Smart Design = Smart Policy? Not So Fast

"See if this sounds familiar: The city planning staff, maybe working with an expert team of design consultants, comes up with what they think is a no-brainer solution to a high-profile problem. Say, a proposal for much-needed multifamily development to address workforce housing demand. Or a plan to fix a blighted block with a mixed-use project that checks all the Smart Growth boxes. Or perhaps a senior-friendly cottage court adjacent to an existing single-family neighborhood of larger lots and homes.

"Let’s say the proposal earns staff support and gets planning and zoning commission okays for whatever changes are required in local codes. It heads to city council for final approval, where everything hits the fan."

"Citizens come out of the woodwork to protest the betrayal of community character, the lack of green/open space, the prospect of more traffic, the threat of gentrification, and a litany of other reasons why the proposed development shouldn’t go forward. Some of those using their allotted three minutes of public response time present sketches they’ve made to show how developers might redesign the project to accommodate their objections — or more likely, where, far away from their neighborhoods, the project would find a better home."

It's not enough to just listen to folks you're hoping to help. You have to make something happen. Which is one reason Ben Brown is big on the charrette method as a machine for refining ideas that can be put to work fast. Brown goes on to talk through public engagement, addressing Two Ways of ‘Seeing’, The ‘Doom Loop’ of Cynicism, The Vision-to-Action Disconnect, Reaffirming the Power of a Charrette.