believe that the advantages of hiring consultants, including supplementing in-house staff, providing workforce flexibility, and offering technical expertise, outweigh the disadvantages of possibly higher costs and lack of local knowledge. The study provides reasons for optimism that outsourcing planning work does not change the underlying planning values of the agencies employing the consultants, or the goals and objectives of the planning work. Research support: Wayne State University College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

Local Land Use Planning Responses to Hydraulic Fracturing

Problem, research strategy, and findings: The practice of horizontal high-volume hydraulic fracturing (fracking) has become widespread in many areas of the United States, yet the regulatory landscape for local governments is highly variable and legally uncertain. We do not have a clear idea of what fracking-related policies local governments are adopting, nor how factors such as local government capacity influence policy adoption. We survey 140 local government officials in shale gas drilling areas in four states: Colorado, Louisiana, North Dakota, and Pennsylvania. We first identify the most common policies local governments use to address fracking and investigate the influence of different types of local capacity on adoption of policies to address fracking. We find that although most communities have not adopted many fracking regulations, higher-capacity communities and those who have experienced a fracking-related accident are more likely to adopt stricter regulations. Local officials are concerned that they lack capacity to address fracking. Our survey asks whether a respondent community did not adopt a policy for legal reasons or other reasons, but did not delve into what those other reasons for non-adoption might be. Our response rate for Louisiana was very low. Takeaway for practice: Local governments appear to have at least some legal room to adopt fracking policy, yet most have not done so proactively. Investing in capacity building in the form of technical assistance or training for local officials would help communities decide how they wish to address fracking from a policy standpoint without waiting for the catalyst of a fracking-related industrial accident.

Prospects for Expanding Regional Planning Efforts in Michigan

This article assesses the potential for expanding regional planning by asking local government officials their perspectives on the potential for increasing regionalism in their communities, and the most promising approaches to achieving greater regionalism. The study involves analysing data from a recent survey of local government officials in Michigan. It is found that support for regional planning declines amongst local officials who are already heavily involved in regional efforts and increases amongst those who perceive greater fiscal challenges. However, local government officials who support expanding regional planning are less supportive of working through existing regional institutions; they prefer to create new regional entities to pursue additional co-operation. Those with experience with regional planning efforts are more supportive of working through existing institutions.

Conceptualizing and Operationalizing Planning Capacity

Planning researchers often use planning capacity as an independent variable in studies of plan making and implementation. Increased capacity is associated with higher quality planning processes and plans. Yet, unlike in other fields such as public administration, planners have not devoted much attention to understanding the nature, impacts, and implications of planning capacity. This article synthesizes the literature concerning capacity in planning and related fields and proposes criteria that future definitions and measures of capacity should include.

Special Ethical Considerations for Planners in Private Practice

Problem, research strategy, and findings: Planners must constantly consider the ethics of their professional behavior, yet few studies have specifically investigated the ethical landscape for those planners working in private practice, assuming that all members of the profession are subject to similar ethical considerations. We investigate the particular ethical considerations faced by planners in private practice by interviewing owners of 10 planning consulting firms. Our sample size is very small and limited to three states, which limits the generalizability of the study. We find that private practice planners routinely experience ethical conflicts related to disclosure of information, balancing uneven benefits among stakeholders, interests of the client, and ethics of firm competition. Alhough planners mostly navigate everyday ethical concerns with confidence, they face ethical challenges in managing client relationships when values conflict, and in competing with other firms. Takeaway for practice: We find that challenging ethical situations arise for private sector planners on a routine basis. The planners we interview feel that they are able to identify ethical pitfalls and choose the correct course of action, but more research is needed to understand the scope and nature of private practice ethical challenges, and to determine whether more education or enforcement would be effective solutions to between-firm conflicts.

SPATIAL DYNAMICS OF VERTICAL AND HORIZONTAL INTERGOVERNMENTAL COLLABORATION

ABSTRACT: Although researchers have made progress in understanding motivations behind local government collaboration, there is little research that explores the spatial dynamics of such interactions. Does the idea of collaboration travel horizontally, passed from neighbor to neighbor, or is vertical leadership from state, county, or regional actors more important in influencing local governments’ decisions to share resources and functions? What factors influence local governments’ choices to collaborate with their neighbors versus a regional entity, county, or state government? In this article, we investigate the importance of vertical and horizontal influences when local governments decide to collaborate around land use planning. Using data from a survey of Michigan local government officials, we take a spatial statistical approach to answering this question. We find widespread evidence of collaboration at multiple scales, and observe patterns of both horizontal and vertical influence. We also find that contextual factors help to explain these patterns of collaboration.

Book Review: Mapping Detroit: Land, Community, and Shaping a CityThomasJune ManningBekkeringHenco, eds. 2015. Mapping Detroit: Land, Community, and Shaping a City. Detroit: Wayne State University Press. 252 pp.

on urban theory; nonetheless, led by Alan Plattus, the workshop succeeded in its “community-oriented planning consultancy” (501). Serving locales across Connecticut and with Yale president Levin’s strong encouragement and funding, the UDW especially impacted New Haven’s struggling neighborhoods. One can look no further than the Vlock Building Project with years of dedication by Professor Paul Brouard to see the real impact of the students’ engagement in improving local urban neighborhoods by introducing novel student-built homes. Eventually, Vincent Scully declared it was time to shed the “hero-architect theme,” calling for leadership that would provide “solid education in the construction of the city as a whole” (523). Yale architecture must lead the way in community building by considering design as more than monuments and arcane theories. Then there is the problem of women’s relative invisibility at Yale. M.J. Long describes her experience as that typically faced by her generation of women as students in the 1960s and rare female faculty members in the 1970s and 1980s. The authors credit Deans Beeby and Koetter for “making sure that women were well represented among the visiting critics” (504). However, with Barbara Littenberg and Judy DiMaio leaving the undergraduate program in 2010, women faculty numbers and influences were perceived to have dwindled. Dean Stern takes responsibility for missteps in appointments during his term, then describes forming advisory groups, women-led symposia, and hiring female faculty. The gathering of alumnae for the “Yale Women in Architecture” Symposium in 2012 and publication of Zaha Hadid’s studio as Eero Saarinen Visiting Professor in 2001, with her repeat appearances, are indications of changes in the presence of women during the Stern years. The final chapter of Pedagogy and Place, “Personal Reflections on a New Century by Robert A. M. Stern 1998— 2016,” allows Stern to state his intentions and record his own legacy while serving as dean at his alma mater: “This school must be a crossroads of ideas. Yale should be a place where poetics and pragmatics rub together, where the past and the present intersect, where the abstract and concrete coexist. . . . Yale must be more open, and more stimulating in its diversity, than any other school” (525). The relative lack of student work reproduced in this chapter is atypical, while instead emphasis is placed on restoring Rudolph’s building. An inevitable result of building changes led to relocating the MFA program into Deborah Berke’s new studio building. Architecture students now no longer share hallways, studios, or classes with Fine Arts peers. This may turn out to be among the more impactful, if omitted, changes in Yale’s last chapter of architecture pedagogy. As a whole, Stamp and Stern’s opus is much more than a reference book—it is insightful, well researched, comprehensive, and fun to read, including the naughty bits. They have provided a lasting contribution to the pedagogy and history of the Yale School of Architecture as manifest in this carefully analyzed assemblage of people, events, and places. As the School embarks upon a new chapter, Pedagogy and Place will educate and entertain all architecture aficionados, blue-bloods and red-blooded alike.