Key to Good Planning? Coordination

For urban planners, the word coordinate should be what guides them in the planning and construction of projects.

Coordination, as defined, requires bringing different elements together to work in harmony and collaboration, according to Los Angeles County Planner Clement Lau.

Public-private partnerships to build park projects is one example of where coordination is important and necessary, he writes.

Lau goes on to describe how other partnerships between the county’s various departments and a committee the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors created are helping to bring projects and plans to fruition.

“I believe that one of my primary responsibilities as a planner is to coordinate or bring the appropriate players to the table and facilitate, negotiate, or broker solutions to problems.  I agree with Booher and Innes (2002) when they argued that planners should be ‘“a key part of a self-organizing process that brings together agents, enables information to flow, builds trust and reciprocity, represents interests, connects networks, and mobilizes action… They play a part in convening stakeholders and in making sure that processes can meet the conditions of network collaboration.”’