ACCOZZAGLIA

Prepared 7 October 2008 for Paul Bedford (JGI454H1F, University of Toronto).

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Under the public sector rubric, the urban planner’s role demands a remarkable synthesis of command on regional geographies (social-cultural and historic, as well as physical and infrastructural); on political climates; on currents of pioneering ideas pursued in other localities; on long-term consequences predicated by present policy direction; and on the minutiae of law and policy related to land use. In short, the planner must be “competent and involved in the management and articulation of the planning system.”^[1] Beyond this, fostering social relationships with local citizens, with developers, and with political representatives injects a fundamental layer of resource management to the role — particularly so given the very personal nature of planning policy and usage (impacting everything from home, work, play, and manners of mobility between these). There’s more: the planner must also recognize calculated risks, understand those implications, and be prepared to address them when looking forward to the city’s future. At once, the planner operates as font of knowledge, visionary, and civic consultant. Nevertheless, major policy decisions are vetted and promulgated through political systems and not the planner’s final call. This, however, should not bode as discouragement. The planner can — and does — advance desired outcomes by working assiduously behind the scenes, selling the case for pending planning direction at community forums, within administrative circles, with developers, with politicians, and even before the media. At this level, the planner operates as an overarching facilitator and broker for the official city plan.

But should the planner act as a change agent? More so than ever, absolutely. Given the meandering a city might follow in absence of attentively considered planning initiatives — dragging in a dog’s breakfast of unregulated, even haphazard development; zoning loopholes; and reactive, remedial infrastructural fixes (n.b., Houston always comes to mind) — an aspiring planner today should be charged as professionally irresponsible if they hesitated to grab the reins on navigating the municipality’s planning and growth accommodation strategies. Careless mistakes are costly. So this navigation must not only must consider 25-year plans, but also century and half-millennial visions. Why? Major planning considerations that involve long-term physical infrastructure systems — such as subways and growth boundaries — often continue being relevant well beyond our current lifetimes, and certainly longer than political cycles. In light of our impact on climate change and the sustainability of our environment (particularly sanguine given that a majority of the global population are now situated in urban areas), confronting urban sustainability now and advancing paradigm-changing strategies in planning initiatives implicates future generations who will live with the consequences of our actions now — for better or worse.

This urges intrepid ideas from today’s planners who must learn how to address near-term obstacles to assure that a long-term trajectory stays on track. They must remain germane in their capacity as planner, avoiding complacency or taking for granted any sense of job security ascribed to the role. And planners must demonstrate practical pragmatism on contemporary issues even as an ongoing investment in optimism is essential for moulding the future.

Taking risks in the face of daunting obstacles is the engine of advancing progress. For urban planning, Bedford argues that “being bold is not just desirable; it is in fact the only approach.”^[2] I would take this one further: boldness must be coupled with a dogged degree of perseverance, currency, and creativity — the latter especially critical, given that “risk taking by itself is useless without creativity.”^[3] Navigating a tack of intrepidness challenges others to react — sometimes hostilely — in the face of changes which they might not be ready to consider. These reactions, as Bedford has observed in lecture, at face value might appear personally directed, but the impetus for this hostility is rooted in the merciless business of politics. The “better the devil you know” maxim rationalizes this human nature of hesitation and resistance triggered by external change agents; in working with citizens, councillors, and developers, this becomes especially relevant. The alternative, namely in a Toronto context, is to drift rudderless, much the way Toronto Life’s editors argued in 1988: “By inattention[,] there has not been a major policy decision [on planning] taken about Toronto since 1976.”^[4] So to maintain direction also requires steering against persistent crosscurrents from neighbourhood resistance, political opposition, developer challenges before the Ontario Municipal Board, as well as cycles in the economy which implicate how that direction is financed. “Stay focused on the attributes of smart growth,” Hirschhorn argues^[5]. All these necessitate exceptional patience and in order to maintain focus on long-term benchmarks. While advancing a century plan may be the first bold step in moving towards a regional planning improvement, perseverance becomes just as much a career-long commitment as growing a tough callous when fielding resistance. And when that resistance is met, using creative solutions to muster agreement between parties makes the difference between working successfully within a city plan’s parameters and a missed opportunity.

