I was very intrigued by these words from urban
planner James Rojas:
"Collective community values should be the
foundations of all planning decisions, projects, plans but planners rarely dive
deep enough to engage the public's imagination to establish values.
Planning today lacks the creation of values: How
do we value ourselves, each other, and the landscape? Instead planners ask
people what they want or need which is similar to asking a child what they want
for Christmas.
The planner creates the list that might include
more parking, less congestion, more bike lanes, a subway, a bigger house, etc.
Then they prioritize the list by popularity, or financial constraints rather
than by values to make sure we are growing, developing in the right direction.
Individuals have values that dictate their
everyday decisions. For example a person might value raising a child,
establishing a career, leading a healthy life, etc. Everyday most people make
decisions based on their values, which will help them achieve or sustain theses
goals.
The communities have values, like individuals that
should dictate the planning decisions. People need to imagine, collaborate and
negotiate to create and establish these collective values. Everyday planning
decisions and practices should uphold these values. Time and time again
communities need to come together be reminded of them time or update
them."
- James Rojas
What do you think about this? Should we
change our planning approach to focus more on values, and less of a list?
James has a fabulous method of getting people of
all ages into planning, and it's an exercise we can try out.
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| Participants use found objects to create their design |
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| Scene for "what's your favorite childhood memory?" |
More of James' work is on http://www.placeit.org/ and here is his recent presentation at the New Partners for Smart Growth.