This facilitation offers one example how the urban planner must retain currency, or relevance, in this role. Unlike political principals whose concerns are only as wide as their constituency and as far as the next re-election campaign, the planner must reach ahead and, as Bedford explained in lecture, articulate a clear vision for the city. For a planner in the public sector to treat their career role as a bureaucratic desk job is not only a disservice to the municipality, but it is arguably unethical given the obligation to serve the public’s best interest. Such behaviour, according to McClendon, is “socially and professionally unacceptable and rarely seen.”^[6] As lead advocate in long-term planning, it is vital that a good planner maintain strong stewardship over key city-region planning initiatives. Moreover, the planner serves as the city’s public face when conflicts arise between real estate developers; local residents and businesses; and existing land use rules. Ultimately the planner advocates on behalf of the public interest when presenting a case before an arbitration body such as the OMB. Even so, the politics of budget cuts has historically thrust the relevancy of the planner into jeopardy, such as during Canada’s recession in the early nineties. At the time, Sewell argued that “as the brain pool of the [municipal] organization, and with most of the money spent on thinking staff, not services, it is worrisome to see [the planning department] subject to the same expenditure cuts as others,” adding that planners operate as the tough negotiators when dealing with developers.^[7] This relevancy supports the earlier point that negotiating creatively can ultimately benefit public interests while satisfying developer demands. In the planner’s absence, developers might otherwise have carte blanche on projects with the potential to clash with the existing urban and social fabric. By maintaining assertiveness in community and business relations, reiterating the foundational value of good planning, and taking initiative when challenges are presented, it reinforces in the public mind the inextricable function of the planner in helping assure the city’s long term health.

Such challenges raise the matter of remaining pragmatic on current planning issues while maintaining the needed optimism for carrying through the vision and objectives articulated in long-term planning policy. In advancing an agency of change for the city, the multivariate stressors attributed to current issues and political manoeuvrings, often tactical in nature, can easily steal focus from the long-term strategic horizon. Obstacles — department budget cuts, councillor resistance (Bedford noted the Woodbine Park controversy as an example), and developer pressure — can leverage a toll on the planner’s optimism. Nevertheless, the interconnectedness between present challenges and future targets require that the planner hold a steady pragmatism, not only for the sake of reaching long-term goals, but also to assure the public that short-term setbacks will not saddle long term prognoses. In turn, this incubates the necessary optimism to advance the creative changes needed for the city’s continued smart growth.

Planning really isn’t for the faint of heart. A career in urban planning absolutely requires the motivation and passion to envisage a better place to live — not just for the present, but also for generations well into the future. Every move, every decision, and every action we take implicates the welfare and quality of life for our descendants. As a planner, is it enough to merely operate in piecemeal capacity, tackling planning challenges incrementally? Hardly. Nothing less than a holistic, forward thinking strategy is needed if a city like Toronto, expected to continue growing at a remarkable rate, is prepared to accommodate that growth. The same goes for a myriad of other Canadian and global cities. Because this rapid growth is new territory for our region, as well as for Canada, the planner’s participation in this discovery for solutions requires looking further ahead and collaborating with a wider spread of groups than most are willing to consider. It demands a mastery command of how the urban ecosystem, as David Crombie approaches it, interrelates with everything else within it (and beyond).^[8] And it mandates that the planner assume leadership in advancing that direction and working to bring the public and private sectors on board to help realize those goals.

Endnotes

1. See Cadman, David and Simin Davoudi. 2006: 3–4.
2. See Bedford, Paul. 2008: 29.
3. See Sandercock, Leonie. 2004: 137.
4. See Sewell, John. 1988: 75.
5. See Hirschhorn, Joel. 2003: 1.
6. See McClendon, Bruce. 2003: 224.
7. Royal Commission on the Future of the Toronto Waterfront. 1990: 17.

References

Bedford, Paul. 2008. Go bold or go home. Ontario Planning Journal, 23(3): 28–9. Toronto: Ontario Professional Planners Institute.

Cadman, David and Simin Davoudi. 2006. Is there a role for the planner? Online Planning Journal, 1–7.

Hirschhorn, Joel. 2003. Behind enemy lines at the anti-smart growth conference. Planetizen, 3 March 2003: 1–15.

McClendon, Bruce. 2003. A bold vision and a brand identity for the planning profession. Journal of the American Planning Association, Summer, 69(3): 221–32.

Royal Commission on the Future of the Toronto Waterfront. 1990. Watershed: interim report: August 1990. Ottawa: Minister of Supply and Services Canada.

Sandercock, Leonie. 2004. Towards a planning imagination for the 21st century. Journal of the American Planning Association, Spring, 70(2): 133–41.

Sewell, John. 1988. Are we screwing up? Toronto Life, November 1988: 75–83.

Sewell, John. 1993. Pushing out planners endangers urban creativity. NOW Magazine, 18 November.